Bouncing Yorkers

Years from now, if someone were to see this picture without a caption detailing its context, it is unlikely that anyone is going to believe that it is that one of the greatest ever South African batsmen trying to evade a snorter from an Indian medium pacer in South Africa, in their own den- the Kingsmead in Durban! This picture tells a story, as does the result of the test match at Durban, where supposedly the green and bouncy track was supposed to have blown away the Indians: the story is that the current crop of medium pace bowlers India possesses are perfectly capable of making the most capable of batsmen hop and fish if they were to get a seaming and bouncy pitch.

This is a lesson which overseas teams don’t seem to have absorbed- at the WACA in 2008, Shaun Tait was supposed to blow away Indian batsmen, but it was the Aussies who were blown away by the swing and seam of R.P.Singh and Ishant Sharma. And now, Durban…

As the captain Dhoni sai on the likelihood of encountering a green pitch at the Newlands in Cape Town for the decider, “the greener the pitch, the better it is” , it is very clear that the Indians are confident of doing well on seaming tracks. I believe the Indian batsmen are more adept at playing the moving ball than batsmen in some other parts of the world, including Australia and South Africa, while their bowlers are skilled at seam and swing bowling, which makes up for their lack of pace on helpful tracks. More than seam or swing- or for that matter, pace- the challenge seems to be bounce and that is something that the Indian batsmen have still some way to go before conquering.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 1st, 2011 at 2:01 am and is filed under Cricket. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.