Cricket’s fast bowlers, an endangered species
Fast bowlers today are a rare breed. The eighties and nineties were the era when fast bowlers were at their zenith. With the West Indian pace quartet of Michael Holding, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Marshall-c74817, Australia’s Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thompson, Pakistan’s Imran Khan and Sarfaraz Nawaz, fast bowling was the name of the game. England also had some quickies in the form of Ian Botham and Bob Willis.
Fast bowling in the nineties continued with the same vigour of the eighties. We had the likes of Wasim and Waqar from Pakistan, Allan Donald and Shaun Pollock from http://www.senore.com/Cricket/West-Indies-c760.
The modern era has very few quality fast bowlers who play Test cricket. There are only a few to name. South Africa’s Dale Steyn, Pakistan’s Mohammad Amir, England’s James Anderson, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Sri-Lanka-c758’s Lasith Malinga, and Australia’s Mitchell Johnson, to name a few. Fast bowlers like Shoaib Akhtar, Brett Lee and Shaun Tait, hardly play Test cricket or even ODI cricket to some extent.
What prevents the fast bowlers from bowling fast? Well there are quite a few reasons. One of the main reasons is injuries. Fast bowlers do get injured very often these days. We have to look at the several reasons that these fast bowlers get injured. One reason is the type of wickets around the World. Docile and flat wickets take their toll on fast bowlers during Test matches. Another reason is the high amount of cricket being played on flat pitches these days.
Support for the bowlers on the pitches around the World has been decreasing. England, South Africa, Australia and http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-Zealand-c754 have had bowling friendly wickets in the past. But the venom in the pitches outside the subcontinent has died. They are producing flat tracks.
Cricket will stop producing discipline bowlers like Shaun Pollock, Glenn McGrath, and Richard Hadlee. These bowlers were hit the deck bowlers. They will extract any kind of movement out of the track that is available. Tracks these days hardly offer any movement for the bowlers to extract. Cricket has to produce bowlers like http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Wasim-Akram-c96292, Waqar Younis and Imran Khan to match the skill that is required to bowl on these flat tracks.
The game of cricket has been made batting friendly. When modern batsmen play on bowling friendly wickets, low scores are made. Headingly and Sydney Tests this year, in which http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 are prime examples of low scoring Test matches.
Fast bowlers now have to look at different things to take 20 wickets in a Test match. Ball tampering has emerged as a reason. Bowlers and fielders use mints and other unfair means to tamper with the ball, in order to get the ball to reverse swing, when the wicket offers them no assistance. Bowlers have to look for the movement in the air which they can only get if the conditions are a bit overcast. Only bowlers, who have the ability to swing the ball in the air, can survive. Bowlers like Mohammad Amir, Lasith Malinga, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Dale-c52110 Steyn and James Anderson can survive because of their ability to move the ball and deceive the batsman in the air. These bowlers also have a fair bit of pace.
To prevent injuries, fast bowlers need to be rested and rotated. Every team needs a bevy of fast bowlers to choose from. Exclusively reserving them for each format, some for Test cricket, One Day Internationals, and, T20s
Serious attention from the ICC is required. The art of fast bowling is on the decline. Flat wickets and hectic schedules are threatening the future of fast bowling. Spectators will sorely miss fast bowlers sprinting and jumping on to the wicket, bowling toe crushing yorkers, and intimidating batsmen with bouncers.
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