The real reason behind "Bowling Paavarhouse" decline

[Ultimate_Game]

3 hours ago, BeautifulGame said:

 

 

Jeff Thompson had a bowling strike rate of 52.Thats despite playing the second half his career as a medium pacer after an injury collision robbed him of his lethal pace.

 

Infact before his injury robbed him of his pace he had a SR of 48 and average of 25.

Seriously how was he mediocre?

He's not. IMO the post lists various fast bowlers. Some good - Thomson, Johnson, Malinga, Akhtar etc. and some not so good - Pushpkumara, Ratnayeke, Tait etc.

 

he poster's point - at least that's what I was able to determine - was that speed alone isn't a guarantee to succeed else everyone of those bowlers would've succeeded yet only a few of them have succeeded. That means bowling success is dependent on factors other than speed. That's my interpretation coz there's no way likes of Thomson & Johnson can be compared with the likes of Pushpkumara, Ratnayeke, Chetan Sharma etc.

[rtmohanlal]

3 hours ago, Ultimate_Game said:

I think his point was that speed alone doesn't guarantee success at the highest level. Not sure his point was related to tampering though.

exactly. and yes... my point is related to tampering too.Imran with his speed alone wouldn't have attained  the avg: he actually achieved .And the bowlers i mentioned are testimony to this fact.Imran brought  other skills into play on several  occasions  thru tampering along with his fastness to attain greatness. Hope i made it clear

[cric_fan]

not saying Thomson was mediocre. but wasn't great bowler either.My point was that 'mere fastness' need not make a bowler 'great'.And all the bowlers i quoted are examples of this.Why they didn't become 'great' was because they didn't posses the  other skills along with fastness to become great.What Imran did was he brought these other skills into play on several  occasions  thru tampering along with his fastness to attain greatness. Hope i made it clear

Soooo bitter

I don't blame you when you produced bowlers like Kapil

Love it. Indian's should have a week national holiday to celebrate decline in Pak fast bowlers

[maniac]

3 minutes ago, cric_fan said:

Soooo bitter

I don't blame you when you produced bowlers like Kapil

Love it. Indian's should have a week national holiday to celebrate decline in Pak fast bowlers

Kapil refused to take shortcuts like tampering the ball etc even when he knew what was going on.....still laboured his way into becoming the highest wicket taker of all time in both formats at one point in his career....Will take that achievement any time over bottle cap wickets.

[rtmohanlal]

4 minutes ago, Ultimate_Game said:

He's not. IMO the post lists various fast bowlers. Some good - Thomson, Johnson, Malinga, Akhtar etc. and some not so good - Pushpkumara, Ratnayeke, Tait etc.

 

he poster's point - at least that's what I was able to determine - was that speed alone isn't a guarantee to succeed else everyone of those bowlers would've succeeded yet only a few of them have succeeded. That means bowling success is dependent on factors other than speed. That's my interpretation coz there's no way likes of Thomson & Johnson can be compared with the likes of Pushpkumara, Ratnayeke, Chetan Sharma etc.

 

4 hours ago, Vilander said:

how can you explain this., how do you estimate the advantages of ball tampering by looking at the number of great fastbolwers that game has produced ? ofcourse you are basically assuming that if many fast bowlers became great then there is greater reason to beleive they tampered the ball.

 

"

The extend of advantages  a fast bowler can attain thru ball tampering have to be estimated based on the fact that  this games' history  have produced several out & out fast bowlers who were  bad to mediocre to good at the best.Which inturn implies that there is no guarantee that mere 'fastness' alone  can bring 'greatness' . "

 

Btw mohanlal its extent :) not extend..

all the bowlers i mentioned had 'fastness'  more or less similar to what Imran possesed. Yet they turned out to be at the best 'very good' category bowlers. In other words there was every possible chance that  a tamperor like Imran  would have turned out to be at the most a

'very good' category bowler with out his biggest ally 'the bottle cap'

and thanks for pointing out the spelling mistake 

[maniac]

13 minutes ago, Ultimate_Game said:

He's not. IMO the post lists various fast bowlers. Some good - Thomson, Johnson, Malinga, Akhtar etc. and some not so good - Pushpkumara, Ratnayeke, Tait etc.

 

he poster's point - at least that's what I was able to determine - was that speed alone isn't a guarantee to succeed else everyone of those bowlers would've succeeded yet only a few of them have succeeded. That means bowling success is dependent on factors other than speed. That's my interpretation coz there's no way likes of Thomson & Johnson can be compared with the likes of Pushpkumara, Ratnayeke, Chetan Sharma etc.

Don't know about Pushpakumara because from what I had seen of him,only his action was modelled to look like Waqar Younis...he was 130-135K trundler with the odd ball at 140 once in a while which even Vinay Kumar is capable of.

 

Tait and another Srilankan who had a mediocre career Dilhara Fernando were genuinely quick,Fernando not as quick as Tait though but they had injuries hampered their career and when they got it right they were threatening....case in point look at Starc....he looked average for 2 days bowling at 145 and suddenly he got it right at 145K and that was the difference between Aus sealing 2 test matches.

 

That is what Pace can do....No brainer that pace alone doesn't guarantee success but if you have Pace to begin with that alone is a foot in the door to success...how you add other skills to your portfolio is left to the individual.

 

Now if you have some skills but no pace...you have to work much harder day in and day out to sustain a certain level of success.

[rtmohanlal]

12 hours ago, Muloghonto said:

I think this is an exaggeration. If ball tampering could make every single fast bowler 'great', then every single fast bowler would've done ball tampering in the pre- mid90s era of television explosion. 

Sure, i think Imran would've been a 24-26 average bowler without ball tampering & favourable umpires. But to say he'd have been crap, is false. 
Imran for one, had a very very good bouncer. Even Viv was sometimes bothered by it. Tell me- what 'ball tampering' goes into delivering an accurate, fast bouncer ? 

He might not have made the old ball hoop as much without tampering. But there is plenty of time Imran destroys a team straight up- first spell itself picks up 3-4 wickets. Far more than Kapil did for example in his opening spells. 

But as far as Akram goes, sorry but he was a Godly bowler. He is the one fast bowler, who could do everything of a fast bowler- speed,stamina, all variations, all deviations, very accurate, plus more- the wickets he gets in the world cups for example- to me they were the two most stunning decisive moments of the game for a world cup final for me. 
IMO, Akram's only weakness was motivation. Sometimes, he looked bored out there. Which is understandable, because Akram also had a lot of other distractions. And although he was a workhorse, he wasn't as fit as he could be- perhaps not due to lack of trying, but there were a couple of years in the 90s, when he was marred by repeated groin injuries.

 

"If ball tampering could make every single fast bowler 'great', then every single fast bowler would've done ball tampering in the pre- mid90s era of television explosion." - this matter  requires an important  quality ...that is to be 'as  lesser moral' as possible.

I don't think Imran would have turned out to be a <25 avg: bowler with out tampering. At the best  a 26 avg: bowler. This is because, if an ordinary bowler like Chris pringle can take 11 wkts all of a sudden by resorting to tampering, it indeed points to the huge extent of unfair advantage ball tampering can provide.

 

Akram was a gifted bowler. No doubts here. But he too benefitted from tampering is a matter of undeniable fact .After all when fellow players like Aamer Sohail,Rammez Raja  etc comes up with articles that strongly points to tampering, what do we believe ? Akram was all pure genius or he indeed resorted to tampering? Sorry i am forced to believe the second one

Edited January 9, 2017 by rtmohanlal
a small mistake

[Muloghonto]

4 minutes ago, rtmohanlal said:

"If ball tampering could make every single fast bowler 'great', then every single fast bowler would've done ball tampering in the pre- mid90s era of television explosion." - this matter  requires an important  quality ...that is to be 'as  lesser moral' as possible.

I don't think Imran would have turned out to be a <25 avg: bowler with out tampering. At the best  a 26 avg: bowler. This is because, if an ordinary bowler like Chris pringle can take 11 wkts all of a sudden by resorting to tampering, it indeed points to the huge extent of unfair advantage ball tampering can provide.

 

Akram was a gifted bowler. No doubts here. But he too benefitted from tampering is a matter of undeniable fact .After all when fellow players like Aamer Sohail,Rammez Raja  etc comes up with articles that strongly points to tampering, what do we believe ? Akram was all pure genius or he indeed resorted to tampering? Sorry i am forced to believe the second one

1. There is no 'moral' in a profession. If you are a professional and you can derive an advantage, you will do it. Especially when its ball-tampering and you have no 'health concerns' like you do with doping. 

 

2. Your idea on Imran is wrong. As i said, explain to me what possible advantage you are getting with ball tampering with the new ball ? The answer is no advantage. And Imran took most of his wickets with the new ball- more so than Kapil. It helped him get a few wickets more with the old ball, but thats it, really. 

 

3. There is no 'undeniable fact' about alleging Akram tampered with the ball. Akram is not from Imran's era- his best days came in the 90s, where ball tampering was impossible to get away with thanks to multiple cameras all over the ground.

Remember 'Atherton and the dust from his pocket' stuff ? So i don't see how you tamper with the ball in the 90s and nobody picks up on it.

There is a huge difference between number of cameras on the ground in the 80s and 90s. 

[cric_fan]

1. There is no 'moral' in a profession. If you are a professional and you can derive an advantage, you will do it. Especially when its ball-tampering and you have no 'health concerns' like you do with doping. 

 

2. Your idea on Imran is wrong. As i said, explain to me what possible advantage you are getting with ball tampering with the new ball ? The answer is no advantage. And Imran took most of his wickets with the new ball- more so than Kapil. It helped him get a few wickets more with the old ball, but thats it, really. 

 

3. There is no 'undeniable fact' about alleging Akram tampered with the ball. Akram is not from Imran's era- his best days came in the 90s, where ball tampering was impossible to get away with thanks to multiple cameras all over the ground.

Remember 'Atherton and the dust from his pocket' stuff ? So i don't see how you tamper with the ball in the 90s and nobody picks up on it.

There is a huge difference between number of cameras on the ground in the 80s and 90s. 

The guy is obviously bitter. He has stooped a new low by trying to discredit Akram. Let him weep with bitter tears

[rtmohanlal]

5 minutes ago, Muloghonto said:

1. There is no 'moral' in a profession. If you are a professional and you can derive an advantage, you will do it. Especially when its ball-tampering and you have no 'health concerns' like you do with doping. 

 

2. Your idea on Imran is wrong. As i said, explain to me what possible advantage you are getting with ball tampering with the new ball ? The answer is no advantage. And Imran took most of his wickets with the new ball- more so than Kapil. It helped him get a few wickets more with the old ball, but thats it, really. 

 

3. There is no 'undeniable fact' about alleging Akram tampered with the ball. Akram is not from Imran's era- his best days came in the 90s, where ball tampering was impossible to get away with thanks to multiple cameras all over the ground.

Remember 'Atherton and the dust from his pocket' stuff ? So i don't see how you tamper with the ball in the 90s and nobody picks up on it.

There is a huge difference between number of cameras on the ground in the 80s and 90s. 

Did Kapil resort to it? So we can't generalise.

And this statement  that 'And Imran took most of his wickets with the new ball' does really strange to me. How can you so precisely  tell that?

w.r.t other factors, i have already provided the reasons.

[Muloghonto]

2 minutes ago, rtmohanlal said:

Did Kapil resort to it? So we can't generalise.

And this statement  that 'And Imran took most of his wickets with the new ball' does really strange to me. How can you so precisely  tell that?

w.r.t other factors, i have already provided the reasons.

Check the scorecards. its painstaking, but not hard to find out when the wickets fell. If the score is 10/2 and the batsmen have both played 20 deliveries each, we can figure out that both wickets came within the first 7 overs, no ?

 

With your reasons- as i said, i can accept that there was ball-tampering in the 80s. In the 90s ? like i said, when atherton put a bit of dust on the ball, it was caught on tv. You can't get away with ball-tampering when there are six-seven cameras covering the entire ground. In the 80s you could, because there would be two cameras, one for each end and thats it.

 

[rtmohanlal]

1 hour ago, Muloghonto said:

Check the scorecards. its painstaking, but not hard to find out when the wickets fell. If the score is 10/2 and the batsmen have both played 20 deliveries each, we can figure out that both wickets came within the first 7 overs, no ?

 

With your reasons- as i said, i can accept that there was ball-tampering in the 80s. In the 90s ? like i said, when atherton put a bit of dust on the ball, it was caught on tv. You can't get away with ball-tampering when there are six-seven cameras covering the entire ground. In the 80s you could, because there would be two cameras, one for each end and thats it.

 

See ... it is only a matter of common sense to assume that these matters like 'multi cameras'  & there by their benefits  got gradually became more and more  effective.It is not as if till 1990 it was utter  freedom for every one to indulge in ball tamper  & strictly from  91 onwards there was a rapid change from 100 to  0. I mean  it got comparatively difficult  in general to do  that   from 91-95 when compared to before 90s. As further years passed by it got gradually  more & more difficult .Now it has come to a situation where it is almost impossible to do it with out getting caught.More over Akram debuted in  85. Means full 6 years  in the 80s itself  where it was the most easiest to indulge in such deeds. 

So yes... Akram indeed was a very talended bowler. But to assume that his stats had nothing to do with tampering  is a bit difficult for me to digest.

 

Now ...shall i assume that you  have thoroughly gone thru all the scorecards of all matches Imran played  to so convincingly clarify that  he picked most of his wkts with new ball ,that too the  scorecards  of the matches of  those time periods  when the over at which  the fall of  each  & every wkt was not at all used to have recorded?         

[Muloghonto]

20 minutes ago, rtmohanlal said:

See ... it is only a matter of common sense to assume that these matters like 'multi cameras'  & there by their benefits  got gradually became more and more  effective.It is not as if till 1990 it was utter  freedom for every one to indulge in ball tamper  & strictly from  91 onwards there was a rapid change from 100 to  0. I mean  it got comparatively difficult  in general to do  that   from 91-95 when compared to before 90s. As further years passed by it got gradually  more & more difficult .Now it has come to a situation where it is almost impossible to do it with out getting caught.More over Akram debuted in  85. Means full 6 years  in the 80s itself  where it was the most easiest to indulge in such deeds. 

So yes... Akram indeed was a very talended bowler. But to assume that his stats had nothing to do with tampering  is a bit difficult for me to digest.

 

Now ...shall i assume that you  have thoroughly gone thru all the scorecards of all matches Imran played  to so convincingly clarify that  he picked most of his wkts with new ball ,that too the  scorecards  of the matches of  those time periods  when the over at which  the fall of  each  & every wkt was not at all used to have recorded?         

No, it was from 92/93 onwards when cameras were introduced more sides of the ground. The transition was quick and short and by  93/94, it became practically impossible to engage in ball tampering without being found out by the cameras. 

Yes, in the 80s it was easy to indulge in ball tampering, but Akram earned his reputation in the 90s. Even after 96 world cup, Akram remained effective for a few more years, with age catching up to him near the end factored in. 

IMO, his stats are not that affected by tampering- simply because Akram in the 80s, IIRC was a 27-29 average bowler who was very young and raw. In the 90s, he became a thinking bowler too and that was very evident  if you watch him/watched him live. 

When Akram started to destroy batting lineups with alarming regularity, the camera focus was already back on.

Akram, is a tough bowler to argue against for being one of the best ever, regardless of tampering,because it was pretty evident that Akram was the most complete bowler you could want in a fast bowler. Plus he had the thinking & bowling to a plan to everybody kind of bowler. Like, his main weapon was reverse swing for the old ball. And as ultra-scrutiny in England proved, reverse swing is nothing more than advanced tactical maintenance of the ball- which the fielding team is allowed to do (its called shining the ball). I can think of a few spells of Imran where it just does not make sense what he was doing with the ball (without including ball-tampering that is) : he'd bowl a fast one a foot ouside off stump on driving length, get it to cut back a foot and half and take middle stump. That should practically be impossible to do with a ball without altering the ball, in terms of physics. But with Akram, his magic balls are simply 'Tendulkar-esque' in its purity of movement, thought & control. 

As for Imran- i am not stating it definitively so, but i did grow up following cricket in the 70s & 80s. If memory serves me correct, Imran when he was taking wickets, was mostly taking wickets with the new ball. 

PS: Thinking on it some more, i actually don't know if scratching the new ball around with bottle caps will help or not either- so maybe it did help him take wickets. 

Who knows, anyway. IMO, i am more annoyed at how biassed Pakistani umpiring was compared to the rest of the world (Aussie was another one back then) than their tampering. Lbws given out like candy to Pakistani bowlers, not existing for the opposition. 

But IMO people like Waqar & Wasim, were legitimately good bowlers, who accomplished most in the clean era/start of the clean era. Lets not lump all of them together, either.

 

Edited January 9, 2017 by Muloghonto

[BeautifulGame]

not saying Thomson was mediocre. but wasn't great bowler either.My point was that 'mere fastness' need not make a bowler 'great'.And all the bowlers i quoted are examples of this.Why they didn't become 'great' was because they didn't posses the  other skills along with fastness to become great.What Imran did was he brought these other skills into play on several  occasions  thru tampering along with his fastness to attain greatness. Hope i made it clear

Thompson didn't become great because he suffered an injury which robbed him of his pace.

But yeah pace alone doesn't anyone great.Umesh Yadav is a perfect example.

[maniac]

36 minutes ago, BeautifulGame said:

Thompson didn't become great because he suffered an injury which robbed him of his pace.

But yeah pace alone doesn't anyone great.Umesh Yadav is a perfect example.

The upside for someone with a lot of pace to add skills and become the best is a lot more than the other way round.

 

 We tend to show off likes of McGrath and pollock to prove pace isn't everything but people forget that they were genuinely quick when they started. It so happened that with time they added a lot more skills to be successful.

 

When it mattered they were more than capable to up their pace.

 

prime example being steyn who can hit 150 on dead pitches or to utilize reverse or drop his pace to 135k for more control in favorable conditions. Wasim was more or less similar.

 

As much as it is a fact that pace isn't everything to be successful, it is also a fact that if you naturally have pace than you are almost half way there.

 

[Cricketics]

A bit off topic, but I remember playing against a former Pakistani bowler, who is still considered by many Pakistanis as the fastest bowler ever to have played the game. Yes, some Pakistanis believe that Mohammad Zahid was even faster than Shoaib Akhtar, as also said once by Brian Lara.

 

Zahid, this time he was about 35 years old or something when I met him few years ago in Florida and he told me how together Wasim, Waqar ruined the career of many bowlers as there was always lot of jealousy in their camp about someone out bowling the great bowlers. 

 

He shared an instance that he was injured badly as he had just gone through some back surgery in 1998. Suddenly, after seeing few flat tracks, Waqar and Wasim decided to be unavailable against Australia in the 1998 Peshawar test. They together along with selectors forced Zahid to play with broken back in that game when Mark Taylor went on to hit 334 not out. Zahid shared how he was literally forced to ball with a broken back and they literally finished his career in Pakistan.

 

Later, PCB did not even pay for his injures but his county team came to the rescue who helped him a bit. 

 

I can feel that this story is even true for the new gen Pakistani players. I mean you onlly have to look at Shoaib Akhtar and see his interviews to know how much anger he shows towards his former cricketers and even other former cricketers are fighting against each other.We are lucky to never have such folks in Indian Cricket and that is very well the reason why India is progressing in the right direction and Pakistan in the totally opposite direction. 

 

 

[maniac]

6 minutes ago, Cricketics said:

A bit off topic, but I remember playing against a former Pakistani bowler, who is still considered by many Pakistanis as the fastest bowler ever to have played the game. Yes, some Pakistanis believe that Mohammad Zahid was even faster than Shoaib Akhtar, as also said once by Brian Lara.

 

Zahid, this time he was about 35 years old or something when I met him few years ago in Florida and he told me how together Wasim, Waqar ruined the career of many bowlers as there was always lot of jealousy in their camp about someone out bowling the great bowlers. 

 

He shared an instance that he was injured badly as he had just gone through some back surgery in 1998. Suddenly, after seeing few flat tracks, Waqar and Wasim decided to be unavailable against Australia in the 1998 Peshawar test. They together along with selectors forced Zahid to play with broken back in that game when Mark Taylor went on to hit 334 not out. Zahid shared how he was literally forced to ball with a broken back and they literally finished his career in Pakistan.

 

Later, PCB did not even pay for his injures but his county team came to the rescue who helped him a bit. 

 

I can feel that this story is even true for the new gen Pakistani players. I mean you onlly have to look at Shoaib Akhtar and see his interviews to know how much anger he shows towards his former cricketers and even other former cricketers are fighting against each other.We are lucky to never have such folks in Indian Cricket and that is very well the reason why India is progressing int he right direction and Pakistan in the totally opposite direct. 

 

 

Also from what I have noticed rookie batsmen from pak most times  make their debut on overseas tours and bat higher up the order from 1-3 where as seniors hide at 5 and 6.

 

i hardly recollect any pak batsman recently making his debut in UAE and given all 3 games in those conditions.

 

this is why I respect our seniors. Kumble could have easily sabotaged Harbhajan's career. Laxman never once whined when Ganguly Chappell etc were trying to push him out in favor of Yuvraj. Dravid was asked to keep and take up additional workload if he had to stay in the team.Sachin never had ego problems playing under the captaincy of juniors.

 

Zak,Nehra etc fondly remember Srinath. 

 

I think in a way we were blessed to have some gentlemen cricketers come up through the ranks at the same time.

 

pretty sure Gavaskar and Kapil as great players they were did some politicking for which we suffered in the 80s....but regardless we are not even close to pakistanis when it comes to this kind of drama...in fact no one is...they are on a different plane altogether 

[gattaca]

 

See link below waqar and azar mehmood were caught in 2000 for ball tampering. 1992 was one more link below and 2006 is well know. I don't know what @Muloghonto is talking . I agree akram is a thinking bowler. Great bowler but tampering definitely helped him.

2000 tampering incident:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/88745.html

1992 tampering incident:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/478574.html

[Ultimate_Game]

10 hours ago, gattaca said:

 

See link below waqar and azar mehmood were caught in 2000 for ball tampering. 1992 was one more link below and 2006 is well know. I don't know what @Muloghonto is talking . I agree akram is a thinking bowler. Great bowler but tampering definitely helped him.

2000 tampering incident:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/88745.html

1992 tampering incident:

http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/478574.html

 

There are way too many incidents, including the ones you listed and the one in the OP, to lend credence to the theory ball tampering did have an impact on Pak pacers' numbers. Nearly every series there was a report or incident about ball tampering. Wasim, Waqar and company may have been talented but it doesn't mean they didn't cheat or not tamper with the ball. They did benefit from ball tampering and the current decline in Pak's pace bowling fortunes coinciding with the time when crackdown on ball tampering came into effect does paint a damning picture.

[mishra]

19 hours ago, maniac said:

Kapil refused to take shortcuts like tampering the ball etc even when he knew what was going on.....still laboured his way into becoming the highest wicket taker of all time in both formats at one point in his career....Will take that achievement any time over bottle cap wickets.

I doubt it was upto Kapil. Swinging the ball is an art to be perfected in nets. A lot of things about swing would have been discovered accidentally while in nets by Pakistani trio bowlers. They would have testet and perfected among themselves.

 

It is only now with advent of HD cameras that we can see what is going on. Infact not till very recently when Imrans spill the beans on  on Sky Sport, that people in International circle knew that to get reverse swing, no licking, ball must be absolutely dry, Just shine using cream.

 

Now one may argue why windies didnt do it. IMO they were gentlemen and probably may have observed it in nets but intentionally didnt do any research

Edited January 10, 2017 by mishra