preview

Essay On Cricket Bowler

Decent Essays

A greenish looking fresh Day 1 pitch. Pink ball. Overcast conditions with occasional rain and a lot of moisture in the air. If I was a new ball bowler, I would have been licking my lips. Well, I am sure James Anderson and Stuart Broad, who have 899 Test scalps between them, too thought on the same lines when Joe Root won the toss and decided to field in the inaugural day-night Ashes Test in Adelaide on Saturday afternoon. Traditionally in Adelaide, spinners come into play in the fourth innings. Thus, it is always being considered as a ‘bat first’ wicket. From that point of view, Root’s decision was a bit of gamble. But, considering the quality and experience of the England seam attack, it was a risk worth taking. Experts like Graeme …show more content…

Their defensive line of attack allowed Bancroft and Warner to play no shot 36 percent of the time, well above the global average of 22 percent. Someone like Jason Gillespie feels initially the lengths of English bowlers were at least “two foot short”. “The lengths were wrong,” Gillespie told cricket.com.au. “They were as much as two foot too short early on. After the rain delay [at the start of the second session] they started to get their lengths right and I thought they were better as they went on. When they didn't get it right, they got punished.” In hindsight, I can’t find a logic behind giving Broad just a three-over opening spell. The pink ball tends to soften sooner than the regular red ball and once it loses the shine, it does not do any trick for the bowlers. So, as captain Root should have provided the maximum opportunities to his two experienced pros – Anderson and Broad – when the ball was new. But, he replaced Broad with Woakes early in the day – a decision, which raised quite a few eyebrows. Also, in the first session, it seemed England were more worried about not conceding runs than attack the Aussie batting with whatever they have. Strange! **** Thankfully for England rain curtailed the session and probably the damage. A longer break allowed them a chance to regroup and reformulate the plans and things did improve later in the evening, under lights. In the post-tea session, all three seamers who bowled in the first session — Broad, Anderson

Get Access