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The downward spiral that is our pace bowling, and who is to blame?

Sherlock

Sherlock

Test Debutant
Joined
Apr 3, 2010
Runs
14,293
I, like many here, have had enough of Wahab and have seen a very poor return from Amir. If the latter cannot swing the ball then he really shouldn't be picked anymore.

Regarding Wahab I cannot fathom why this man is picked over and over again. He's a complete bottler and a consistently erratic bowler that hasn't fixed whatever issues he's had, stretching years, let alone months back.

What has happened to the trademark yorkers? The swing? What is Azhar Mahmood doing to improve these bowlers?

We've gone backwards in bowling out teams and instead have to rely on the opposition not getting the required runs to win.

This isn't a one-off either.

Surely we aren't the only ones seeing this, and the likes of Arthur and those that pick the players can also see the deficiencies?!

Too many question that need to be asked and not enough answers.
 
Sherlock said:
I, like many here, have had enough of Wahab and have seen a very poor return from Amir. If the latter cannot swing the ball then he really shouldn't be picked anymore.

Regarding Wahab I cannot fathom why this man is picked over and over again. He's a complete bottler and a consistently erratic bowler that hasn't fixed whatever issues he's had, stretching years, let alone months back.

What has happened to the trademark yorkers? The swing? What is Azhar Mahmood doing to improve these bowlers?

We've gone backwards in bowling out teams and instead have to rely on the opposition not getting the required runs to win.

This isn't a one-off either.

Surely we aren't the only ones seeing this, and the likes of Arthur and those that pick the players can also see the deficiencies?!

Too many question that need to be asked and not enough answers.
Click to expand...

I firmly believe your bowling has not declined. It is always about the same. the world has moved on. Except for Wasim you never had any great bowler. Rest were hyped big by the fans as you hype everyone else. Bowling does not decline like that. It is still about the same. teams have adapted.
 
Ph_11 said:
I firmly believe your bowling has not declined. It is always about the same. the world has moved on. Except for Wasim you never had any great bowler. Rest were hyped big by the fans as you hype everyone else. Bowling does not decline like that. It is still about the same. teams have adapted.
Click to expand...

Imran Khan was a great bowler. Akhtar was a very good bowler as well. while Waqar Younis is hyped on this on this forum he was no doubt a great bowler as well.But yes the last really very good bowler for Pakistan made his debut in 1997. Since then they really havent produced a great bowler.
 
Sherlock said:
I, like many here, have had enough of Wahab and have seen a very poor return from Amir. If the latter cannot swing the ball then he really shouldn't be picked anymore.

Regarding Wahab I cannot fathom why this man is picked over and over again. He's a complete bottler and a consistently erratic bowler that hasn't fixed whatever issues he's had, stretching years, let alone months back.

What has happened to the trademark yorkers? The swing? What is Azhar Mahmood doing to improve these bowlers?

We've gone backwards in bowling out teams and instead have to rely on the opposition not getting the required runs to win.

This isn't a one-off either.

Surely we aren't the only ones seeing this, and the likes of Arthur and those that pick the players can also see the deficiencies?!

Too many question that need to be asked and not enough answers.
Click to expand...

Since Shoaib Akhtar made his debut in 1997 which very good fast bower has made his debut for Pakistan?Thats 2 decades.Why blame the present management?
 
T20 leagues, money, hype, donald trump etc. Less time to work on game and take REST.

Fast bowling is not easy. Else you (everyone) would be one instead of the armchair QB you are. ;)
 
Imran Khan was a great, along with Wasim. Waqar wasn't bad either. Asif was a very good bowler, going on a great, until his ban. Akhtar was class too.

To say we hyped our bowlers is a tad disingenuous...
 
cricketjoshila said:
Imran Khan was a great bowler. Akhtar was a very good bowler as well. while Waqar Younis is hyped on this on this forum he was no doubt a great bowler as well.But yes the last really very good bowler for Pakistan made his debut in 1997. Since then they really havent produced a great bowler.
Click to expand...

asif ???? and shabir??? sami,mis used??? amir pre ban///
 
cricketjoshila said:
Since Shoaib Akhtar made his debut in 1997 which very good fast bower has made his debut for Pakistan?Thats 2 decades.Why blame the present management?
Click to expand...

I'm sorry but are you reading what I wrote or are you just imaging what I wrote?

I'm blaming those two in particular. Specifically Wahab who hasn't improved one bit since his ego trip vs Watson in the WC.

I'm also blaming Azhar Mahmood since the basics of swing and yorkers has disappeared. Not that he was the only one to blame but he is currently the bowling coach.

I'm blaming the current players and setup. Not what's happened in the last 2 decades and whatnot.

Oh and your initial question, Asif was a a great unquestionably.
 
Last edited:
DRsohail said:
asif ???? and shabir??? sami,mis used??? amir pre ban///
Click to expand...

Asif is the only one that counts.

Md Sami was not mis used. He was average.

Amir pre ban was only good in really swinging conditions of England. He was average everywhere else. And he even post ban he has only fired in certain conditions.

Shabbir Ahmed - Was as mediocre as they come. He is on par with Indian trundlers like Dinda and Vinay Kumar.
 
Sidilicious said:
Asif is the only one that counts.

Md Sami was not mis used. He was average.

Amir pre ban was only good in really swinging conditions of England. He was average everywhere else. And he even post ban he has only fired in certain conditions.

Shabbir Ahmed - Was as mediocre as they come. He is on par with Indian trundlers like Dinda and Vinay Kumar.
Click to expand...

can you check his test record and some of his performances against the top team..i mean shabir ahmad...in odi M>SAMI was clearly miss used in death overs ..he ws not a death bowler at all...
 
Good bowlers these days regular concede 300 and try to defend as much. Maybe we are still looking for guys who will dismiss teams for 250
 
Posters like you need to stop being delusional. No matter how bad they are - they are the best we have. Wahab plays because he is the last threatening thing we have. The guys in the domestics are 120 KPH trundlers at best. The fact is, there's problem at grass root level. Under 12, Under 13, and under 15 boys are not being coached properly. They don't develop pace and most are poor. It isn't a surprise that most of our quicker men have been from wealthy families.

As far as guys in domestics are concerned, you'll see how good the guy who's been topping the charts is. Hopefully Abbas can get a game. He can't even bowl at 128 KPH regularly. And he's better than the likes of Sadaf and co.
 
Domestic wickets & Captaincy.

Domestic wicket part is easy to explain - damp, under-prepared, soft & green wickets; FC matches played in OCT-DEC period for 65-70 overs per day with substandard balls - one can get bucket loads of wicket bowling line length at 130km on a particular spot. Besides, 70 overs/day of FC match means 13-14 overs of work load - every spell is like 1st spell when it comes to endurance. Add to that is 600+ players FC system, where half of the players don't have fundamental batting skills, when it comes to play moving balls or judging off stick line. And, end it with batting strategy - a team total of 170 can be match winner on such wickets, therefore only a fool will try to stay in wicket for 3 sessions - better is to slog for a couple of hours & try to get a 48 of 58, which can take that 170 to even 256, a genuine match winning batting effort - hind side is Sadaf Hussian, almost Syd Barnes like stats.

Compared to this joke, even if I consider the worst of the lot, Bangladesh League - 98 overs/day in the hot month of FEB to May, on solid wickets that'll need 5 bowlers toiling for 4 days to get a direct result & bowlers that, if required can bowl for 5 spells of 6 overs each in a day under scorching sun for 35-38C heat & 85% humidity, in matches played among top 100 players of the country. If I go to the highest level - that's Australia, it's several clouds above.

The bottom line is - PAK domestics doesn't stress pacers to run for that extra yard.


The second part is a bit complex. Fast bowlers need the biggest backing from their Captains. It's obvious that someone bowling at 150KM with 3 slips, a gully & couple of short in fields, will go for plenty if it goes wrong. You need big heart to operate with fast bowlers - it's like a trade off - go for the kill, risking a run feast.

Since Wasim, PAK is led by some of the most negative, timid & vision less Captain, whose approach to the game was safety first. They have systematically discouraged bowlers with pace. A classic example can be Md. Sami - at 23 (ok 25), when Inzi took charge, he had every thing to be a tearaway fast bowler - BUT, he was used as a container, which ended his career. Same Sami under Imran or Akram would have been totally different bowler as they would have used him for 4 spells in a full day for 14 to 16 overs max. It's same with Wahab - at mid 30s, he is clocking 150KM+ - this guy debuted in 2010, in his 10th year in FC cricket & 7 years after winning the U19 WC. Had this guy been picked at right age, sometimes in 2004-05, could have been one of the AT fastest bowlers ever. I can name few more as well, but I guess, it's explained enough. Shoaib was a superstar by the time Akram was sacked as Captain, otherwise I can safely say his career would have been half.

These are the 2 prime reasons why IND in it's first 70/80 years hardly had any fast bowler coming or lasting - what little came, perished in couple of years under similar mentality Captains & lifeless wickets where the faster you bowl, the quicker you are hit to the boundary.

Unless PAK's domestic wickets are changed, in few years time PAK will lag Afghans in terms of pace & BD in terms of skills in fast bowling department - already are behind IND.
 
Sherlock said:
I'm sorry but are you reading what I wrote or are you just imaging what I wrote?

I'm blaming those two in particular. Specifically Wahab who hasn't improved one bit since his ego trip vs Watson in the WC.

I'm also blaming Azhar Mahmood since the basics of swing and yorkers has disappeared. Not that he was the only one to blame but he is currently the bowling coach.

I'm blaming the current players and setup. Not what's happened in the last 2 decades and whatnot.

Oh and your initial question, Asif was a a great unquestionably.
Click to expand...

Asif was not a great.Not by any stretch of imagination.He a good bowler.

Why blame Azhar Mehmood when the problem is that there isnt a great bowler in the side and a new one hasnt come since Shoaib Akhtar made his debut.Its a problem of not having enough skilss rather than someone not polishing it.

You could blame the management if there was a exceptional talent in the team and he was being mismanaged.
 
How about a real left wing, controversial, outside the box thought...
....the bowlers themselves are to blame? They all seem to have the talent but when it comes to the crunch moments in the game, refuse to or are just unable to bowl to their field. Worse still, they are not going away and working on their games. No developement in Yorkers, in swing, in line and length etc.
 
Look, fast bowling isn't just about running in and hurling the ball as fast as you can. If that was the case then Mohammad Sami would have been a world-beater.

Great fast bowlers like Ambrose, Marshall, Wasim, Waqar etc all had one thing in common, they were intelligent and knew how to work out batsmen.

What are our current bowlers lack is intelligence, cricketing intelligence and the lack of ability to work batsmen out.
 
cricketjoshila said:
Asif was not a great.Not by any stretch of imagination.He a good bowler.

Why blame Azhar Mehmood when the problem is that there isnt a great bowler in the side and a new one hasnt come since Shoaib Akhtar made his debut.Its a problem of not having enough skilss rather than someone not polishing it.

You could blame the management if there was a exceptional talent in the team and he was being mismanaged.
Click to expand...

asif was better than akhtar
 
Our fast bowling has been terribly overrated for years, it's not a new development. Chuckers and spinners have been bailing us out. Difficult to pinpoint what went wrong though.
 
One of our bowlers beats the bat a couple of times, bowls a few 147 to 148kph deliveries and ends up with figures of 1-50 and we get excited. How times have changed. How desperate we have become.
 
Specialisttailender said:
You guys are to blame. Always living in the past, obsessed with pace and calling medium pacers "trundlers" so on.
Click to expand...

I've never called a bowler a "trundler" or even obsessed with pace. It'll help if you stop painting all of us with the same brush.

ExpressPacer said:
Posters like you need to stop being delusional. No matter how bad they are - they are the best we have. Wahab plays because he is the last threatening thing we have. The guys in the domestics are 120 KPH trundlers at best. The fact is, there's problem at grass root level. Under 12, Under 13, and under 15 boys are not being coached properly. They don't develop pace and most are poor. It isn't a surprise that most of our quicker men have been from wealthy families.

As far as guys in domestics are concerned, you'll see how good the guy who's been topping the charts is. Hopefully Abbas can get a game. He can't even bowl at 128 KPH regularly. And he's better than the likes of Sadaf and co.
Click to expand...

Nothing delusional about calling someone out, but what is delusional is your love-in for Wahab. He's not as threatening as you like to think. Maybe you should read the above post I quoted, as that states your opinion perfectly. It's not always about pace for goodness sake.

Give me a swing bowler any-day over Wahab, or any other supposedly "threatening" bowler we have.

It's supporters like you that live in a fantasy of pace bowlers. No need having pace if you're going to be as stupid and idiotic as Wahab has been for years.

Enough of his delusional backers.
 
Saj said:
One of our bowlers beats the bat a couple of times, bowls a few 147 to 148kph deliveries and ends up with figures of 1-50 and we get excited. How times have changed. How desperate we have become.
Click to expand...

Tell me something, Saj. Do the coaches realise Amir/Wahab have lacked swing and seam off the seam on most tours, and the lack of yorkers at the end of overs is very worrying too, and what are they doing to correct it?
 
Frankly speaking there has been zero improvement in the bowling or even bowling strategy ever since Azhar Mahmood got involved. He has been with the side long enough to share some of the blame. The bowlers are still missing the mark when it comes to yorkers. There is no method to the madness. What good is Azhar for? Just have a nice paid vacation to the Caribbean?
 
Maybe the new role models for youngsters have changed from Imran,Wasim,Waqar to Afridi.
 
Sherlock said:
Tell me something, Saj. Do the coaches realise Amir/Wahab have lacked swing and seam off the seam on most tours, and the lack of yorkers at the end of overs is very worrying too, and what are they doing to correct it?
Click to expand...

I am sure they do. They do the analysis, they do the stats and I'm sure they give the bowlers feedback.

I don't want to make excuses for the coaches but the likes of Amir, Wahab, Rahat Ali, Irfan etc are experienced bowlers, they can have no excuses for serving up such utter rubbish match after match and only performing so rarely.
 
Saj said:
I am sure they do. They do the analysis, they do the stats and I'm sure they give the bowlers feedback.

I don't want to make excuses for the coaches but the likes of Amir, Wahab, Rahat Ali, Irfan etc are experienced bowlers, they can have no excuses for serving up such utter rubbish match after match and only performing so rarely.
Click to expand...

But they surely know Amir is a pale-shadow of what he was pre-ban and has lost the swing he once garnered?

The amount of time he bowls wicket to wicket, yet not swing the ball is frightening.
 
JaDed said:
Maybe the new role models for youngsters have changed from Imran,Wasim,Waqar to Afridi.
Click to expand...

Yep, good point. But the inherent icon status is Pakistan Cricket is still Wasim/Waqar. But I do get your point too, and may be the case.
 
Syed1 said:
Frankly speaking there has been zero improvement in the bowling or even bowling strategy ever since Azhar Mahmood got involved. He has been with the side long enough to share some of the blame. The bowlers are still missing the mark when it comes to yorkers. There is no method to the madness. What good is Azhar for? Just have a nice paid vacation to the Caribbean?
Click to expand...

Exactly. I gave him the benefit of the doubt when he first started but, it's obvious to me and many now he hasn't really done much for the bowlers, barring helping Wahab with his perennial no-balls issue [And no, not the gutless kind].
 
Sherlock said:
But they surely know Amir is a pale-shadow of what he was pre-ban and has lost the swing he once garnered?

The amount of time he bowls wicket to wicket, yet not swing the ball is frightening.
Click to expand...

He's been a huge disappointment and has some hard work ahead of him.

Swing isn't there, pace isn't there, seam movement isn't there, no consistency, technically awful.
 
Nothing wrong with M Amir pace he is bowling at 140. What if conditions are not favorable for swing? His problem is reverse swing not new ball swing.
 
big blame games here, what about blaming the fans and media that have bleating on about pace and campaigning for amir to return when he was so undercooked?

the coaches have had a good look at much of the talent that is available and I'm of the understanding they are unconvinced theres much better.

my personal opinion is that even if theres no other stand out bowlers, its time to give the best domestic performers a chance, amir and wahab have proven either they need rest or need to be discarded, either way, they don't deserve to be playing.
 
Bowling has been significantly worse since Azhar Mehmood became coach. Which was during the England tour. I think it's time to realize we don't have "magic" pace bowlers anymore. Just go for guys with decent control and some variation. Hasan should be continued with but Wahab and Aamir are on thin ice. Not sure why Sohail is not picked for this format which I think suits him more than tests. Other than that I think we should try guys like Rumman and Shinwari instead of just branding them t20 specialists.
 
I think Hasan is the only bowler that has improved since coming in. Yes he'll go for quick runs in his initial overs, but he knows how to bowl wicket to wicket, swing it in, bowl yorkers and slower deliveries too. There's at least something there to work on.

Amir to me is bowling far too short. He's trying to bang the ball in short when he needs it to get fuller. I don't know what Azhar is trying with the bowlers but it's not working with the majority of them. What was more worrying was the lack of yorkers, yet again.

Even Bishop and Ramiz were baffled at to why the Pakistani pacers stopped bowling them at the death.
 
I think we did well but my real problem is the downward spiral of batting!
 
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