Does a high MPH = pace

[Rich Greenfield]

The ball may leave the hand at 90 mph but after it pitches it is only travelling about 55-60 mph

[Pete]

Does anyone know what speeds this Jermaine Lawson is supposed to be? I just watched abit of the Banglas match and he doesn't look fast at all, people went on about him like he bowled at Lee/Akhtar type speeds. Am I just wrong about him or has his speed been lost with a remodeled action because he used to chuck?

[Ernest]

Originally Posted by Goatman

CA

Once again, sorry for the tone of my first reply. Bad day. I'm not really a statistician, but I do use 'em a lot. mph is a paramenter, rather than a stat, which means it is a direct measurement, not an indenct measurement and far more reliable as a consequence. Virtually all the criticisms of stats are not really valid for a measurement like mph. It might sound like splitting hairs, but it does make a difference. it IS airspeed that counts.

Evening goatman

I am not disagreeing with any of your post,I think air speed counts,simple as that.

But how much it counts can depend also on the state of the pitch,on a dead flat track,unless you are bowling at a ninny,you would have to bowl the ball fuller,to make MPH count,because I think if you were bowling on a spongy pitch,it would slow down the ball in MPH when it reaches the batsman.

On a green pitch a slightly short ball bowled by a shorter fast bowler would skid through quicker,and on a hard pitch the tall bowler will not loes that much pace because it does not meet as much resistance from a hard pitch.

Why Goatman is Flintoff classed as fast med,when he bowls over 90 mph?

Ernest

[Goatman]

Right. I thought a lot about this over the weekend and came to a few conclusions. Its rather long I'm afraid:-

The way in which mph is measured is important. If it's mean speed, trajectory, pitch state, length and all the rest are irrelevent, as they are already taken into account - the fastest bowler is the one with the highest mph, and the rest is all bunk. I don't think it is measured like this though. If its intial speed, then they all need to be taken into account.

Having breifly looked into the heights of the ENG bowlers, I have come to the conclusion that my guess of 15cm of difference in distance travelled (which included an estimate of extension over the head by the arm) is probably generous. It would probably be about that between Harmison and Hoggard. IN addition, I was in rather a hurry and misplaced my decimal point - it should have been 1.5cm, not 15! Sorry. So the height thing makes no tangible difference at all from that point of view. Of course, 5cm of extra height as it reaches the batsman is actually quite important. The "extra bounce" tall bowlers get is a well known problem. It seems small differences in the bounce make a surprising amount of difference to the bstaman. Its not through the influence of speed though.

SO:- if two bowlers of different height bowl at the same initial speed at the same length on the same pitch - the ball gets to the batsman at as close to the same time as makes no difference. In test ("Fair") conditions, the player with the highest intial mph is the fastest bowler, simple as that.

BUT:- the ball decelerates when it pitches, so a short pitched ball at 90 will not get to the batsman before a length ball at 88. So, a bowler that tends to bowl short will APPEAR to be bowling slower. Of course, if the apparently "faster" bowler put it in as short he would seem to be even slower. So, from this point of view assuming that the bolwer gains some advanatge from pitching it a little shorter, even though it doesn't get to the batsman so quick, they still have to be placed as the faster bowler because the apparent speed (how long it takes to pass the bat) is not a like for like test, and not a basis for comparison. If the bowler does not gain advantage from pitching it short, they are clearly not doing thier job right (and not making proper use of thier high inital mph) and they need a big boot up the backside from thier captain .

PItch state may also play a role. We hear about skidders and extra bounce and so on. From the pure angle point of view, just like for trajectory, the height difference between quick bowlers will make very little difference. The interaction between the pitch and the ball between a bowler of 2m (6ft 7) is at an anlge of 8.5 degrees. For a bowler of 1.9m (6ft 3) its at 8.1 degrees. This is going to make bugger all difference in terms of how the ball interacts with the pitch. A skiddy bolwer will not try to reach so high, and a tall bouncy bowler will over stretch and this will exaggerate this intial difference. Comparing Harmison and Kirtley, I'd guess the angles were about 8.6 degs for Harmison and 6.5 ish for Kirtley, which might be expected to make much more difference. I would guess that in this case Kirtleys ball is interacting with a much larger area of ground than Harmisons, and declerating more as a result:- the pitch is an elastic, uneven, frictional surface and so the ball that hits at the highest angle should lose the least energy, whether it is green, dry or whatever. If a Fair test is done between these two (same ball, same legnth, same pitch, same intial speed), Harmisons ball will get to the batsman earlier. Ernest reckons in some conditions this will be reversed. I'm not sure about this - I can see no mechanism. Maybe I am wrong, but if Ernest is right its one of those anti-intuitive situations the world throws up every now and again to keep us on our toes. Anyone care to run and experiment and find out?

SO:- A tall bowler actually has more in thier favour than against it in terms of speed to the bat, but the differences are very small. A bwoler that pitches it short (and taller bolwers often do pitch it shorter) is likely to appear slower than he is:- but if one of the other bowlers treid to pitch it so short, you'd soon see the scorebaord ticking over, as they would not be able to get the short balls to the batsmen so quickly. Given a fair test (same ball, same pitch, same length), the bowler with the highest intial mph is going to be your fastest bowler, even if it appears otherwise on the day.


And Ernie "Why is Fltintoff classified as RFM?". God only knows. Some journo sitting in a office somewhere must have tapped that into his spreadsheet when Fred bowled his first testmatch delivery!

[Occasional Fan]

Goatman - this is great and thanks for spending so much of your long weekend thinking about it. Generally a bit quiet at Whitsun in Utrecht, I guess? I'm glad finally to have had someone show that there really is a practical use for trigonometry, even if you do have to assume spherical balls interacting with perfectly flat, non-elastic pitches (wasn't there one of those in the Windies earlier in the year) in a vacuum.

Just as a practical point, does anyone know how the speed of a ball is measured? Is it instantaneous at point of release (which is how a copper's speed gun works) or is it timed over 22 yards (which is how coppers used to work). Makes little difference given Goatman's analysis (or my speeding fine history), but I wouldn't mind knowing.

[Goatman]

I THINK its a light-doppler system - a speed gun. So it'll be the instant of release, or just after. Whatever, we can be sure its the same point and its before the bounce. If its the mean speed (over 22 yards) then thats it - all over. The fastest bowler in every respect is the one with the highest measured mph,

[Rachael]

Great post Goatman.

I can't help feeling we're re-inventing the wheel here: someone, somewhere, must have thought all this through.. written it up... and posted it on a website. Anyone care to do some surfing?

Point of comparison on the deceleration during impact: in tennis there is generally a stack more spin on the ball than there is in cricket... but what this emphasises is the discrepency between "skiddy" and "bouncy" trajectories.

If Kirtley or Edwards, bowling with a low, round-arm, slingy action, actually get the ball rotating fairly vigorously in the way a good slice does in tennis.. it might make a bit of difference in the air (flatter trajectory)... but the real difference would be on impact with a grassy surface on a good length... where very little energy would be lost in an impact that will simply see the seam slide along the deck as if it were a frictionless surface.

Of course.. try the same show on a dry and dusty shale or claycourt surface... and the damn ball decelerates like I don't know what: the trajectory and spin just leads to huge surface areas digging-out and dragging-along a tidal-wave of small particles... until the ball eventually either dies (if you get it right) or pops up in the air at a virtual standstill (if you are a club hacker).

The obverse, in tennis, is the topspin... where all the forward momentum is carried into a much steeper impact... which on cold, damp day (when the balls have no life in them) sees the energy completely taken out of the shot and the fuzzy thing just sit up at a nice height with a sign on saying "hit me".... but on a good day sees the ball positively explode off the pitch with the rotational energy translated into additional air speed (leading club hackers the other end into much foaming at the mouth).

The difference in seam bowling must be far less marked.. but I suspect there are at least some parallels.

[Ernest]

Originally Posted by Goatman

Right. I thought a lot about this over the weekend and came to a few conclusions. Its rather long I'm afraid:-

SO:- if two bowlers of different height bowl at the same initial speed at the same length on the same pitch - the ball gets to the batsman at as close to the same time as makes no difference. In test ("Fair") conditions, the player with the highest intial mph is the fastest bowler, simple as that.


PItch state may also play a role. We hear about skidders and extra bounce and so on. From the pure angle point of view, just like for trajectory, the height difference between quick bowlers will make very little difference. Ernest reckons in some conditions this will be reversed. I'm not sure about this - I can see no mechanism. Maybe I am wrong, but if Ernest is right its one of those anti-intuitive situations the world throws up every now and again to keep us on our toes. Anyone care to postrun and experiment and find out?


And Ernie "Why is Fltintoff classified as RFM?". God only knows. Some journo sitting in a office somewhere must have tapped that into his spreadsheet when Fred bowled his first testmatch delivery!

Good Morning MR G..
Very good post,I think we are in agreement on this one.

It is clear that if two bowlers of different heights bowl at the same speed,and at the same length,on a wicket identical in every way,then it is clear that the ball will arrive at the batsman at almost identical times,the reason I say almost,and the difference is so small as to be insignificant.but due to the trajectory of the ball,would the ball of the shorter guy get there first,my reasoning being that the shorter bowler would extract less bounce,therefore it would take the taller bowlers ball that spit second longer to arrive at the batsman,because of the greater trajectory would take it further up the batsmans body?I think this is what you are saying,in the first paragraph I have edited to.

Why is Bugger a swearword,and stronger for that matter,could it be that one night a King or some other ruler,was that bored, he said to his wife,Helen got to be seen to be doing something,I will decree it as a swereword,probably a decentant of he.s that decided Flintoff is Fast Mediam.

2004,you know you have arrived at that date when you accidenentely,type your password,into the microwave,or e-mail the guy sitting at the next desk to you.
Good read Mr G,never mind how long it is

[Goatman]

Technically, in a fair test the taller bowlers ball will get to the batsman slightly later, but it will be of the order of (gimme a sec.......) 0.00025 seconds later. I'm not sure many batsmen would notice that. So I reckon height makes no difference to speed, at least as far as trajectory goes.

For those that are interested, bowling speed looks something like this (2's all represent "squared"):-

T = √(L2+ H2) + √((20 - L)2+ ((20 – L)/cosq))2
...............U................................. V


Where T = time to the batsman


L = pitched length

H = the height of the bowler (to hand at release)

U = initial speed

V = speed after the pitch, so that V = U x r, where r is the relative deceleration during the bounce (ie. r < 1); it would also be anticipated that r a Icos (L/√(L2 + H2))

q = the angle of the balls trajectory as it rises after pitching, so that q = (Icos ((L/√(L2 + H2)) x r

I'll leave you to your day now

[Ernest]

Originally Posted by Goatman

Technically, in a fair test the taller bowlers ball will get to the batsman slightly later, but it will be of the order of (gimme a sec.......) 0.00025 seconds later. I'm not sure many batsmen would notice that. So I reckon height makes no difference to speed, at least as far as trajectory goes.

Hello mr G

I wonder did that 0.00025 seconds ever make a difference some place,I mean you can never say no can you?,I think such a difference may have made all the differance if D Pringe had been the batsman,now I know how he kept getting out,it was the taller bowlers

I am not going to check your maths,I will give you the benefit of the doubtchuckle.