Ashes First Test: Australian Bowling Exposed Beyond Redemption!

We all knew that Australia would struggle to a large extent to dismiss the England batsmen on a consistent basis. The Aussies don’t have a single spinner who is capable of turning the ball to an alarming or even an average degree. Further, their pace bowlers are too predictable, making it rather difficult to dismiss a side that has someone like Stuart Broad batting at number eight. However, no one was prepared for the mauling that the Aussie bowlers are getting as I write this blog.

They have been literally massacred, reduced to looking like a bunch of school boy bowlers who have no idea what hit them...and it did hit them...I mean, each of the English batsmen has got a century or even more, making it clear to everyone that the Australian bowlers simply don’t have the firepower to dismiss a side like England twice in a test match. How the Australians plan to win the Ashes 2010 is still a mystery to me and you have a Ponting screaming out his lungs that they are going to whitewash the England side 5-0!!!

Both SA and England stuck with lower-order batsmen: Lack of Aggressive Bowling?

I realize that saying so would mean undermining the usual tenacity shown by the Proteas bowlers but the fact remains that England was able to save the first test match purely due to the inability of the South African bowlers to dismiss the late batting order of England. For starters, they allowed Graeme Swann to make a half-century and give England's total
a sense of respectability and on the final, decisive day of the test match, the South Africa bowlers just kept bowling outside the off-stump or so short that the ball never made an impact. I was wondering what happened to Ntini and his ilk who would get under the batsmen chin and in their toes as soon as the number seven onwards batting of the opposition took stance against them. Is it just lack of intensity or are the bowlers bowling too much of the regular line and length type bowling? The same holds true for England in the second test match against South Africa. They could have easily restricted South Africa to about 270 but then Steyn took over and carted the England bowling to all parts. Stuart Broad kept bowling what is generally regarded as the conventional, decent line, without trying to bounce out Dale Steyn. I believe England are missing someone like Harmison and Flintoff whose height and overall bowling style made them a headache for the lower-order batsmen. Onions and Anderson merely kept on pitching around the good-length area without trying out the slower balls or yorkers that are becoming so useful these days, considering the amount of ODI and T20 cricket being played…just strange!!

Grassy bowler, what's that Mr. Boycott?

This is with reference to Anderson's five wicket-haul against the South Africans, to take this team 2 -1 in the ongoing ODI series. I read somewhere Geoffery Boycott explaining Anderson as a Grassy bowler meaning any pitch that has a bit of grass and some moisture, alike the English conditions, were suited best for James Anderson. Well, you couldn't agree more> take away these basic ingredients and Anderson turns into another routine, straight length bowler, incapable of moving the ball in any possible way. He does remind a bit of Caddick of England, who was brilliant against any type of batsmen, including the might Aussies, every time an Ashes test match was played on a typical English pitch. I recall having watched many televised commentaries by Wasim Akram who often regarded Caddick as one of the best exploiters of the swinging conditions that prevail in England but a bowler with limited means when it come down to testing your skills against the brownish, slow pitches of the sub-continent, which essentially means that Caddick was short on learnings skills that were beyond the obvious and I think, reverse swinging the ball and bowling yorkers is what Akram has been referring towards.