Is there a reason why Sreesanth should be picked again?

[CG]

Fairly easy to rule out Genetic Dhondy. Why has New Zealand failed to produce a quality off-spinner in its cricketing history(unless you count John Bracewell as an all time great). Is there a genetics for off spinners too? Why has Australia failed to produce a left arm spinner(with due apologies to Ray Bright & Alan Border)? Why has England never produced a leg spin googly bowler? Yada yada. This is a very slippery slope and one can easily counter every country deficient in some areas and thus alluding that their genetic make-up has to be the reason. By the by a very interesting, and perhaps missed out, phenomenon happening these days is the Indian pacers/seamers obtaining reverse swing. To the point that even Aussies and English are absolutely respectful of what Zaheer and others have achieved. Was it not the popular thought only a few years back that Pakistani fast bowlers were able to reverse swing simply because they had bowlers who could bowl at 90 mph plus? Did Imran not go about yapping how reverse swing happens only at extreme pace? Pray what do these experts think at zaheer obtainig reverse swing at 80mph. Moral of the story - Nothing succeeds like success. The day we produce a fast bowler every argument would be put to rest by itself. xxx

reverse swing can be obtained at lesser pace but it is only effective at 85-90mph against topclass batsman,zaheer when he got wickets of australian and english batman was bowling at 135-145 km/h when the ball wa reversing not 80mph.

[CG]

The problem with Sree is that he never seems to have 2 good matches in a row. There's the isolated good performance (like the one against Sri Lanka in the 2nd test at home), generally followed by sequence of lackluster performances. If Sreesanth wants to justify the faith reposed in him by fans, he must perform better, more consistently.

bro, our fast bowlers bowl on placid tracks to expect them to perform well in every match is almost impossible unless we play abroad or make tracks better.againsttop batsman sreesanth is good which matters to our bowling unit. and unlike our other fast bowler she gets wickets against top teams not minnows.

[thevortex]

I've mentioned it a few times and made a post about it on page three.

Fontaine, yes you mentioned it. But you then ascribe the state of our pitches as the reason for this drop in pace en masse. See, I dont agree with that. Do we really believe that Pakistan, Sri Lanka or even Bangladesh have pitches that differ a lot from ours? Yet they have genuine above 140 kmph bowlers. Lets leave Bangladesh out. Our other two neighbours have a wealth of genuine pace bowling which has not flagged for a few seasons now. How do we explain that? My take is that there are factors other than just the pitches at play here. ________ SoHotJane live

[Fontaine]

Fontaine, yes you mentioned it. But you then ascribe the state of our pitches as the reason for this drop in pace en masse. See, I dont agree with that. Do we really believe that Pakistan, Sri Lanka or even Bangladesh have pitches that differ a lot from ours? Yet they have genuine above 140 kmph bowlers. Lets leave Bangladesh out. Our other two neighbours have a wealth of genuine pace bowling which has not flagged for a few seasons now. How do we explain that? My take is that there are factors other than just the pitches at play here.

I agree that there are other factors like injuries (Munaf) and being over bowled. But in my estimation the pitches are the biggest factor because they force bowlers to bowl a certain way. Now someone who's vastly experienced and very accurate/consistent can still bowl at high speeds and still land the ball where they want to. However, younger bowlers usually struggle with consistency/accuracy anyway so when you combine that with having to bowl on a flat deck where there's so little margin of error then ineviteabely the bowler will cut down on pace to be accurate. There are always exceptions and genuinely talented, naturally gifted bowlers will come through. But take the ODI match against Lanka that was recently abandoned. Guys like Tyagi could steam in, bowl as fast as possible and still get great bounce because of the pitch. That kind of surface invites the bowler to go as fast as possible. Compare that to a slow, low pitch where no matter how fast you bowl there is hardly going to be any bounce or movement of the seam. In that kind of pitch the bowler will conserve his energy and bowl within himself because he knows he'll be bowling long, long spells in the heat.

[Fontaine]

bro, our fast bowlers bowl on placid tracks to expect them to perform well in every match is almost impossible unless we play abroad or make tracks better.againsttop batsman sreesanth is good which matters to our bowling unit. and unlike our other fast bowler she gets wickets against top teams not minnows.

The first test match against Bangla had a good pitch that offered good seam movement and both Ishant/Khan and some of the Bangla bowlers looked good bowling on it. Except for She-santh. Instead of seaming the ball and asking questions of the batsmen he was too busy bowling no-balls, and getting slogged around the park. And what's this lie about She being good against top batsmen? Here's a list of batsmen She has dismissed. He sucks against the good batsmen he's faced. http://stats.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/player/34274.html?class=1;filter=advanced;orderby=dis_dismissals;spanmin1=01+Jan+2007;spanval1=span;template=results;type=bowling;view=batsman_summary

[Ram]

And to add to the trend of Australia having a history of producing super-fast quicks, another one emerges - Ryan Harris. The dude picked up 5 wickets in the 3rd ODI against Pakistan and shocked even some of his team-mates with his pace, which was upwards of 150 kph sometimes.

[vvvslaxman]

The first test match against Bangla had a good pitch that offered good seam movement and both Ishant/Khan and some of the Bangla bowlers looked good bowling on it. Except for She-santh. Instead of seaming the ball and asking questions of the batsmen he was too busy bowling no-balls, and getting slogged around the park. And what's this lie about She being good against top batsmen? Here's a list of batsmen She has dismissed. He sucks against the good batsmen he's faced. http://stats.cricinfo.com/ci/engine/player/34274.html?class=1;filter=advanced;orderby=dis_dismissals;spanmin1=01+Jan+2007;spanval1=span;template=results;type=bowling;view=batsman_summary

44 out of his 60 wickets are top order ( 1-5) batsmen. He doesn't pick cheap wickets. He is probably the best bowler against good batsmen. Pietersen 3 times Smith 4 times Kallis 3 times Amla 4 times Collingwood 4 times ABDV 3 times Gayle 3 times Lara 2 times Obvioulsy he has done well against top batsmen. You are just being impatient because of one test. Different bowlers suit different conditions. India until this Zak's exploits rarely depended one bowler. iT was always a collective effort.

[vvvslaxman]

And to add to the trend of Australia having a history of producing super-fast quicks, another one emerges - Ryan Harris. The dude picked up 5 wickets in the 3rd ODI against Pakistan and shocked even some of his team-mates with his pace, which was upwards of 150 kph sometimes.

We are never going to get that kind of bowlers. I am pretty sure our bowlers can bowl 145k when they put effort. But they don't have the stamina to sustain it.

[Fontaine]

44 out of his 60 wickets are top order ( 1-5) batsmen. He doesn't pick cheap wickets. He is probably the best bowler against good batsmen. Pietersen 3 times Smith 4 times Kallis 3 times Amla 4 times Collingwood 4 times ABDV 3 times Gayle 3 times Lara 2 times Obvioulsy he has done well against top batsmen. You are just being impatient because of one test. Different bowlers suit different conditions. India until this Zak's exploits rarely depended one bowler. iT was always a collective effort.

In my link I've included his stats from 2007 onwards. So since then he clearly does suck against top batsmen. If this was 2006 then I would completely agree with you. But the facts and figures simply don't support your argument that he's done well against top batsmen in the past three years. If we're going by figures 4/5 years old then why not include Munaf Patel, Pathan years ago when they were very good bowlers and grabbing wickets? And yes I am impatient, but not because of one test but the past three years where he's probably had more success on dance shows making headlines crying and getting slapped than actually doing something on the pitch. At some point you have to expect more from a talented bowler who doesn't live up to his potential. I'd rather give other younger bowlers an opportunity and let Sreesanth earn a recall by showing up in domestic cricket and putting in the kind of performance that we all expect of him.

[vvvslaxman]

why 2007 is the cut off line? He was absent for a long time before SL series. So you should consider only from SL series.

[Fontaine]

why 2007 is the cut off line? He was absent for a long time before SL series. So you should consider only from SL series.

Why not 2008 or 2009? I don't care about what Sreesanth did 4/5 years ago just like people now don't care what Zaheer or Pathan did 4/5 years ago. It's about what you can do NOW. And Sreesanth hasn't changed. He's still the same bowler he's always been. One very good performances followed by long periods where he does nothing or gets injured. That might be good enough for the likes of Bangladesh but if we're going to stay the number 1 team we need players that show up and get the job done more often than not. Sreesanth doesn't have that in him.

[The Outsider]

Shwetabh, I have simply lost the will, the energy to post long evidence based posts. I start threads, state what I feel are amazing facts on the Science section- they get 1 or 2 replies- who has the time or energy to read about genetics in the cricket section? But I guess I have no choice this time around. See genetics is such as broadbrush of a word, used too loosely. When we use the words genetics, perhaps we mean "heritability". Heritability and threshold are all important in polygenic inheritance. Most sporting traits such as bone mass, muscle mass, leg length, fibre thickness are polygenic traits, as opposed to mendelian traits such as eye colour, which are inherited in a dominant or recessive pattern. Polygenic traits are due to small contribution from a number of genes. And the environment. And therein lies the problem. Despite us having mapped the entire genome, it is often well nigh impossible to separate "genetic" factors from those due to the environment. Together they constitute heritability. We'll discuss threshold some other day. Back to that word- heritability. It is the proportion of phenotypic (actual physical trait) variance that can be attributed to genetic variance. The problem is that heritability is not a fixed property of a condition. Heritability varies according to what sort of society you live in. In an egalitarian society such as in the west, members of the society have relatively even exposure to environmental factors, and thus heritability is high. In societies where environmental exposures vary greatly between people, i.e. there is inequality, heritability is low. This is best illustrated by giving the example of a genetic trait- this is in fact a mendelian trait, but behaves like it's polygenic. Phenylketonuria is inherited in an autosomal recessive fashion- so if a child has two defective alleles, he'll have the disease- fair skin, blue eyes and sadly, mental retardation when he starts growing up. However, whether he develops mental retardation or not depends on what he eats. Thus, if he has an unrestricted diet, he'll develop severe retardation. However, if you give him a diet tailored to exclude phenylalanine, he'll be just fine. Environment==Genes. Want another example? Take the two types of diabetes. The risk of a relation developing a disease compared with an index case (called a proband) is designated as lambda. Now the lambda for sibling of a chap with type I diabetes is around 15, while for type 2 diabetes, it is 4-6. You'd think there is stronger genetic basis for type I, wouldn't you? Yet, an identical twin of somebody with type 2 diabetes has a 90% lifetime risk of developing the disease, while the same metric for type I is only 50%. What's happening here? What's happening is that identical twins often grow up close to each other, exposed to the same environmental influences. Thus, the high carb, high saturated fat, sedentary lifestyle that type II diabetics have, leads to the disease in both twins- environment trumping genes. Thus, heritability is lower in type II diabetes than type I despite the 90% concordance. See how difficult it is to tell genes from environment? That's not all. Sometimes, traits change within one or two generations- called acquired characteristics by Lamarck- only he didn't know then. There was a famous experiment in Sweden when the grandchildren of men and women exposed to famine followed by excess developed diabetes & heart disease early in their lives and died on an average 30 years earlier than those children whose grandparents hadn't been through the same cycle of feast and famine. What was happening was that during the famine, the genes of those grandparents had been modified by a phenomenon called epigenetics- basically by methylation of cytosine bases in DNA. This had reduced their ability to deal with the carb and fat excess that followed during the feast- and they passed it on to their grandchildren. It is thought that this may well underlie phenomena such as a mean increase in height with every passing generation- but again, it is difficult to separate environment from genes- the effect might well be due to better nutrition. Which is why, I could not say with any certainty that the difference between Asian bowlers and Caucasians/Blacks was due to "genes" alone. The differences could well be because of diet, attitude to training, lack of training opportunities, work ethic, parental encouragement, lack of peer pressure, loss to academic professions such as medicine or engineering, excessive heat contributing to fatigue while training and shorter training periods, early wear and tear on muscles caused by exposure to unresponsive pitches (your theory), easy satiation because of achievement of a certain financial status that would be considered barely passable in the west and a host of other "environmental" factors that could muddy the picture. Thus, a smaller bone mass leading to a greater risk of fracture could just as easily be due to genes as a lower protein intake in the formative years or the lack of rigorous training before teenage, which tends to make bone denser. How do I separate genes from environs? Is it scientific to plump for one over the other? Yet, there are clues. Children of schizophrenic parents tend to develop the condition even when they are adopted at a young age. Black African athletes do better than us despite the poverty and the same lack of training opportunities and poor diet. I quoted some of these examples in my posts. I hope you see my point that anybody would have to be very brave or foolhardy to pick one factor- say pitches- and say everything else is null. That doesn't represent a sensible POV, IMO. Sriram made some of these points in his excellent post- and got laughed at for his troubles. I'd venture to say genetics- and environment- play a part in the difference in speed and the longevity even among relatively homogeneous groups- such as various Australian bowlers (or English or West Indian...) Thus, to say genetics- or environment- doesn't play a part in the differential speed and longevity between an Indian and an Australian bowler is simply naive. Unscientific. Off to bed. Thirty minutes of my life I'll never get back.

Thanks for the wonderful post, Dhondy. I had to google up a few terms to understand them more clearly, but it was well worth it. Let me first identify one of the disconnects we were having. It was in the use of the term "genetics" by you and others arguing a similar case. I am much more comfortable discussing "heritability" because as you have pointed out drawing the distinction between genetic and environmental factors is not easy, if not impossible in a lot of cases. Therein, lay one my major objections - how can you or anyone easily attribute these things to genetics when it's not at all easy to extricate that particular aspect? Now that we agree that the "genetic" aspect is not at all easy to separate as being a major reason behind our discussion on fast bowlers, let me give my thoughts on heritability. I have never denied the role the environment aspect of heritability plays in the development of fast bowlers, atheletes, or indeed any profession of the world. Just to give a few examples of what I am alluding to take swimming as an example. There have been some arguments in this and another thread about how African Americans make naturally supreme atheletes. Yet, one of the most gruelling sports - swimming - is almost entirely white dominated. Is it to suggest that Blacks make good long distance runners but not swimmers because of their genes? Anyone would have a tough time arguing that. The answer would lie in the environmental aspect of heritability - the relative affluence of whites, their greater access to swimming pool, a social network where swimming is considered suave and playing basketball in the neighborhood court is not. Or let's look at the Sherpas and mountaineering. Their environment has makes them naturally suited to those altitudes because they grow up at such altitudes. Their diet, their exercise routines, their bodies' oxygen carrying abilities have been toned like that for generations. You put an African American athelete out there and what chance does he have? Yet the likes of Messner through their body conditioning have been able to perform some amazing feats at those altitudes - each and every 8000+ peak without oxygen. Do I agree environment plays a role in developing fast bowlers - it sure does. A better diet, emphasis on fitness and sports, the advantages of living in developed countries and more are all going to be factors regarding a countries' ability to produce fast bowlers. I never disputed any of that and might even say that the pure "genetic" aspect may have a role to play in the production of fast bowlers. In fact, one of the reasons in my mind for Pakistan to produce more fast bowlers than us is an environmental reason of them playing with tape ball. Bowling with it helps develop the right muscles at an early enough age. Anyone who has played cricket in the US with Pakistanis can vouch that they are in general a yard or two quicker than their Indian counterparts. But then again, we were discussing the primary reasons why fast bowlers lose pace over their first 2-3 seasons and/or get injured more if they are from India? The difference in the argument for me lies in the fact that once India, Australia, or any country has produced fast bowlers they are on an equal footing, more or less physical attribute wise. From the fast bowlers I have seen they would all be reasonably lean, tallish, have limber limbs, and will have a smooth run. Drawing an analogy from my mountaineering example, once a non Sherpa has conditioned his body to a certain degree he and the Sherpa are at a similar footing. Where we differ primarily is what happens at this point? Your contention is that genes play a major role in loss of pace and/or injuries and my view is that it is primarily a result of bowling day in and out on the flattest of tracks in formats completely not conducive to fast bowling and genes play an insignifcant, if any role at this point. In my defense, I gave you numerous examples of fast bowlers from the white countries who have suffered major injuries, as bad as any suffered by the ones from the subcontinent. Moreover, I also gave you many examples of bowlers who have become very badly injured after extended tours to the subcontinent, some to the extent of having their careers terminated. At this point, to show genetics and not the environmental factors like pitches and weather conditions play the major or significant role I would need to look at examples where fast bowlers from Australia or England or West Indies play on similar pitches and formats to their Indian counterparts and come out relatively injury free and without a significant drop in pace. But if I look around world cricket all I see are counter examples to that hypothesis. Lee, Clark, and Gillespie got finished after their tours to India and IPL. Sreesanth, Ishant, and RP Singh went to England and Australia and bowled with similar pace to their counterparts without getting any major injuries. There are exceptions like Bond who get injured anywhere and like Johnson who don't, but even Johnson had a career hugely riddled with injuries before he made it to the international scene.

[vvvslaxman]

Why not 2008 or 2009? I don't care about what Sreesanth did 4/5 years ago just like people now don't care what Zaheer or Pathan did 4/5 years ago. It's about what you can do NOW. And Sreesanth hasn't changed. He's still the same bowler he's always been. One very good performances followed by long periods where he does nothing or gets injured. That might be good enough for the likes of Bangladesh but if we're going to stay the number 1 team we need players that show up and get the job done more often than not. Sreesanth doesn't have that in him.

Then how come Sreesanth's strike rate is better than Ishant? Average is similar. Ishant apart from taking 5 tailenders against pakistan in his 5 wicket haul has not taken any fifers. Ishant is sort of guy who needs support at the other end. He can pick up a few here and there. But Sree is capable of running through a line up on his day. Ishant was toothless in the 2nd test.

[thevortex]

I agree that there are other factors like injuries (Munaf) and being over bowled. But in my estimation the pitches are the biggest factor because they force bowlers to bowl a certain way. Now someone who's vastly experienced and very accurate/consistent can still bowl at high speeds and still land the ball where they want to. However, younger bowlers usually struggle with consistency/accuracy anyway so when you combine that with having to bowl on a flat deck where there's so little margin of error then ineviteabely the bowler will cut down on pace to be accurate. There are always exceptions and genuinely talented, naturally gifted bowlers will come through. But take the ODI match against Lanka that was recently abandoned. Guys like Tyagi could steam in, bowl as fast as possible and still get great bounce because of the pitch. That kind of surface invites the bowler to go as fast as possible. Compare that to a slow, low pitch where no matter how fast you bowl there is hardly going to be any bounce or movement of the seam. In that kind of pitch the bowler will conserve his energy and bowl within himself because he knows he'll be bowling long, long spells in the heat.

Fontaine - I do agree that quality of pitches is one of the factors behind bowlers wanting to bowl consistently fast. But like I mentioned, there has to be some extraneous factor involved when X,Y and Z come in bowling at over 140 clicks when they burst onto the scene (note - these are the same dead pitches by and large) and then after a season of playing for India, they drop in pace. How do you explain that with the pitch angle? To me that angle alone does not explain it. Hence my view on a few extraneous factors impacting this. ________ Handheld Vaporizer

[vvvslaxman]

Most of our bowlers can clock 140k when they put effort. But sustaining requires stamina. Mitchell Johnson consistently bowled at 145k when he toured India. Aussies have terrific stamina and strength to sustain speed

[Fontaine]

Then how come Sreesanth's strike rate is better than Ishant? Average is similar. Ishant apart from taking 5 tailenders against pakistan in his 5 wicket haul has not taken any fifers. Ishant is sort of guy who needs support at the other end. He can pick up a few here and there. But Sree is capable of running through a line up on his day. Ishant was toothless in the 2nd test.

Dude there's no point discussing this if you don't compare like with like. I've already said numerous times that Ishant just finished his first season so there's no point comparing him to Shree who's been around the international stage for what 5 years? Ishant is still learning whereas Sree has pretty much played in all conditions, against almost all teams. There is NO comparison. Ishant definitely needs to improve though and as long as he shows that in the next few years then that's all we can expect from a bowlers who's just over 20. And I'm not questioning She's ability. I've already said he's talented plenty of times and we all know this. But what you seem to ignore is his inconsistency and injury issues. Once in a while he does play very well, but then it's followed up by periods of rubbish and injuries. That's not me saying it, but his track record. It's actually embarressing at times. Other teams expect their new ball bowlers with years of experience to be in the very least accurate and consistent. You may not be able to bowl 140kph yorkers and inswinging deliveries that seam off the pitch but in the very least every bowler needs to be consistent and accurate. After years of bowling, halfway through his career Sreesanth is still stuck on the basics and can't even bowl one spell of consistent bowling. Instead we hear excuses that oh, he picks up a few wickets now and then and had a great spell of bowling against SA half a decade ago. He's turning into our very own Harmison. Loads of talent but with the heart and mind of a mouse.

[Fontaine]

Fontaine - I do agree that quality of pitches is one of the factors behind bowlers wanting to bowl consistently fast. But like I mentioned, there has to be some extraneous factor involved when X,Y and Z come in bowling at over 140 clicks when they burst onto the scene (note - these are the same dead pitches by and large) and then after a season of playing for India, they drop in pace. How do you explain that with the pitch angle? To me that angle alone does not explain it. Hence my view on a few extraneous factors impacting this.

Yes, that's a good point. But can you be more specific? Which bowler was bowling consistently over 140 in India at first then failed to do so after a year on the same pitches? I can only think of bowlers like Munaf and to a certain degree Balaji and both got injuries to their back which required them to change/modify their actions and cut down on pace so they don't fall in this category.

[Dhondy]

Thanks for your comprehensive reply, Shwetabh. The debate goes on, but are we any closer to the answer? Is there a right answer? You point out that Lee, Clark and Gillespie's careers ended after India/IPL. There are so many unsaid variables there- Gillespie was already winding down- India was his last chance. Clark was unfairly scapegoated for the failure of the Aussie seamers to reverse swing like their Indian counterparts. He was fit and ready for selection by the time Australia's return tour of SA came along. It was the selectors that ended his career, not Indian pitches. And Lee? He is a fascinating case study. Here's a list of his injuries just in the last decade: Dec 2000- surgery on right elbow. Misses Tests against WI Oct 2003- Tore abdominal muscle Oct 2003- Ankle surgery May 2004- Returned from SL- further surgery on ankle Jun 2005- Shoulder injury- misses Natwest series Aug 2005- Knee infection- hospitalised Dec 2005- Breathing problem- returns home from NZ Feb 2007- Ankle surgery- misses world cup Jan 2009- ankle surgery- misses SA tour July 2009- Side strain- misses Ashes Oct 2009- Elbow injury- returns home from IPL to have surgery. Eleven injuries in the last decade- an average of one every year- only two of them occurred after subcontinental tours. He'll be available for selection come summer- his career is far from over. You quoted the last injury as being down to Indian pitches. What about the other ten? Nine of them were picked up on western pitches. Not really the pitch, is it? Injuries are a fast bowlers lot. Yet, after a dozen injuries, Lee retains his speed, Bond didn't let up to the end, Flintoff was bowling at 145+ when he bowed out. Can we say the same for Indian bowlers? That's just a rhetorical question, because I know nobody has the answers. What I do know is that you can't blame one factor for it.

[Fontaine]

Injuries are a fast bowlers lot. Yet' date=' after a dozen injuries, Lee retains his speed, Bond didn't let up to the end, Flintoff was bowling at 145+ when he bowed out. Can we say the same for Indian bowlers?[/quote'] Dude, Bond/Lee/Flintoff kept getting injured because they didn't sacrifice their pace. It's admiral that these guys didn't want to sacrifice their speed but it has cost them their careers. Where as someone like Zaheer shortened his runup, delivery jump and cut down on his pace so prolong his career. It was the best thing it did because it forced him to be a thinking cricketer instead of just going for raw pace all the time.

[Dhondy]

Dude, Bond/Lee/Flintoff kept getting injured because they didn't sacrifice their pace. It's admiral that these guys didn't want to sacrifice their speed but it has cost them their careers. Where as someone like Zaheer shortened his runup, delivery jump and cut down on his pace so prolong his career. It was the best thing it did because it forced him to be a thinking cricketer instead of just going for raw pace all the time.

Maybe that's your answer? That Indian bowlers are more intelligent? It was always going to come down to brains v brawn.