Playing straight

[gbatman]

Playing straight

are the aussie batsmen not playing straight enough? You think of the greats like Hayden and how straight they played and watching a struggling ponting try to hit one through mid wicket when it's doing a bit and beating him after facing about his 3rd ball you begin to wonder. Should we be going back to basics and do we know how to handle swing?

 

[Beeswax]

Re: Playing straight

are the aussie batsmen not playing straight enough? You think of the greats like Hayden and how straight they played and watching a struggling ponting try to hit one through mid wicket when it's doing a bit and beating him after facing about his 3rd ball you begin to wonder. Should we be going back to basics and do we know how to handle swing?

The first innings was hopeless, they were nearly all trying to play through midwicket and getting smacked on the pads or bowled for their trouble. Superb bowling and use of the conditions.

Punter was consciously playing straight today from what I saw. It was sort of painful but admirable. He hardly played any pull shots which was good.

 

[gbatman]

Re: Playing straight

It was a decent innings from punter, first for a while. No matter how good you are, when playing test cricket there are times when you should put shots away and just stick to the basics and play straight as it would seem.

 

[Boris]

Re: Playing straight

Well maybe using Hayden as an example is going a bit too far, even his pull shots went straight down the ground

That aside, though, of course. But have you ever wondered if it is because of the field settings?

Today's game sees more one day type fields as run rates get up to 4.5 an over for 5 days straight, whereas you never used to see mid on's and offs, now they are both almost standard.

Now this is all my opinion here, I'm just speculating, but bowling seems to be a lot more one day like as well. It's a lot more common to see a variation ball every over. Johnson does it quite a lot, every second over he bowls something like a slower ball. These balls used to be bowled at a precise time in a drawn out long plan against a batsmen, whereas now they are starting to be used more in a one day 'make him expect anything and everything approach'. As a result more than ever batsmen seem to be giving out soft dismissals where they lob the ball up to a short cover, mid wicket etc for a very easy catch, much like you get in ODIs where one of the many variation balls might trip you up and in an attempt to drive you mis-time and spoon one up. Bowlers and batsmen alike don't seem that patient anymore.

Since that happens it is more likely you might mistime that straight drive to the waiting mid off or mid on. It used to not matter as much as they were never there, anything over pitched you went all out on.

May or may not be the case, that's just how I see it.