The decline of the specialist attacking bowler

[rkt.india]

In the first England-India Test at Trent Bridge, England took 19 wickets in 284 overs. India took ten wickets in 145 overs. Nos. 9, 10 and 11 in the batting line-ups made four half-centuries and a 47, and were dismissed only six times. They faced 625 deliveries. The Trent Bridge wicket turned out flatter and slower than the groundsman expected. After dismal early signs on the first day, the groundsman expressed hope that the pitch would quicken up on the second and third days. No such luck. As Rahul Dravid put it, it was a pitch that helped neither batsmen nor bowlers. And yet I think England could have won at Trent Bridge. India could have won too. India were 346 for 9 in the first innings. England were 202 for 7 in just over 70 overs in the second. In the third innings, England had India at (effectively) 145 for 6 with about 60 overs to be played. Neither side had the ability to finish the other off, to drive home an advantage when they had it. One way to explain this would be to see the pitch as the central culprit. This doesn't add up, though. Why did a wicket that produced two centuries and five half-centuries in 21 innings from the top seven, produce a further five half-centuries in 12 innings from the last four? The draw at Trent Bridge was the result of a trend in team selection that has crept into Test cricket in recent years. Much has been made of the influence of limited-overs cricket on Tests. More batsmen can now play attacking shots all round the wicket, the ground fielding is better, scoring rates are higher, and there are more results in Tests today than there were in the halcyon days of great fast bowlers in the 1970s and '80s. All of this is arguably true. Equally true, in my view, is the decline of the specialist attacking bowler. Test teams these days seem to loathe picking a player who is a bowler if he cannot hold a bat. England currently have James Anderson and Stuart Broad as their settled new-ball pair. Broad has made a Test hundred and Anderson is no Chris Martin with a bat in hand. Yet Anderson is strictly a No. 11, and Broad has rarely batted higher than No. 9 recently. When Anderson batted at No. 10, we heard about England's "long tail". Moeen Ali, Ben Stokes, Tim Bresnan, Chris Jordan or Scott Borthwick have made up the bowling attack alongside Broad, Anderson (and Swann when he was playing). Any team that was serious about winning Test matches, and had Broad and Anderson as certainties in the line-up, would scour the country for the two best wicket-taking bowlers they could find, regardless of their ability with the bat, and put them at No. 10 and No. 11 in the batting order. Yet, England have picked Liam Plunkett, a good bowler, who, not coincidentally, has a first-class batting average of 24. India do the same thing. Instead of picking the best available spinner, regardless of batting ability, they have compromises built into their squad selection. Ravindra Jadeja or R Ashwin are not going to scare any specialist batsman on anything but a rank turner. Under Duncan Fletcher, England signalled a similar attitude by preferring players with "two skills". Now that Fletcher has come to India, it has meant the selection of players like Ashwin, Jadeja and Binny over those like Umesh Yadav or Varun Aaron. Yes, the latter two are raw, but they are not going to mature unless they get picked to bowl. If Fletcher was West Indies' coach in the 1980s, he would probably have played Malcolm Marshall at No. 10 or 11, and insisted on picking two other bowlers who could also bat a bit at Nos. 7, 8 and 9. Joel Garner, Malcolm Marshall and Patrick Patterson might never have played in the same Test match, let alone the four-man pace battery. You might argue that Marshall was special - that he averaged 19 with the bat in Tests. The key statistic about Marshall was not that he averaged 19, or that he made ten half-centuries. He batted at No. 7 or 8 in 89 out of 107 Test innings, with a career average in the mid-teens. He made nine of his ten half-centuries at No. 7 and 8. Can you imagine Fletcher playing a bowler who averages 14 or 15 at No. 7 (or even 8) in a Test team? Can you imagine England playing Broad at No. 7 or 8? Or India playing Bhuvneshwar Kumar at No. 7 or 8? It would be unthinkable in this day and age. Broad has played as often at No. 8 as he has at 9. And yet it makes complete sense mathematically and tactically to play someone like Marshall at No. 7 or 8 and play specialist bowlers who aren't as good with the bat at Nos. 9, 10 and 11. Marshall played only 107 innings in 81 Tests out of a possible 162. That's not because he made enough runs at No. 7 or 8. It's because West Indies picked enough bowlers to not require runs from No. 7 or 8 most of the time. Teams and fans seem to dread losing their last four wickets for about 20 runs. They seem to dread conceding 100 runs for those last four wickets. The latter hurts a team far more than the former. A fourth bowler who is practically incapable of taking five wickets in a Test innings but can score a fighting 40 is a significantly worse addition to a Test team than an eighth batsman who averages 13 to 15 with the bat but can dismiss specialist batsmen on good wickets. These tactics in elite Test cricket trickle down into the more formative levels. Would you try to be a specialist wicket-taking bowler in first-class cricket if you knew that you were basically competing for no more than two spots in the Test XI? Or would you try to be a bits-and-pieces man knowing that you could compete for any spot out of Nos. 6, 7, 8 or 9 (or higher up the order in the slog version of the game) depending on which part of your game was better? This preference for caution at Nos. 7, 8 and 9 contributes to another tactical choice that makes things worse. This is the tendency of many captains to stop trying to take wickets at one end once they get the tail batting with a specialist batsman or even a well-set wicketkeeper. Joe Root made most of his 154 at Trent Bridge while India were not particularly interested in getting him out. So not only do teams play bowlers for their batting, captains then try to take wickets only off two balls in an over. Root scored an entire century at Trent Bridge while refusing singles to deep-set fields. Perhaps some of these wickets look so flat because teams don't have enough quality in their bowling line-ups and are therefore unable to realistically challenge batsmen consistently over 80 overs. England and India have retained the same XIs at Lord's. Binny, Stokes, Moeen, Jadeja and Plunkett are playing. The Lord's pitch has been designed in reaction to the Trent Bridge pitch. One or two of these players may well go on to become top-quality bowlers. But this doesn't explain Broad's position in England's batting order, or Kumar's in India's.

http://www.espncricinfo.com/blogs/content/story/761845.html

[BeautifulGame]

That's just a very poor article. Bhuvi Ishant Shami Broad Anderson and Plunkett were are picked as bowlers solely for their bowling . Only stokes would fit into the category referred in the article . What's happening is not teams are picking bowlers on batting ability but rather the bowlers have drastically started working on their batting. What hurt both England and India in the first test was neither had a genuine quick or quality spinner to knock off the tail in that docile wkt

[vvvslaxman]

Ishant is not going to leave for next few series. Bhuvan has firmly established himself. Shami needs a run before discarding him. So it is going to take a while.

[rkt.india]

That's just a very poor article. Bhuvi Ishant Shami Broad Anderson and Plunkett were are picked as bowlers solely for their bowling . Only stokes would fit into the category referred in the article . What's happening is not teams are picking bowlers on batting ability but rather the bowlers have drastically started working on their batting. What hurt both England and India in the first test was neither had a genuine quick or quality spinner to knock off the tail in that docile wkt

He is not talking about Broad, Anderson, BK, Ishant, but likes of jadeja, Ashwin, Binny, Stokes, Bresnan, etc.

[rkt.india]

Ishant is not going to leave for next few series. Bhuvan has firmly established himself. Shami needs a run before discarding him. So it is going to take a while.

Author of the article isnt talking about these 3 but players like Jadeja, Ashwin, Binny.

[vvvslaxman]

Author of the article isnt talking about these 3 but players like Jadeja' date=' Ashwin, Binny.[/quote'] He cannot possibly call Ashwin a bits and pieces player .it is ridiculous to equate spinners to pacers. Spinners have a specific role. It is a different matter whether they could do or not. Ashwin had few chances abroad not because of batting . Because he is a specialist spinner he got his chance. He was rightly dropped after indifferent outings.almost all teams go in with a specialist spinner regardless of the conditions. England is the only one who is still seeking replacement for swann and panessr.

[Old guy]

Author of the article isnt talking about these 3 but players like Jadeja' date=' Ashwin, Binny.[/quote'] but ashwin and jadeja are our best spinners right now and batting is bonus no ?

[rkt.india]

but ashwin and jadeja are our best spinners right now and batting is bonus no ?

Not overseas. Jadeja was solely picked as 5th bowler in India because he could bat. Otherwise, OJha is certainly a more crafty spinner than Jadeja. Ashwin was also preferred over Ojha in Aus because he could bat.

[rkt.india]

He cannot possibly call Ashwin a bits and pieces player .it is ridiculous to equate spinners to pacers. Spinners have a specific role. It is a different matter whether they could do or not. Ashwin had few chances abroad not because of batting . Because he is a specialist spinner he got his chance. He was rightly dropped after indifferent outings.almost all teams go in with a specialist spinner regardless of the conditions. England is the only one who is still seeking replacement for swann and panessr.

Ashwin was preferred over Ojha in Aus because of his batting.

[vvvslaxman]

Not overseas. Jadeja was solely picked because he could bat. Otherwise' date=' OJha is certainly a more crafty spinner than Jadeja. Ashwin was also preferred over Ojha in Aus because he could bat.[/quote'] They are all more or less the same with slight differences. That is where other aspects come into play. Also Ashwin has done well as well. Good slip catcher, decent bat. Jaddu good fielder and decent batt. They are not like moeen Ali or mohd hafeez.

[Old guy]

Not overseas. Jadeja was solely picked as 5th bowler in India because he could bat. Otherwise' date=' OJha is certainly a more crafty spinner than Jadeja. Ashwin was also preferred over Ojha in Aus because he could bat.[/quote'] ojha has not even played over seas and at home both out bowled him in last 2 series now who is better is debatable and not really a given as article suggest . these bowlers are in for bowling (other than binny ) now you can question how good they are but they are indeed best we got or atleast top 3 and its not like we played jadeja or ashwin by keeping out someone like kumble

[vvvslaxman]

Ashwin was preferred over Ojha in Aus because of his batting.

Not sure about that. They are more or less similar. Ashwin Infact had more variation . But at the end of the day finger spinners have hardly made impact in OZ

[saneindian]

Or maybe because the tail has started to take batting seriously and the modern coaches ensure they are also getting enough time in the nets? Why not give credit rather than lamenting.

[CG]

Its a fact in modern cricket batting skill often clinches the selection if bowlers are of same level.

[express bowling]

Regarding spinners ... if we want a spinner who can take wickets outside the subcontinent, we need a bowler who can turn the ball on any surface. Ashwin and Jadeja would not fit this category. We need to look for big turning spinners with good domestic records. It is difficult to understand how Ashwin and Jadeja are the only two choices. Jadeja was picked primarily as a batsman who could bowl .... after his 3 domestic triple centuries. He can't be the best spinner available in the country. Binny is occupying a bowler's slot and not bowling at all. I think the OP is talking about this aspect. Nobody is complaing about BK etc. improving their batting. We like it.

[saneindian]

Besides scoring two triple 100s, 891 runs@75, Jadeja also picked 51 FC wickets @20 in the 2012-13 season (most by any spinner in domestic cricket that season) before he came to the Indian Test side vs Australia.

[express bowling]

Regardless of one or two good domestic seasons, Jadeja is not the best test quality spinner available in our country. There are so many players who have a couple of great seasons in domestic cricket because the level of competition is not high. If that were the only parameter then Vinay Kumar is the best pacer in India. Indian Domestic cricket performance has never been considered as the only criterion for test team selection by any selection committee or any captain I have ever seen. The type of batter or bowler is the more important consideration always.

[Scarves]

Or maybe because the tail has started to take batting seriously and the modern coaches ensure they are also getting enough time in the nets? Why not give credit rather than lamenting.

Gotta go with this and the so called need to have an allrounder after Kallis, Pollock and Flintoff.

[saneindian]

Regardless of one or two good domestic seasons, Jadeja is not the best test quality spinner available in our country. There are so many players who have a couple of great seasons in domestic cricket because the level of competition is not high. If that were the only parameter then Vinay Kumar is the best pacer in India. Indian Domestic cricket performance has never been considered as the only criterion for test team selection by any selection committee or any captain I have ever seen. The type of batter or bowler is the more important consideration always.

So he picks 51 wickets in domestic season, goes onto pick 24 wickets vs Aus in his 2nd test series, gets a 6-er in his first away test. What else does he need to do? Yes ideally he needs to chip with 1-2 wickets regularly in each innings away from home, but in a young spinner's career those things will happen. BTW he has 183 FC wickets@27 in FC cricket, not sure if you will call that a one season wonder. Also, away from home, post Kumble, all our spinners have struggled - Bhajji, Mishra, Ashwin. Even Kumble took 6-7 years of away tours before he finally started to have away success.

[Straight Drive]

Ashwin is a specialist bowler. The author really must be knowing a lot about Indian cricket to classify him as non specialist bowler.