We had a lot of batmen in the last decade that had test averages in excess of 50.Reasons were flat tracks, lack of quality pacebowlers and too many matches having adverse impact on pace bowlers' fitness.
But with the entrance of Cummin, Pattinson, Philander, Junaid and couple of other quality quicks, it would be a reasonable prediction to make that batters will not do as well as they did in the last decade.
Also ,this means that batsmen with correct technique and strong mental attitude are only ones that are going to prosper in the next 5-7 yrs atleast.Success ratio of sloggers will go sharply down. End of an era where batters had inflated averages, batting records been broken frequently and high scoring draws were the only realistic result in subcontinent.
Subcontinental sides can only prosper outside subcontinent if they have minimum 2 world class quicks otherwise they will be mutilated just like India have been in the last 6 months or so.
End of batsmen's dominance
posted on 4/1/12
Strange timing considering Kallis and Clarke both hitting double hundreds yesterday/today.
posted on 4/1/12
I think there has been a concious effort to leave grass on the pitches. This alone has been the reason why sloggers have struggled of late.
Even good batsmen had picked up a lot of bad habbits including playing from the crease. I think we will see a string of low scores across the board and then we'll see the techniques tightning up and run rates going down.
posted on 4/1/12
Duncan
Only Aussies and SouthAfricans had quality pacebowlers for overwhelming majority of time between 2000-2009.England's bowlers performance was cyclical and Pakistan's faster men did not regular cricket for variety of reasons.India and Srilanka never produced quality quicks regularly.
D Jeezus Mackaroni
Clarke, Ponting and Kallis are champion batsmen and they would have succeeded under any era.Point of the Article is u need correct technique and true grit and determination to succeed as a batter in the next 5-7 atleast in international cricket.No more sloggers but u need potent bowling force to become a top team which was not the case few years ago.
posted on 4/1/12
posted on 4/1/12
Any reason why Bresnan, Broad, Finn, Andersen, Swann were left off the OPs list? These are the boys that are going to destroy many batsmens averages
posted on 4/1/12
Anderson, Broad and co are the best in the world but I was only referring to new entrants and the ones u are talking about have been in existence for a while.
posted on 4/1/12
Comment Deleted by Site Moderator
posted on 4/1/12
In response to the reference to McGrath and co. comment, these were bowlers who enjoyed there best years in the 90s and early 2000s. it was not untill 2005 and beyond that we really saw the emergence of the true batsmen dominance that we have seen of late.
Of course we had Ponting, Tendulkar, Lara, Dravid and Steve Waugh in the 90s averaging in the 50s, but really that was it, and the rest of the teams in which they played had averages in the high 30s and low 40s. about 2003 we saw the decline of some of the great bowlers, slowly, and more 50+ batsmen began to appear, Sehwag, Sangakkara, Jayawardene, Pietersen and Graeme Smith, and also the standard of the rank and file batsmen improved as well, moving from the 30/40 threshold well into the forties.
I think we will see a reverse of that trend in the next few years, with the exception of those batsmen who have good technique (Cook, Trott, Bell, Clarke, de Villiers and Gambhir will be the greats of the next era, i think)
posted on 5/1/12
Jezzer- "Of course we had Ponting, Tendulkar, Lara, Dravid and Steve Waugh in the 90s averaging in the 50s,"
Ponting !!?? He peaked when the batting conditions were best ever around the world. 2000s.
posted on 5/1/12
This match proves once again how much Ponting has feasted upon flat tracks and poor bowling recently.