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Originally Posted by Rachael It's always been true that tall fast bowlers who get an easy life on quick, bouncy pitches find their fiercest short balls merely sit up and ask to be hit on slow and low pitches... and that at times, bowling faster actually makes life easier for the batsman by giving the batsman more pace to work with... hence Malcolm Marshall's long spells of bowling medium pace off-cutters to HUGE effect on sub-continental wickets.
To my mind the "pace" issue is irrelevent in all forms of cricket EXCEPT when bowling to tail-enders: what gets top batsman is guile - well disguised variations especially with lines that change in the air and off the pitch, will work anywhere... and it doesn't matter that much whether you bowl at Cairns' pace or Akhtar's pace so long as you can get batsmen confused about the line, length and pace of the delivery! |
But Marshalls cutters were effective because the batsman had to come on to the front foot to play them. The problem was not many batsman wanted to come forward to Marshall because he could easily pop one through at full pace and the batsman didnt fancy hospital food!
Yes, line and length is the most important part of being a bowler, but if you are bowling at say, 75mph (Jon Lewis' pace) a good bat like Ponting or Yusuf has all the time in the world to use his feet (either come forward or back) and the bowler has no come back. Yes the keeper can stand up to the stumps but then the only way that will take a wicket is if the bowler fires one wide down leg!
As Ern said the great (and good) fast bowlers like Holding, Garner, Ambrose, Lillee, Marshall, Walsh..... could bowl on any surface and cause problems. Nowadays there are currently no great fast bowlers around.