Is Indian batsmen's ability to play swing bowling declining?

[NareshK]

bowlers win u matches abroad..even 250 odd score is decent if u have genuine fast bowlers with brains and a good fielding side..we have played tried and tested idiots in important tours.. have to play likes of yadav,shami,aaron etc in important tours if fully fit..they have to be told which lengths to bowl and under what score they should get the opposition out

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/engine/current/match/463147.html I remember this game where our bowlers did exceptionally well. Laxman proved those people wrong who said he was not a good player of swing. He scored a match winning 96 against Steyn, Morkel, Kallis, Tsotsobe on a pitch which was doing something every ball.

[maniac]

I agree that on a good day, with an in-form bowler inhelpful swinging conditions is almost equal to unplayable but I am talking about our recent ability to survive in conditions were the ball would only swing for a minimal amount of time. I agree with a lot of points here but as far as Indian team goes,our opening has always been a issue since Gavaskar's retirement...Sehwag-Gambhir might have had a couple of good seasons though mostly in SC conditions, but overseas our openers were always meant to struggle. In the past our middle-order has more often than not negotiated the swing unless it was one of those wickets.I don't reckon we have lost our top-order to swing bowlers as often as we have recently. I also partly agree with what RKT said ,that our recent debacles has to do with our top-order woefully being out of form. Forget Kohli,Pujara,Rahane,Rohit,etc...lets take the example of Ashwin who I think technique wise is not that far from most young Indian batsman...in Australia he looked comfortable against Pace and Bounce but would get out to Hilfenhaus with the ball swinging...now obviously Ashwin is not a benchmark here but I have seen similar stuff happen to the likes of Kohli who looks the part because he is good against pace and bounce but woeful against swing from what I have seen so far. I say woeful because him and many other young batsmen have this Gambhir disease of Poking.

[NareshK]

I agree with a lot of points here but as far as Indian team goes,our opening has always been a issue since the days of Gavaskar...Sehwag-Gambhir might have had a couple of good seasons and great in SC conditions but overseas our openers were always meant to struggle.but in the past our middle-order has more often than not negotiated the swing unless it was one of those wickets.I don't reckon we have lost our top-order to swing bowlers as often as we have recently.

Dravid was a big reason why Indian team could do decently in England,SA and Aus. He used to be a literal wall and play out loads of testing overs from good bowlers in helpful conditions which enabled the team to post big totals. India's bowling attack was never match winning on their own but with big totals, they could put pressure on the other side. But it would be asking too much from young Indian batsmen to display such technique against top quality pacers in testing conditions right away. It comes with experience. Dravid, Sachin also struggled early on in their careers.

[The Outsider]

Front foot movement is obviously one important aspect, but for me the main reason is that most modern batsmen, specially Indian since this thread is about them, tend to play the ball a good 6 inches to a foot ahead of the front pad. This has multiple problems: 1. You are not watching the ball till the last moment you can to decipher the amount of swing. 2. You are more likely to edge a delivery which might have missed the edge if you were playing it late and allowed it to swing a bit more. 3. You are pushing or jabbing at the ball and not playing it with soft hands thereby ensuring that the edge will carry to the slips. The worst culprits of this are Rohit, Yuvraj, and Raina. Dravid's batting in the '11 England tour was a masterpiece in playing swing bowling. Very rarely does a batsman come out so consistently strong against high quality swing bowling as Dravid did on that tour.

[Vilander]

IPL effect :csk:

IPL = csk

[bharat297]

Front foot movement is obviously one important aspect, but for me the main reason is that most modern batsmen, specially Indian since this thread is about them, tend to play the ball a good 6 inches to a foot ahead of the front pad. This has multiple problems: 1. You are not watching the ball till the last moment you can to decipher the amount of swing. 2. You are more likely to edge a delivery which might have missed the edge if you were playing it late and allowed it to swing a bit more. 3. You are pushing or jabbing at the ball and not playing it with soft hands thereby ensuring that the edge will carry to the slips. The worst culprits of this are Rohit, Yuvraj, and Raina. Dravid's batting in the '11 England tour was a masterpiece in playing swing bowling. Very rarely does a batsman come out so consistently strong against high quality swing bowling as Dravid did on that tour.

Regarding points 1 and 2, the point of getting forward is to negate the swing. Obviously 1 foot over is a bit too much but you need to play in front of the front-pad to take out the lbw. A good batsmen will play with the bat in front of the front pad. Playing with the bat behind the front-pad is just a recipe for lbw. Shane Watson does this a bit too much and as a result is a strong lbw target early. A good defensive technique in batting involves getting your head over the front pad and playing in front of that. Regarding point no.3 you can play with soft hands and still get the bat in front of the pad. But you can only do this if you commit to the defensive stroke early but if you're unsure then your feet or don't move and you just tend to plonk the bat down. There's no easy fix to play swing bowling. Swing bowling takes wickets because its hard to face. But for a team like India, with a fair few swing bowlers in their squad and all the resources they have .. It annoys me that they don't play swing bowling better than other teams.

[moniker]

The title should be: Is Indian batsmen's ability to bat declining? They can't play the moving ball, they can't play the rising ball and they are not even able to play Monty Panesar's spin! :hysterical:

[Vivek.S.123]

The title should be: Is Indian batsmen's ability to bat declining? They can't play the moving ball' date=' they can't play the rising ball and they are not even able to play Monty Panesar's spin! :hysterical:[/quote'] We are still better than ur Pakis :hysterical:

[moniker]

We are still better than ur Pakis :hysterical:

Hey don't call me names! I'm just another disgruntled Indian fan who has lost all confidence in the ability of Indian batsmen.

[Gollum]

Officially our #1 nemesis. Worst players of swing bowling in the world. 

 

Maharathis:

- don't play late

- don't play under the eyes

- don't reduce backlift

- forward thrust hoping for the best

- don't play with straight bat 

- hard hands, jab at the balls

- don't leave enough esp in first 20-25 deliveries, guys like Shaw, Kohli

- propensity to always come on front foot, why not backfoot in SENA?

- too passive, half-volleys don't deserve mercy no matter what the conditions...allows bowlers to settle into their lengths

 

Unless we improve this area, NZ will continue having the edge over us outside SC. And Eng will continue pasting us in the island. 

Edited February 24, 2020 by Gollum

[MechEng]

34 minutes ago, Gollum said:

Officially our #1 nemesis. Worst players of swing bowling in the world. 

 

Maharathis:

- don't play late

- don't play under the eyes

- don't reduce backlift

- forward thrust hoping for the best

- don't play with straight bat 

- hard hands, jab at the balls

- don't leave enough esp in first 20-25 deliveries, guys like Shaw, Kohli

- propensity to always come on front foot, why not backfoot in SENA?

- too passive, half-volleys don't deserve mercy no matter what the conditions...allows bowlers to settle into their lengths

 

Unless we improve this area, NZ will continue having the edge over us outside SC. And Eng will continue pasting us in the island. 

The reason is that the game has become more fitness and athletic centric than skill centric.

 

In 2000s the definition of Indian fitness was not to have a belly and ability to last 5 days of game, that's all. Abhi toh you need footballer level fitness to even get selected in a team.

 

This evolution to a more explosive power centric mindset has given us benefits in having pacier bowlers and the ability of batsmen to hook pace fearlessly and power hitting but compromised old school way of playing. Only Pujara is old school.

Edited February 24, 2020 by MechEng

[MechEng]

@Gollum Gambhir's Napier ton in 2009 was the classic old school way and he was no athlete.

[Vilander]

3 minutes ago, MechEng said:

batsmen to hook pace fearlessly and power hitting but compromised old school way of playing.

many wickets in this test were slow bouncers( 122 to 130 k). Kohli included. 

 

India lacked power hitters severely in the ODI series whitewash.

 

And in this test none of the batters could clear the field except Shami the bowler - slog- giggler.

[MechEng]

6 minutes ago, Vilander said:

many wickets in this test were slow bouncers( 122 to 130 k). Kohli included. 

 

India lacked power hitters severely in the ODI series whitewash.

 

And in this test none of the batters could clear the field except Shami the bowler - slog- giggler.

This is just one example but in general the game is very explosive power centric, even if you don't have abs you need very strong core to clear fitness exams, Ashwin is excluded since he is the only quality spinner we have. Contrast this with 2 decades ago where Inzamam Ul Haq was among the best batsmen in the world.