Golden Age of Batting ?

Amit Verma has started a new discussion on Wicket to Wicket a blog run by Cricinfo. The topic being whether the game has become too friendly for batsmen such that matches like this one are happening.

Let me add my two cents worth to the discussion. Amit starts off with a rip van winkle who goes to sleep in the 1980s and wakes up in 2006 to watch the afore mentioned match. Let me slightly change it. Lets say I am a test batsman (yeah yeah I am always dreaming about it) making my debut in 1980. I know I am gonna get screwed. The Windies have a fearsome pace attack, the Aussies have Lilee and Thompson, the English have Botham and co, Indians have Kapil (theres Dhileep Doshi a highly under rated spinner) and the Pakis have Imran and co. . Now the same night a genie appears and tells me I can either give up this chance and instead play in 2004-05 against the strongest bowling attack, the Aussies. Now what would I do.

Lets see the Aussies have Gillespie, McGrath, Lee and Warne (Mr Kasper and McGill will have to bear with me). Now given this choice what would I do, definitely plump for 2004. Gillespie and McGrath are good bowlers mind you but then once the pitch is flat pretty much ineffective and nowhere close in pace to some of the pacers mentioned above. Lee is quick but his bounce is nowhere near close to what "Big Bird" Joel Garner can generate. And Warne has pretty much no variety, only a leg break and more works on a batsmans mind with his reputation

Point I am getting to is that the bowlers after 2000 are just not penetrative enough to cause any batsman to lose sleep(though Mr Glichrist would have something to say about a certain Mr Flintoff). And no there were flat pitches in the 1980s also. There were and thats why lots of conossieurs rate this innings as the best they have seen at Chepauk (even though Sachin scored which in my opinion was the best innings he has ever played in his life in 1999 there against Pakistan). Viswanath did not even score a century only a 97, on a bouncy track. And that merits a full coloumn on it in the newspaper that has easily by a huge margin the best sports journalists writing for them in India.

Think about it Pollock has lost his pace, and a patient man like Boycott will never give his wicket to him, Ntini bowls pretty much inswingers the whole day and Gavaskar will dent with all the effort it takes him to lift the mike he speaks into while doing commentary. McGrath is slightly better but again no pace, and is out of ideas once the batsmen start attacking him, a certain Viv Richards is licking his lips in anticipation. Warne, Murali, Vettori and Kumble good turners(the last name has started doing that off late) and probably cause a few problems but only needs to think of Messrs Bedi, Prasanna and Chandra and what do we get, my dreamy batsman still prefers the newer version. The Windies attack probably wouldnt trouble the Mumbai ranji trophy team forget about some of the great batsmen of the 1980s. Shane Bond, Mohammed Asif, Shoaib, Vaas make such contrasts to names like Garner, Roberts, Holding, Marshall, Lilee, Thompson that I think the Chapell brothers would think it was more competitive playing in their backyard.

My take is simple, as long as we had great bowlers and I mean bowlers who could take wickets on any kind of surface like Wasim (just think of Chennai 1999 and ask Rahul Dravid how he was bowled and I think he must still be searching for an answer), Walsh/Ambrose (as a pair were very deadly giving batsmen no breathing space), and Pollock and McGrath lost their pace theres this void of incisive bowlers that has been left behind.

There might be more to it than meets the eye though. The fast bowlers never want to go flat out since they know they have to play so many matches. Also some of the pitches these days are so flat that Michael Holding talks about "pulling a muscle sort of pitch" in his pitch report. In the case of the spinners though theres another problem, they bowl flatter in ODIs to contain and get wickets and are somehow not able to adapt their flight to the longer version. Harbhajan is a typical case. On the other hand Vettori played a lot of test matches before he played an ODI which meant that he stayed an attacking bowlers and thats the reason that he always seems like getting a wicket. It has helped Anil Kumble as well not playing ODI cricket I mean.

So a combination of a lack of penetrative bowlers, aggressive bowling, far too much ODI cricket, flatter pitches have all contributed to this being a golden age of batting.

Just to make my point I was thinking that if some of the so called "great batsmen" of this era were to be transported 20 years back how many would survive:

1. Hayden --> Would have been worked over in no time by the pace quartet of the Windies since his back foot play is as weak as Sunny Deols dances.

2. Ponting --> The lunge forward would only take him to the hospital before he can even get going in his innings, and Wasim has trapped him so many times in front. On the other hand hes a horrible player of quality spin bowling (Bedi would be salivating at the prospect).

3. Gilchrist --> Couldnt work out Flintoff, cant think of what Kapil, Botham or Hadlee could have done, also not very assured against spin.

4 Kallis --> Is equally at ease against spin and pace and has the required patience. Could have survived in the 1980s.

5. Lara --> I think he would have scored against any attack at any time on any ground IF he has the heart to do it. (Though 400 would have been very tough)

6. Sehwag --> Cant play bouncers of Matthew Hoggard. Holding and Marshall would probably have worked him over much too easily the way a IIT-ian would work out the roots of the equation x^2-x-1=0.

7. Dravid --> Has a great technique probably the best to take on any of the bowling attacks.

8. Sachin --> Combining Laras eye with Dravids technique and loads of concentration, Sachin is a truly great batsman so he would have scored heavily even against the greats of the 80s.

9. Inzy --> Picks length earlier than any other batsman in world cricket right now, though his propensity to stay on the back foot goes against him but then again picking length is whats important. Would have survived I guess.

10. Younis Khan, Mohammed Yusuf, Graeme Smith, Pietersen, Vaughan, Sangakkara, Jayasuriya etc etc these are the ones who are making hay while the sun shines!!! Good for them.....Its a long post and my fingers are paining. So I am stopping here. (The poor New Zealand batsmen dont make runs even now except when they are playing the Windies)