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Originally Posted by Rachael  The first job of a new ball bowler is to pose difficult questions in the opening over of the innings... and Sidebottom did that beautifully....Any seamer would take that opening over... |
But as a top class opening bowler you have to keep the pressure up and keep bowling jaffas. Theres more to being a good bowler than bowling 1 over with 2 good balls in your opening spell. Sidebottom and Hoggard didnt keep the pressure on and ultimately bowled poorly with the new ball. They admitted as much themselves. I have watched highlights of England bowling, trust me Sidebottom wasnt unplayable.
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Originally Posted by Rachael ....surely the first pre-requisite of pitched up bowling is ensuring the swing is predictable enough .. |
But if the swing is predictable you become less effective. Quite often swing bowlers take wickets with balls that (unintentionally) dont swing or move i.e Sidebottoms wicket.
What i wil say is that Vaas showed Sidebottom how to bowl and the Englands bats (Pieterson apart) showed how not to bat! They were all undone by playing on the back foot to balls that were pitched up and swinging at about 75mph!
More to the point what is going to be done about Prior - how many more easy chances is he going to drop.