Is this the most bowling friendly era in last 50 years?

[Joseph Gomes]

Forget about glorious double and triple tons, teams are stuggling to cross 200. Every 10th innings we see a < 100 team total. I have never seen this kind of bowling display in my life so far (granted, I started watching in early 2000s, and 2000s was the worst decade ever for bowlers).

Even so, this feels surreal to me. Every ball the bowler bowls, batsmen fear getting dismissed.

Do you also think this is the most dangerous era for batsmen since 1970?

Also, kudos to Steve Smith for batting like Bradman in this era. What a champion.

 

[Amjid Javed]

Pathetic batting and application, lack of decent Technic rather than a bowling era.

 

[Indiafan]

Pathetic batting wafting outside off is not great bowling by any means. Batsmen like dravid, Younis etc would have left them all day long

 

[Manunited18]

Pathetic batting and application, lack of decent Technic rather than a bowling era.

Spot on, to many odi flat track bullies

 

[Manunited18]

Pathetic batting wafting outside off is not great bowling by any means. Batsmen like dravid, Younis etc would have left them all day long

Very true

 

[Cuts_and_cuts_hard]

Pathetic batting and application, lack of decent Technic rather than a bowling era.

Pathetic batting wafting outside off is not great bowling by any means. Batsmen like dravid, Younis etc would have left them all day long

These posts are too simplistic and unfair to today's bowlers. No doubt there are some poor batsmen going around. However, I would say, the number of world class pace attacks today is as much as any point in history.

India - best pace attack in their history by a mile
NZ - same as above. Hadlee was one great bowler, but NZ today have 3 good to very good quick bowlers
Australia - I have no doubt that in 10 years time, this will go down as one of the best pace attacks ever. Cummins is a potential all time great in the making, Hazelwood is very good, and a quality bowler like starc can't even make the team
WI - Roach, Holder and Gabriel makes this by far their best attack since Walsh and ambrose retired
Sa- rabada is a future ATG, philander still has a few years left, and they have others coming through. Consider Abbott and olivier if not for kolpak. The depth is amazing.
Only pak and SL are relatively weak.

All these bowling lineups except australia are better than they were in 2000s.

 

[malcom_86]

Slightly tougher batting conditions than the noughties, Better pace bowlers, brainless batsmen are all factors. There aren't many batsmen who have the temperament to excel in the longer format nowadays. Probably due to the prominence of the truncated versions.

 

[barah_admi]

Forget about glorious double and triple tons, teams are stuggling to cross 200. Every 10th innings we see a < 100 team total. I have never seen this kind of bowling display in my life so far (granted, I started watching in early 2000s, and 2000s was the worst decade ever for bowlers).

Even so, this feels surreal to me. Every ball the bowler bowls, batsmen fear getting dismissed.

Do you also think this is the most dangerous era for batsmen since 1970?

Also, kudos to Steve Smith for batting like Bradman in this era. What a champion.

There has been a lot of talk recently about "best bowling era", an article published just a few days ago decided to present some stats of the decade and how average runs scored per team has decreased, all of which is supposed to indicate that pitches are a lot better than they were before, bowlers are once again king and so on. Very little of this is actually true.

Pitches in Australia, across LOIs and Tests are in a poor, flat road state. SL, Bang and Ind provide some turn but they are largely flat, dry (when it has not rained) and offer little for seam bowlers. The UAE is possibly the flattest of the lot with even little for the spinners (goes to show how well the likes of Ajmal and Shah have done). South African pitches have offered some pace but not what they usedt o be and their bowlers are not as quick either, while the Windies have just started to dish out something a bit better.

New Zealand has largely stayed as the best place for seam, swing and at times, pace, where pitches have genuine moisture, an under layer of grass (not just chopped on top to look green) and of course, the conditions. This brings us to England...the ODI pitches are some of the flattest around but the test pitches have actually improved. However, none of them are the type that should lead to 67 all out and then 6 more wickets falling later in the day.

This was not a 16 wicket a day pitch, none of them have been. The bowling has been good but nothing has swung around corners, apart from Archer, there hasnt been any serious pace and certainly little or no reverse. There are 2 factors that answer this conundrum and one of those will be disliked by the younger fans.

1, The odd season timing for test cricket in modern England. FC and test cricket starts very early, when it is still wet, cold and cloudy during the day (most of the summer has actually been the same). This allows just the right amount of new ball movement. Leading to...

2. Poor, poor batting, where are the openers that can grind out the new ball? Where are the number threes (excluding KW) who can rebuild an innings? Where are the double ton makers in less than friendly conditions? Pitches have not magically become unplayable, batsmen simply do not have the skill, application or the patience to build test innings.

 

[Manunited18]

There has been a lot of talk recently about "best bowling era", an article published just a few days ago decided to present some stats of the decade and how average runs scored per team has decreased, all of which is supposed to indicate that pitches are a lot better than they were before, bowlers are once again king and so on. Very little of this is actually true.

Pitches in Australia, across LOIs and Tests are in a poor, flat road state. SL, Bang and Ind provide some turn but they are largely flat, dry (when it has not rained) and offer little for seam bowlers. The UAE is possibly the flattest of the lot with even little for the spinners (goes to show how well the likes of Ajmal and Shah have done). South African pitches have offered some pace but not what they usedt o be and their bowlers are not as quick either, while the Windies have just started to dish out something a bit better.

New Zealand has largely stayed as the best place for seam, swing and at times, pace, where pitches have genuine moisture, an under layer of grass (not just chopped on top to look green) and of course, the conditions. This brings us to England...the ODI pitches are some of the flattest around but the test pitches have actually improved. However, none of them are the type that should lead to 67 all out and then 6 more wickets falling later in the day.

This was not a 16 wicket a day pitch, none of them have been. The bowling has been good but nothing has swung around corners, apart from Archer, there hasnt been any serious pace and certainly little or no reverse. There are 2 factors that answer this conundrum and one of those will be disliked by the younger fans.

1, The odd season timing for test cricket in modern England. FC and test cricket starts very early, when it is still wet, cold and cloudy during the day (most of the summer has actually been the same). This allows just the right amount of new ball movement. Leading to...

2. Poor, poor batting, where are the openers that can grind out the new ball? Where are the number threes (excluding KW) who can rebuild an innings? Where are the double ton makers in less than friendly conditions? Pitches have not magically become unplayable, batsmen simply do not have the skill, application or the patience to build test innings.

Absolutely bang on

 

[QuickCrick]

Combination of most teams having a settled bowling attack but are in transition with batting line ups, also doesn’t help that there aren’t enough upcoming batsmen that are test specialists..

 

[aloo paratha]

No it's mostly batting standards which have fallen. We get some crazy pitches but for the most part the pitches have been fine, batting has just been poor.

 

[Saj]

This is an era with some of the worst Test batsmen you will ever see.

 

[ManFan]

No; just poor batting technique and a lack of patience.

 

[sweep_shot]

Bowling-friendly era? No way!

More like batting-friendly era.

 

[MenInG]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-partner="tweetdeck"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">It's a great era to be a Test match bowler - some of the weakest top-order batting line-ups you will ever see in the game <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Cricket?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Cricket</a></p>— Saj Sadiq (@Saj_PakPassion) <a href="https://twitter.com/Saj_PakPassion/status/1165250288946765826?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 24, 2019</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[Nikhil_cric]

Last season, when India toured, the conditions in England were the hardest for batsmen as the average degree of swing/seam was the highest in a series since 2005 as per CricViz. Combine that with the fact average pace of most bowling attacks has gone up(as a poster earlier mentioned) , its just lazy analysis by old timers who think its just a lack of batting technique. However, its also true that you can't generalise and extrapolate that data to India/Australia or anywhere else.

 

[WhenSultansBowled]

Only Aussies, some Indians and Kane Williamson are decent bats these days.

Pak batting (Babar Azam aside) is atrocious, England test batters (Bairstow, Buttler and Ali) are worse than Asad Shafiq

Overall, quality bowlers are owning these 2010s top order batsmen easily.

All these flat track bullies are brutally exposed in test cricket. Even Rohit Sharma (who hits ODI hundreds for fun) is exposed in test cricket. Stats should be taken with a pinch of salt and they can't show the true quality of batsmen

 

[Abdullah719]

Good, lively pitches key for Test cricket to revive itself: Tendulkar

Test cricket can be pleasing to the eye if it is played on good pitches, batting great Sachin Tendulkar said on Sunday, terming the 22-yard strip the longest format’s “heart” and key to its revival. To support his point, Tendulkar cited, as example, the surface used for the Ashes Test at Lord’s last week, which saw a fierce contest between Steve Smith and Jofra Archer.

“The heart of Test cricket is the kind of surface that you play on. If you provide good pitches, cricket cannot be boring, cricket cannot be damp, and (there will always) be those exciting moments, exciting bowling spells, great batting and that is what people want to see,” Tendulkar said on the sidelines of Mumbai Half Marathon.

Tendulkar felt the duel between Archer and Smith, which included a nasty bouncer that felled the Australian ace, got viewers hooked and made Test cricket thrilling to watch.

“Smith got injured unfortunately, that was a big blow to him but Test cricket was exciting when Jofra Archer challenged him, it suddenly became exciting and the focus shifted to Test cricket,” he said. “At Lord’s they lost almost a day and half, but the Test match got exciting even on the last day when England picked those wickets and Australia had to survive. Test cricket suddenly became exciting and that is how it should be.”

After the ODI World Cup, teams have turned their focus on the maiden World Test Championships, which started with Australia taking on England in the Ashes and the fact that the ODI World Cup is now on the backburner shows Test cricket is once again on its way to greatness. The only cricketer to play 200 Tests, Tendulkar said Tendulkar emphasised the need to prepare “interesting tracks” to revive interest in the longest format.

“People almost kind of forgot that four-five weeks ago, there was World Cup being played in England, nobody is talking about that, everyone is talking about Test cricket,” he said. “I think Test cricket is going to revive if we produce interesting tracks, but if the tracks are flat and dead then Test cricket is going to find its challenges.

“I know this Test World Championship has been announced but even to have this World Championship, you got to make cricket interesting, just by having another championship, cricket is not going to get interesting.”

Tendulkar, who is the highest run-getter in Test cricket, stressed on the art of leaving and defending the ball while heaping praise on Australian batsman Marnus Labuchange, who came in to the team after Smith was ruled out.

“I have been watching a little bit of Ashes and I thought someone like Marnus Labuschagne has left the ball brilliantly, which is something that you don’t get to see in Test cricket, he said of the Australia allrounder. “Normally you tend to glide those balls to third man and pick a single. But the kind of surfaces they are playing on, if you steer the ball you go to the dressing room.

“You need to leave those balls or defend solidly. And the guys who have not been able to do that, they have been watching the game from the dressing room.”

https://www.cricketcountry.com/news...est-cricket-to-revive-itself-tendulkar-884122