A program on Foxsports in Oz called Inside Cricket included Allan Border on it's panel and he made an interesting observation in light of New Zealand's poor batting in the 1st Test against South Africa. On a pitch that didn't seem to hold too many terrors for the batsmen the SAF bowlers extracted bounce which troubled the NZ batsmen. Border claims most international teams struggle on bouncy wickets these days. Is that because batsmen play more one-day cricket on flat wickets and lack the mental application and/or technique to cope with bouncy deliveries?

It would appear to be a mixture of both,when you look at Steve Harmison over the last few years he has been played easily by most players throughout the world and then when he plays at Old Trafford where he has had more bounce he has looked deadly and the batsmen have bottled it or lacked the technique to cope with the slight change.

Then again it isn't a surprise that batsmen fail on the odd harder/bouncier pitch as the bowling standards have dropped worldwide and the pitches are flatter so when you meet something different it catches them out and they can't get out of their comfort zone.

So do you think the same batsmen would look any better than muppets if they had been facing the swinging ball in the hands of Hoggard and Simon Jones at Trent Bridge in 2005? Do you think they have what it takes to linger on the back foot and counter late movement?

How about seam movement: do you think most modern batsmen would survivve long on an uncovered wicket? That tended to sort out those who played stand-and-deliver cricket... and those modern batsmen who never get the bat and pad together when defending would have had a VERY short innings expectancy.

How about spin? Can they dance down the track to anything on a length and play late dabs off the back foot to anything short? Michael Clarke can. Bell can. I'm sure others can. I'm NOT convinced that most can.

With that said... I'm sure there are players in 1st class cricket who could do all the above better than many players in Test cricket. The problem is that selectors seem keener to pick the guys who can do most damage on pitches on which Boycott's mum could bat all day - so we get folk whose backlift is too high, whose foot movement is too early and whose hands are too high.... but who can force the ball out of the park by hitting through the line.

It's not a matter of incompetence in the face of steepling bounce... it's just plain incompetence.

Yes: And this will continue while we allow test players to take part full time in one day cricket.

It does not matter the same in the subcontinent because wickets tend to be flatter there, and history shows that they are hard to beat at home, although they struggle on the bouncier wickets at times away from home.

One sad cricket does harm to rest cricket in three main ways,

• It burns players out with the long one day series, after a often hard fought test series.
• It harms the technique of player who play shots, and bowl in certain styles they would not dream of playing in test cricket.
• Last we come to the pitches, one day cricket pitches are almost most by default 'easy', and players just can't come to terms with playing proper cricket, in particular on sporting wickets ( as few as they are).

__________________
Ern

Allan Border and Steve Waugh probably would. And not just against trundling seamer/swingers averaging mid 130 kph.

Those two taught themselves how to do it on very ordinary pitches with a lot of variable bounce, against an attack of four quality fast bowlers averaging mid - high 140 kph occasionally touching 160 kph.

For prolonged spells with minimal batting Armour 20 years ago, compared to the luxury of pad's and helmet's modern day players put on.

I have extreme admiration for Allan Border, especially his trademark "baseball style" pull shot against the 70's & 80's West Indies quality pace bowlers. I cannot remember any other batsmen in the world at that time other than David Gower and Steve Waugh, prepared to open up their midrift with a big risk of being hit and pulling the West Indies pacemen.

Us Aussies are still thanking Allan Border every time we see Ricky Ponting play a pull shot.

P.S Like a good superannuation policy, Ricky plays that shot with some compounded interest added.

I think we are in a bit of a sports science renaissance.

Clarke, Bell and Tendulkar can do it like the old masters.

But a new generation Symonds, Gilchrist, Hayden, Pietersen, Shewag, Smith and a new Australian terror you probably have not seen much of yet; but more than likely will in the next ashes series Luke Ronchi (Gilly's personal apprentice).

These players rely mainly on muscle power and extremely good hand/eye coordination accompanied by super hand speed.

They have the power, the bat speed and the eye coordination; to slog the spinners out of the park.

If we keep making grounds smaller, bats better, wicket's easier to player on, batsmen more well protected and batsmen faster and stronger.

Bowler's are going to suffer.

I think we have gone to far, I would actually be tempted to shorten the pitch by 4 meters to help re-establish the batting / bowling balance.

Wow. I've been in favour of redressing the batsman-bowler balance for some time.. but that's kinda radical

I'd still rather see modern science and technology used to produce covered wickets that behave as the old uncovered pitches did: sure, we want the technology to ensure that games resumes ASAP after rain... but the game also needs pitches that start with some pace in them and a green tinge, fine cracks that gradually open up over 3-4 days and surfaces that degrade to serious rough through 2-3-4 days of normal wear and tear.

I'd like to go back to the days when the bowler could openly tamper with the ball. When one watches the likes of Michael Holding clearly picking and lifting the seam one wonders whether they would be as successful now if they had to simply shine it.

No.

It's because they aren't good enough.

Agree totally with you on that Rachael.

Even the one dayers have become ad-nauseam boring, due to us rolling up expecting near on 300 runs per innings, and more often than not getting it. And a team that's only lost about half its wickets.

The late 80's early 90's were a lot more exciting, not because of easier runs.

But because there was still a challenge between bat and ball.

It did not matter whether a team was chasing down 180, 190, 200 or 210; it was still often an enthralling contest.

And not just on the one dayer arena, test matches where runs were hard to come by.

You have probably witnessed a lot of great innings on English pitches.

But the innings on an unfavorable Australian pitch that stands out in my mind the most.

For courage and defying the odds on an extremely bowler friendly pitch against a top attack ( Garner, Holding, Croft and Roberts )

I was extremely fortunate as a 16 year old from Ballarat to be in "Bay 13" that day ( boxing day 81 ) at the "MCG"
To witness after the team was perilously poised at 3-8 during the first half hour of play. Kim Hughes make the greatest century I have ever seen live or on Television to this day.

Kim approached his century with a hook shot that lofted over mid off to the boundary. But the way wickets fell constantly through the day, you had to be pretty bold. And when he got his century the crowd was dumbfounded (a) he survived { it was a quick century 3 hours } (b) and the West Indies bowling attack was dumbfounded { they all went up and personally congratulated him, even "Andy" who is normally pretty shy about that type of thing }

But he also inspired what was to follow in the next half hour.

Australia was all out for under 200 but the West Indies had to spend a bit of time batting against the resurgent "Aussie crowd"

Result half an hour of Aussie bliss on field revolving around Dennis Lillee and to a lesser extent Terry Alderman. Viv Richards clean bowled for a "golden duck" the West Indies reeling at 4-10 at stump's.
The group of us underage alcohol drinkers easily procuring the drinks and spending the next 4 hours chanting Lillee-Lillee until we got pretty close to being back home in our beds at Ballarat.

Also high on on the "Come on Aussie Come on" chant post World Series Cricket.

Magical days of when we still had a dragon to slay.

Those days stopped when Allan Border pulled "Excalibur" out of the rock.

Cricket has pretty much become a cold hard business since then.

AB was superb in dodgy situations and when his team needed him most. His watchfullness and technique enabled him to stand out.

On the subject of the pull shot he used to play against the Windies quicks I feel it only faor to put the name of Allan Lamb forward. His record against the fearsome Windies attack was good and he was never afraid to take them on. Also, anyone remember Randall playing Lillee quite brilliantly in the Centenary Test?

Having watched much of my cricket at Trent Bridge in the eighties I remember many good battles between bat an ball. The pitches were, more often than not, a little sporting on Day One to enable Hadlee to skittle the opposition; good to bat on Day Two so Notts could score some runs and then on Day Three they would turn so that Hemmings could finish things off for Notts. That's all well and good if you win the toss, if you don't you then have to be very good at adapting which that Notts side was extremely good at doing!