I've been watching the opening spells of Lee and Johnson this morning against Jaffer and Dravid at the MCG. Lee has been consistently bowling at 145kmh and occasionally reaching 150kmh. Jaffer and Dravid have been very cautious and leaving anything outside off-stump so Ponting placed a man at short-leg. Dravid was dropped in the slips - a difficult chance, low to the fielders right, one-handed attempt. Then Lee gets Jaffer to nick one to Gilchrist with a change of pace - dropping down to 127kmh. Jaffer was neither forward or back - bat simply raised in defence. I mentioned earlier that fast bowlers have an array of dismissal types to focus on. The slower ball has got the breakthrough. As I type, Dravid has got another life having been caught by Hayden off a no-ball by Johnson. Dravid has now had two lifes and he hasn't made a run, yet, from 37 balls faced. I doubt Hoggard and Sidebottom could have exerted so much pressure on this slowish pitch.

Update: Lee and Johnson have finished their opening spells having bowled 7 overs apiece. 8 maidens were sent down for 13 runs and 1 wicket. That sort of pressure enabled Ponting to set 5 slips, a short cover and a point. As soon as Lee and Johnson were replaced by slower bowlers Ponting has been forced to set a more regulation field with only two slips. This is why fast bowlers are so important in Test cricket. They can dry up the runs and put pressure on batsmen.

If Harmison could bowl more consistently England would have a decent attack with Harmison and Hoggard as the new ball bowlers followed by Flintoff and Sidebottom.

After an initial purple patch, Lee spent getting on for five years being carried by colleagues in the Aussie attack: I can't be bothered to look up the stats afresh... but away from home I believe he's managed to have a major impact in just two series - by and large he's been nothing special whatsoever.

In recent times Lee's shown major signs of improvement... but with god only knows how many Tests he's played... he's hardly fresh from being picked out of a crowd in a pub!

As for Johnson... he's been identified as class from the start... and is another bowler who did NOT have pace and who has developed pace at the hands of the coaches. You don't find the action he's got every day... and almost certainly not in pubs... and he'd be good at 85 mph. The fact that he can now bowl faster than that is just a bonus.

No Rachael

You are totally wrong.

Johnson has always been able to bowl around 150 kph and at times quicker. You are only looking at the last 3-4 years of Mitchell Johnson. Jeff Thomson had him identified as a talent as a 19-20 year old whilst he was playing in the Brisbane district comp along with Thommo's son. Johnson was sent into the Australian Cricket academy and floundered rather than blossomed.

At some stage Jeff Thomson came back into contact with him and decided to take a more direct involvement in Mitchell including getting Thommo's old fast bowling mate Dennis Lillee firmly out of the equation.

Thommo's famous words were Dennis filled his head with ####, and I cleaned it back out of him.

In that case why did Dexter pick such **** as Bicknell, Illot, Pringle etc.... during his reign as chairmen of selectors.
I know you have a downer on Devon Malcolm but Steve Waugh and the Aussies at the time had a different view on this as they were always pleased when England dropped Malcolm for some trundler (who was then always innefective.

That is 100% spot on DSOTM. The old saying is "fast bowlers are born and not made". Without fast twitch muscles you cant bowl fast period.

Colly may have added a yard with coaching but is going from 72mph to 76mph really going to scare batsman??? Its the same with Broad 80mph to 84mph still means he's medium paced.

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Mark.

Darren Gough was naturally fast.

But appeared to have to sacrifice his pace often to please some kind of coach or team manager ?

I think in Goughs case his body was too fragile to sustain bowling fast and he had to slow down at times to avoid falling apart! Thankfully he was the sort of player to tell the management to ****** off if they told him to bowl slower

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Mark.

Collingwood might be able to get his speed up to 80mph but he can only do it for one over. Broad, not used to Test cricket could only hold 85mph for about 8 overs and in the end was bowling at 75mph. How he ever overtook Tremlett after only 10 over spells in ODIs I don't know. Tremlett was able to keep his speed through 40 overs in the summer even though he was exhausted at the end.

My understanding was that Collingwood (like most competent seamers) had was able to bowl at 80 mph even before finding the "extra yard" of pace: I believe he's now quite capable of hitting the mid 80s now. He not let down by his pace but by his subtlety and sophistication. If he had Fernando's well disguised variations in pace, could bowl cutters as well as Cairns and got a higher proportion of balls in the right place he'd be a superb 4th seamer even at his current pace.

This is all rather beside the point though: Dexter should have been focussing on improving standards in domestic cricket and developing genuine bowlers through a system (as the Aussies did) rather than on finding some sort of miracle-cure to whatever failings he saw at national level.

The concern with finding a miracle player who could paper over cracks in the system is what I found most pathetic.

So would I

I agree there. The reason we only produced trundlers (and substandard batsman) during the late 80's early 90's was that our pitches were too slow and only rewarded any old meduim pacer. They would trundle in and get extravagant assistance regardless of where they pitched the ball. However if they bowled too fast they wouldnt get the assistance and so were innefective on the slow wickets. These bowlers were useless in test cricket as they wouldnt get the help from the wicket and they were too slow to threaten batsman.

I recall Andy Caddick being interviewed after his first match and he said the biggest difference in test cricket was that "you never get wickets that flat in the champoinship" and this was on a damp Old Trafford wicket offering plenty of help.


Speaking of batsman they struggled because they were used to playing on minefields where the only way to have any hope of surviving was to stick your foot down the wicket and either hope to survive or play some shots whilst waiting for the inevitable....... Hardly ideal preparation for test cricket.

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Mark.

No I think you have lost the plot here Rachael - the press speculation that Collinwood had become a mid 80mph bowler a couple of years ago - never amounted to anything.

If Collingwood could bowl repeatedly at 80mph, never mind the middle 80's - then why have England been mucking about with sub standard, or players not yet ready like Sidebottom and Broad?.

You are probably right here acker more than you realise: Dennis Lilee spotted the warning signs about over coaching in English cricket in the late 70's and 80's, and made this observation over Botham.

Lillee said 'Coach Botham, and he will be ruined'; I have not used quote marks as these may not be the exact words, but as near as makes no difference.

This attitude could explain why Devon Malcolm could take 9 South African wickets, and find hisself dropped not long after, he was a natural wicket taker who could go for runs, but coaching would have taken yards of his pace.

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Ern