Cricket XIII...?

[The Anti-Targ]

I see C XII is past the normal 20 page cut off for thread length, and I wanted to start with this poser, though I'm sure it's been done to death in past threads.

Aside from India imploding in test cricket it seems the current fixation in southern hemisphere domestic competitions is T20, at least here in NZ it is.

I just can't get interested in T20. It promotes particularly poor batting technique, and that seems to be to the detriment of, esp, the NZ test batsmens' abilities to occupy the crease and accumulate runs in the true form of the game.

I wish we had the player base to have people who only played tests and those who only played T20 / ODIs. Unfortunately we all know who would get paid the most, so no one is going to choose to only play tests.

I wonder if India's current misfortunes have a connection to T20 with the IPL league and all being so huge over there.

[Stubby]

As to AT's question, I dunno. We will have to wait for a while to see how succesful some players are in transitioning between formats. Warner is a pretty good exponent of all three versions of the game. But whether he has sustained success at all three styles will only be assessable over the length of his career.

Also, things are getting worse for India: Dhoni out for 1 match due to slow over-rates.

[sh_wulff]

Also, things are getting worse for India: Dhoni out for 1 match due to slow over-rates.

He has been rather defensive,, perhaps the last match might end in a draw?

[Paxter]

It promotes particularly poor batting technique

Does it though? I can see why this might be an obvious conclusion but I'm not sure the evidence backs it up. The top 10 run-scorers in T20 international cricket (listed below) all have distinguished test careers and are (with the exception of Boom-Boom) quite technically sound players with excellent test batting records. Players such as Jacques Kallis have improved notably as test players since the inception of the IPL. And now we have guys like Warner who exploded onto the scene in T20 but are now finding their feet at test level. I don't think T20 has had much of an effect on NZ's batting line-up either: I would say that players of the T20 era (e.g. Williamson, Taylor and Ryder) have equally good or better techniques than batsmen of the pre-T20 era (e.g. Astle, Cairns and McMillan).

Top 10 T20 Int'l run-scorers:

BB McCullum (NZ) KP Pietersen (Eng) GC Smith (SA) DPMD Jayawardene (SL) TM Dilshan (SL) KC Sangakkara (SL) DA Warner (Aus) Misbah-ul-Haq (Pak) JP Duminy (SA) Shahid Afridi (Pak)

[Jeor]

Apparently Sehwag is going to captain the side in Dhoni's absence. He might be a little more aggressive than Dhoni tactically...but India will miss Dhoni's bat. Even if he wasn't in particularly good form, you'd take him over a debutant 'keeper.

Re: T20 and batting techniques, I'm not sure. It's true in T20 cricket you don't need as good a skill base as you would for Test cricket. Finding a decent T20 batter is a much easier prospect than finding a decent Test cricketer, but I think there will still be a fair amount of separation between international T20 and Test cricket sides, so there won't be too much cross-pollination that could 'pollute' the Test cricket team.

In the future there might be a problem if more up and coming youngsters focus solely on T20 but I think Test cricket should still be in good shape. The way I see it, T20 is giving international exposure to some players who otherwise might not have made it onto the traditional cricket scene, to fans who otherwise might not have watched cricket. As such i don't think it'll interfere too much with the traditional form of the game.

[The Anti-Targ]

Does it though? I can see why this might be an obvious conclusion but I'm not sure the evidence backs it up. The top 10 run-scorers in T20 international cricket (listed below) all have distinguished test careers and are (with the exception of Boom-Boom) quite technically sound players with excellent test batting records. Players such as Jacques Kallis have improved notably as test players since the inception of the IPL. And now we have guys like Warner who exploded onto the scene in T20 but are now finding their feet at test level. I don't think T20 has had much of an effect on NZ's batting line-up either: I would say that players of the T20 era (e.g. Williamson, Taylor and Ryder) have equally good or better techniques than batsmen of the pre-T20 era (e.g. Astle, Cairns and McMillan).

Top 10 T20 Int'l run-scorers:

BB McCullum (NZ) KP Pietersen (Eng) GC Smith (SA) DPMD Jayawardene (SL) TM Dilshan (SL) KC Sangakkara (SL) DA Warner (Aus) Misbah-ul-Haq (Pak) JP Duminy (SA) Shahid Afridi (Pak)

Perhaps, but McCullum, as a transitional guy (was around before T20 really got big, but took to T20 very well) seems to fancy himself as a test opener, because (I'm making wild allegations here) he can open in T20 (and ODi's). I think he's really not suited to be a test opener.

I also think it's too early in the life of T20 to say that T20 guys have as good batting technique as the best batsmen pre-T20. In many respects the current new breed are still from the traditional test (contaminated with ODI, but ODI still allows you to build and innings to some extent) era. They were taught basic batting technique in school (primary school and middle school) when test matches were still the thing in the national and international arena. It's the 10-14 year olds of today who are being brought up on a diet of T20 / IPL that may have their technique mutilated by trying to emulate the unconventional, high risk, high return batting that T20 demands.

I mean the near absolute rule of playing with a straight bat, essential for occupying the crease in test cricket, is pretty much tossed out the window for T20. Kids who are total sloggers are gonna impress at the exciting form of the game. Perhaps the provincial 1st class 4 day match filter will weed out the sloggers, and expose them for the uncultured, cross batted philistines they are before they get a chance to embarass themselves in test cricket. But if it's the sloggers who start making it to 1st class level (and occasionally get an impressive 75-ball 4-day ton to keep them in the team, and after all they are the lynch pins of the money-making forms of the game) in ever greater numbers it means the pool of players with classical, tried and true test match technique will be fewer in number. New Zealand is the most vulnerable by far here with the smallest player base by a wide margin among all the top tier test nations, we can ill afford to have large numbers of sloggers rise to the 1st class level. And let's face it, in 1st class cricket (esp in NZ) sloggers can be made to look good, and can succeeed.

It's a bit like Rugby 7's. Occasionally someone who makes their name in 7's moves across to become an international test player. But not very often. Often it's 15 a side players who can successfully slip into 7's mode. And it's becomming more rare. The last person in NZ who really blasted from 7's to the All Blacks in spectacular fashion was Christian Cullen, but that was before Rugby 7's really became an international competition in its own right.

[Paxter]

I mean the near absolute rule of playing with a straight bat, essential for occupying the crease in test cricket, is pretty much tossed out the window for T20.

I once had a similar view but I'm not so sure anymore. We've just witnessed a fluent test century from T20 wunderkid David Warner on a pitch that made Sachin Tendulkar look like Chris Martin. His cover driving and driving down the ground were unmatched by any other player in the test. We've seen that T20 cricket requires clever innovations and subtleties, straight-bat strokes and scientific Jayasuriya-style hitting as much as it does wanton slogging. The emphasis may not be on iron-clad defence but players with a poor technique still get found out in T20: take Cameron White as a prime example ATM. Until I see some genuine evidence of technique degradation I'm inclined to believe that T20's influence will be negligible or perhaps even positive (it may produce more results as run rates increase and bowlers develop new deliveries).

From an NZ perspective I really doubt it will make any difference - I can only think of a handful NZ players who have averaged in excess of 40 in test cricket in the past two decades. A bit of T20-inspired positive intent is as likely to see those averages rise as to fall when coming from such a low base. And it's not as if pre-T20 players like Astle, Sinclair or McMillan had batting techniques to write home about.

[Paxter]

England in tatters courtesy of Ajmal! Will be interesting to see if they can recover from here.

ETA: Gritty stuff from Prior but England still in a dire position. How bowler-dominant is test cricket lately? Loving it :thumbsup:.

[ljkeane]

Hmm, given how hard it's been to force results in the Middle East that morning session might have just cost England the series. Hopefully the bowlers are more destructive in these conditions than I think they might be.

[Paxter]

45-run partnership here, I'm not writing England off just yet.

[Xray the Enforcer]

192 all out? Ouch. How long did that take? All of two sessions? Two and a half?

Oh, Tremlett. His first two shots were a leg bye and a no ball. Hopefully he'll settle the fuck down soon. After the AUS total thumping of IND, I want some actual competition to watch.

[Jeor]

On the subject of batting technique and T20, I think bowlers will keep the whole game honest. Let me illustrate....well ok, so very low-quality Sydney grade cricket might not be the best indicator. ;) But in the general hilarity of grade cricket, you would find some sides that were stocked full of cowboy sloggers.

I remember a particular low-grade side we played that infuriated us because they used to beat us despite being heavily stacked with bash brothers of zero technique who just came in and started slogging across the line from the very first ball. We consoled ourselves with the fact that when they played better sides (ie not us) they would be found out by bowlers who could swing the ball and actually bowl a tight line and length (neither of which we had in our side, one of our opening bowlers was so slow he could barely get the ball to bounce above waist height). And it so proved that this team of sloggers rarely made it into the top half of the table and quite commonly were bowled out for low totals, despite the fact that they seemed to rack up some pretty scary scores from time to time.

By its nature, slogging is not conducive to tough conditions or good bowling. You might get lucky from time to time but the law of averages says that if you have a guy non-stop slogging around in Test cricket, a good bowler is going to get him out pretty quickly. There's a reason that people don't swing across the line all the time and that batting technique developed the way it did.

What I mean to say is that good bowlers will continue to show up batsmen who don't have a straight bat and proper defence, and that will keep Test cricket honest, particularly when you consider that Test cricket is generally played on more dangerous pitches than T20 or ODIs. If it means that we'll suffer through a coming decade where bowling dominates Test cricket before people realise and go back to the basics, then so be it. But eventually the good bowling will force batsmen to go back to the basics in Test cricket and get a proper technique as they have always had to do.

[Stubby]

...

What I mean to say is that good bowlers will continue to show up batsmen who don't have a straight bat and proper defence, and that will keep Test cricket honest, particularly when you consider that Test cricket is generally played on more dangerous pitches than T20 or ODIs. If it means that we'll suffer through a coming decade where bowling dominates Test cricket before people realise and go back to the basics, then so be it. But eventually the good bowling will force batsmen to go back to the basics in Test cricket and get a proper technique as they have always had to do.

I agree with this bit, especially. Even Chris Gayle blocks a good one every now and then.

[Paxter]

Great to see Prior bat like that - shows that he's more than just a fair-weather hay-maker (*cough* Brad Haddin * cough*).

[Jeor]

Well, two late wickets ruin Pakistan's day. 96 ahead with 3 wickets in hand is still a decent position to be in but I really don't know if they're going to be able to make it count. England's batting lineup surely won't misfire twice, and I would always have to question Pakistan's temperament in any potential run chase. They are much better frontrunners when batting first.

I must say I have been impressed by Ajmal. A year or two ago I preferred Kaneria as a more attacking spinner, even though Ajmal was more consistent and had greater control, but I think it's clear now that Ajmal has really improved and must be considered Pakistan's leading spin bowler. Hopefully he has a few good years in him - given Pakistan's ability to consistently produce good pacemen (bans aside!), if they have a top-class spinner alongside them it could make their attack one of the best in the world. Australia and South Africa both lack a world-class spinner and Sri Lanka don't have the pacemen without Malinga in Tests, so it's really only England that could be considered to have a balanced, all-round attack.

[Paxter]

Some strange stuff going on in test cricket ATM. SA drawing a series to Australia that they should have breezed, NZ troubling the Aussies more than India and now Pakistan making the world No. 1 side look second-rate. Strange but glorious!

[The Winged Shadow]

About time. Cricket has been too predictable for far too long!

[Zoë Sumra]

Idk, England performing abysmally spent a long time being predictable.

[ljkeane]

Well the batting from England in this test has been pretty shocking then. They actually bowled reasonably well to keep Pakistan to what is probably a slightly sub par score on this pitch, that they look likely to lose by an innings shows how abysmal their batting has been.

ETA: A reprieve for Swann lets England just about avoid an innings defeat but still a dire performance from the top six. Considering one of his best attributes was supposed to be his batting against spin bowling I think Morgan's place at six in particular is starting to look vulnerable long term.

[IheartTesla]

I think most of this can be explained by teams not doing well away from home, although the current England-Pakistan series may not exactly be home to the latter.