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With Australia and England both adopting the bouncer’s volleys in the Lord’s Test sometimes for hours together, which ironically was due to an injury to a spinner, it has raised the age-old question that once haunted cricket and for which the rules were changed twice: do bowling bouncers consistently By tedious watching, while also increasing suffering, or does it make for an exciting contest that tests the batsmen? First, in 1933, the laws were amended to allow umpires to step in to stop disruptive bowling, and then, in 1994, they reduced the number of bouncers (limited at shoulder height) to two per over.
Around noon on Saturday in London, as England began imitating Australia’s attacking exuberant strategy, former Australian captain Mark Taylor wondered whether umpires should start acting, and not manipulate the keepers.
“If a batsman doesn’t play a shot, how many bouncers can you bowl over? If both teams continue this bumper tactic – and they will for the rest of the series, what will happen?” The Laws of the Game were changed in the early 1990s to one bouncer for the game; he became the bouncer 2 in the mid 1990s. But the old law of bowling intimidation remains. If the umpire feels it, he can still call it. It will be the same when Australia bowls it. If you keep bowling the same length, even if it’s not about shoulder height, no. It’s still an intimidation. It’s going to put a lot of pressure on the umpires, who can say, ‘I’m going to call it a ‘no ball,'” Taylor said.
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Former England captain Andrew Strauss felt that while the tactic was “legal” and “effective”, it was daunting to watch. “I don’t like watching it. I find it rather boring. A bit predictable. You know where the ball is going to be before he bowls, where the fielders are. You just see what the batsman is going to do. It’s two-dimensional to me. But that doesn’t mean it’s Ineffective. There’s nothing wrong with their approach; “Anything that works, you should try it,” Strauss said.
Mark Taylor was talking about how it was somewhat similar to the 1970s and 1980s during the heyday of the West Indies. “You can battle in an hour (against the Sentinel’s barrage) and you only have 15 hits. Then the rules were changed.”
Speaking to The Indian Express, Michael Holding, the main fast bowler for the West Indian team and one of the fastest bowlers in cricket history, has a different view on the issue.
Another short ball.
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“I can see both sides of an argument. Yes, it works but it can be a little boring. But basically what they’re doing is trying to find a way to win a test match. As far as I’m concerned it’s legal and not against the spirit of the game, I don’t have any points Weakness in that. Don’t get involved with more rule changes,” Holding told the Indian Express. “And by the way, at no stage in my career in the West Indies have we thrown bouncers for hours like that. At some point in this Lord’s Test, 98% of his bowling was short-pitched. We never did. Shows her hypocrisy. When the West Indies were bowling four fast, bouncing batsmen, the cricket world was awake. Do you think there will be any real fuss about this tactic now? i doubt it. It’s England and Australia playing. Not the West Indies.”
Is it scary bowling? “What? With Mickey Mouse’s speed of 70mph plus bowling like England did? No way is he intimidating!” says Holding. “So that’s why they got shoulder height and all that. They also have the fielding rule where you can have no more than two players behind the stumps on the leg side. And if you’re going to let umpires step in, with balls below shoulder height too, that’s a very questionable method.” It will come down to the subjectivity of the umpires, which is never a good thing. Cricket should not go that route.”
The plan works!
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“You can’t name that fearful bowling. You could probably say ‘negative’ bowling. But whatever works to win a Test match.”
Holding believed that the tactic was successful because of the quality of batting on display. “Some of the bats weren’t really bright. Let me put the question this way. If bowling with that speed were attempted by Lviv Richards or Gordon Greenidge or Desmond Haynes you would catch the ball from the stands! Not only them, I can think of several batsmen who He would tell the umpires trying to step in, “Oh don’t hold them back, let them drop some more short stuff.”
🤩 Another little gate…and it’s big!
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Houlding also did a little research on England’s first innings batting tactics. “When you don’t have the ability to hook sharp balls and when there are players on the boundary then you have to answer the call. This is not entertaining or attacking cricket to get out like that. And if overuse of bouncers is boring then what happened to the entertainment brand of cricket I said “You’re going to play it?! I know and understand why of course they did. They were desperate to win the game and changed when it suited them, bowling 98% of the short-pitch stuff. That’s okay, don’t talk about entertaining the fans,” said Holding.
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