Quote:
Originally Posted by south beds mikey  Pretty sure Truman and Snow won the ashes as well Ern? |
LOL. I'm aslo pretty sure that what cost the Aussies the Ashes in 2005 was inability to play lateral movement (Jones' conventional and reverse swing, Hoggard's swing and to a lesser extent Flintoff's reverse swing).
I also recall Imran, Wasim and Waqar getting the odd bit of reverse swing. Oh, and Wasim in particular was one of the foremost exponents of swing bowling in his generation. As for Marshall: generally regarded as one of the 2-3 most complete bowlers in the history of the game... not least for his complete mastery of swing (both inswing AND outswing in the latter half of his career). Walsh was pretty good at getting swing as well. Roberts also: had this nice touch of showing the batsman the ball as he ran up and then turning it over in mid-delivery.
All rather misses the point though: selectors might invariably WANT a seam attack to match a theoretical one of Lindwall, Lillee and Marshall... you still need to start by looking at folk who've got the talent as a bowler and then see if you can get the extra yard of pace out of them rather than go looking for javelin throwers in pubs!
ps. Devon Malcolm vs Gus Fraser? No contest:
Code:
Mat Inns Balls Runs Wkts BBI BBM Ave Econ SR 4w 5w 10
Tests 40 72 8480 4748 128 9/57 10/137 37.09 3.35 66.2 7 5 2
Tests 46 79 10876 4836 177 8/53 11/110 27.32 2.66 61.4 5 13 2
Fraser did more of the hard yards, took more of the wickets, took his wickets at a HUGELY better average, built pressure that Malcolm invariably dissipated and to cap it all... ended his career with a significantly better strike rate!