Shane Warne and the decline of Australian bowling?

[John]

The reason Shane Warne is taking so many wickets is due to the decline of the Australian bowling. Here I am using decline in a relative sense (Australia are still a good attack).
1. McGrath is not the bowler he use to be.
2. No one has replaced Gillespie.
So more is falling on Warne's plate.

[Beny]

I'd challange that McGrath is not the bowler he used to be, infact I'd challange that he's better than he's ever been, more experianced and with a better variaty. It's true though that he's been poor in this test.

Your right that nobody has taken Gillespie's place, although Gillespie himself might take it up soon judging by his proformances in domestic cricket.

However the most interesting thing was the test against WI where neither Warne or McGrath got onto the score sheet. Remember that the 'shining light' of Australian fast bowling is out injured too (Shaun Tait) and Nathan Bracken is doing well for the test team. So it's not all bad news.

The thing is that Warne is not bowling teams out by himself, he was out bowled by Lee (at least so far as wickets) in the last innings. If as you say, Warne was only getting what the others missed out on then he would be taking longer to do it, however as it stands Warne is running rings around the SA batsmen and getting them out quickly.

[John]

Originally Posted by Beny

Warne was only getting what the others missed out on then he would be taking longer to do it, however as it stands Warne is running rings around the SA batsmen and getting them out quickly.

Warne is brilliant but to say the very least some of SA batsmen are sub standard.
As for Mcgrath he is injured alot these days and is not going to be around for much longer. To me he doesn't look the bowler of five years ago. But I am just saying it as I see it from watching on the box. He seems to have lost some Zip.

[Mike]

warne						mcgrath
last 10 matches					last 10 matches
overs bowled = 462; wickets = 69		overs bowled = 407; wickets = 53
previous 10 matches				previous 10 matches
overs bowled = 445; wickets = 49		overs bowled = 365; wickets = 44

Those stats clearly show that both bowlers have increased their workload in recent times which suggests that Australia are taking longer to bowl sides out. Warne has improved his strike-rate in recent times compared to McGrath but that is not due to less overs bowled by McGrath. Warne's workload has only marginally increased but his wicket-taking ability has increased dramatically. McGrath's SR in his last 10 matches is 46.07 compared to 49.7 from the previous 10 matches which is an improvement so it's wrong to suggest McGrath's wicket-taking ability is waning. It appears to be marginally improving. By comparison, Warne's SR has come down from 54.48 to 40.17 - a very noticeable difference!

[John]

After todays events. Case proven shall we close the thread?

[greg]

1-0 to John with 2 to play

[Mongoose]

Originally Posted by John

1. McGrath is not the bowler he use to be.
2. No one has replaced Gillespie.
So more is falling on Warne's plate.

1. Disagree. McGrath is, as Beny says, possibly bowling better than ever. Of course, the odd game things won't go his way, but he's still a class act.
2. Agree. This is where the biggest problem has been recently for Australia. In the past, both McGrath and Gillespie could apply pressure and take wickets - Gillepsie's strike rate was amazing. Then there was Warne to come on afterwards - more pressure and wickets. In the Ashes, if McGrath didn't take wickets, it was often down to Warne to do the business. It showed when McGrath was injured, England won both games. While Lee tried hard, he still went for about 40 runs per wicket. There were easy runs to be had for the England batsmen.

Warne is being asked to do more bowling than ever, because the depth of bowling is less than in the past. But there is hope - Tait is the big prospect at the moment. Any guy who can get both conventional and reverse swing, at over 90 mph, is going to be a handful in any part of the world.

[Mike]

Ponting - "I thought the attack did a pretty good job in the conditions we had. The wicket was incredibly flat, especially for the fast bowlers."

Given that the wicket didn't assist the fast bowlers and the SA team were playing defensively throughout the innings I don't think we can say McGrath didn't bowl well enough. Let's see what happens in the rest of the series. I've seen some of our members criticize McGrath before only to have egg on their face when he bowls another 5-fer.

[Quagmire]

mcgrath has lost some zip but he was never quick enough to really worry the batsman with his pace, but his accuracy is what has got him over 400 test wickets. In my oppinion Pollock is not the bowler he use to be. Pollock relies on his pace a little bit more than McGrath due to him not being as accurate, but he still is a very good bowler.

[sittingduck]

It's not so much that the bowlers are not as good, it's more to do with the captaining. I think Ponting bowls Warne for far too spells that are too long and too often for example.

Lee has inproved from where he was last season, he's more accurate now and doesn'trely solely on the bouncer or yorker to take wickets as he did when he started out.