Is it bad time to be a Bowler?

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I was just looking at the scorecard of first day of 4th test match between SA and WI. Openers Gibbs and Smith have put a partnership of 302 runs with both scoring 139. Big partnership and lots of centuries has been quite frequent in last few series.So I looked at the data for last 2 series. India vs AUS and then SA vs WIN. Both these teams have played 7 test and 1 day of the test I discussed above. Look at following stats…
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  1. 29 Centuries scored including 5 double centuries :rolleyes: . This means 4 centuries/test match.
    There used to be hardly 2 or 3 centuries scored in a test match in 70 or 80s and double centuries used to be really rare.

  2. Runrate of 3.54 :rolleyes: ( 3.65 in AUS and 3.4 in SA).
    Anything around 3 used to be a great runrate earlier.
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Now lets look at Quality of batsmen in the world today…
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We have following batsmen who are averaging above 50.

Dravid
Sachin
Gilchrist
Waugh
Hayden
Ponting
Kallis
Smith
Lara
Yasir

10 players in 50s. :rolleyes:

And there are few who are in high 40s( almost in fifties) .Like..

Inzi
Youhanna
Laxman
Vaughan
Gibbs
Martyn

Now this is a rare thing.I remember in 80s we had only Richard,Javed,Chappel and Gavasker who were in 50s. May be I miss one or 2. It used to be real big thing if someone had a fifty average.But right now looks like ever TOM ,Dick and Harry has 50 average.Someof them are actually in higher fifties(Sachin,Ponting,Smith,Dravid) ..like 56 57..
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Is it that Quality of Batsmen have improved a lot??
Or Just Bowling sucks?

Looks like It is bad time to be a Bowler? :smiley:

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:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

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very good ponit.

I think the answer is yes and no. The bowling specially fast bowling where today's cricket revolves mostly is very demanding in terms of fitness and technique. Look at Shoeib, Lee, Gillipse, Sami, Zaheer and Nehra's career. They are all effected by continous fitness problems. Every now and then they are out because fitness. Result, not so striker bowlers filling their places and getting hammered. Their mediocre performances are because of lack of technique, that's why teams are looking for help from gurus likes of Wasim and Hadlee.

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[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by smooth_guy: *
very good ponit.

I think the answer is yes and no. The bowling specially fast bowling where today's cricket revolves mostly is very demanding in terms of fitness and technique. Look at Shoeib, Lee, Gillipse, Sami, Zaheer and Nehra's career. They are all effected by continous fitness problems. Every now and then they are out because fitness. Result, not so striker bowlers filling their places and getting hammered. Their mediocre performances are because of lack of technique, that's why teams are looking for help from gurus likes of Wasim and Hadlee.
[/QUOTE]

I agree.Injury has been a big problem. I was also thinking that may be Quality of bowlers have gone down. But then I look at bowlers today and we have guys who have taken 300 and 400 wickets..like Macgrath,Murali,Warne,Kumble,Pollock and then good young guns like Shoib,Bond,Tuffy,Gillespie,Nel..So bowling isnt that bad either.

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while shoaib, lee and bon dhave enuff speed to (as columnists wud write) 'put the fear of God in the batsmen's hearts', its usually their speed that makes the batsmen comfortable against other not-so-fast bowlers....
so what happens alsmot always is that shoaib finishes his spell and the batsmen kill the other bowlers....

what we lack is the quality of a bowler to really put the batsman under pressure....
someone of the quality of wasim, waqar, lillee, hadley, etc etc....
the batsmen were just unable to score against them and wickets fell regularly....
the only bowler like that today is muralitharan....
and i dont see many batsmen scoring 100s and 200s off him....

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The high batting averages has to do with batting pitches. I think it has more to do with the commercialization of the game. Now with TV rights being one of the biggest money grabber the cricket boards are under pressure to make batting wickets. Meaning high scoring matches and matches lasting full 50 overs a side. Thus giving maximum return to the sponsors. As for high number of wickets by bowlers, its probably due to the high number of games played.