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Originally Posted by Occasional Fan  I never fail to be amazed at the number of cricket followers who write this. It's not true. Any match in which a team declares one of its innings and loses will show that. |
True, but that basically assumes that the opposition will do everything you wan them to do- in fact, you're leaving it up to the opposition to give you a decent shot at winning! Taking 20 wickets is the most surefire, and the most positive, way to ensure victory.
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Originally Posted by Rachael How often would taking overs off Sidebottom, Broad, Flintoff and Panesar and giving them to Anderson really increase the odds of taking wickets? |
Well, you never know, do you? One wicket is all it takes to induce a collapse. Any bowler at any time is capable of bowling the perfect ball, which one of the other bowlers simply hasn't done in that particular innings. Having a fifth bowler who's capable of delivering that unplayable ball gives your side the greater chance of maintaining pressure throughout the innings than a batting allrounder like Collingwood.
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Unlike Collingwood, Anderson would need to be contributing hugely with the ball in order to justify his place... but you'd hardly ever gain anything from bowling Anderson than you would not already get from bowling the others.
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I notice all the discussion has been centred around the need of a fifth bowler for England, and not about the merits of a fifth bowler generally. Look at the West Indies. For the past year they've gone in with an attack of Taylor, Powell, Edwards and Bravo. In this situation, having a specialist spinner spinner would be invaluable to the Windies attack. But they've gone in with the 6 specialist batsman, and look where that's got them? And do you think New Zealand would be a better team if they only went in with Martin, Mills, Vettori and Oram? Would adding Matthew Sinclair, for example, increase their batting firepower by enough to compensate for the lacking bowling option of Southee or Patel? I hardly think so.
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Yippee... a marginal increase in the likelihood of getting 20 wickets in any one game... but increased pressure to get the wickets cheaply, and on the top 5 batsmen to deliver miracles, as the oppositions chances of getting 20 wickets have just been hugely boosted  |
Come now! When was the last time a batsman at no. 6 really made that much of a difference for England? In fact, who was the last successful specialist no. 6 England had? I know having Blewett or Bevan down there for Australia didn't make that much of a difference. The only recent exception I can think of is Laxman for India, but even then India don't have a good away record. If the top 5 batsmen aren't able to deal with the bowling, then generally the sixth won't do much either.
And another thing. This automatic time-out rule is really starting to be a pain in the neck.