Re: Australian Cricket - Crisis, What Crisis ??
Reply #2203 –
Some might argue Wagner is substituting a bodyline approach due to lack of ability and it makes the game a neanderthal one where we will have teams looking for 200cm plus giant fast bowlers
to engage in bouncer warfare like in the hey day of the Windies. Watching Wagner bowling 130k short stuff and Wade taking it on the body was comical rather than entertaining IMO.
Smith looked vulnerable like Wade so we are going to see an endless barrage of non descript short stuff due to the road like nature of all the wickets in Australia?
At least in English conditions its a battle of skill rather than who has the taller quicker bowlers....
I don't consider Curtley Ambrose, Joel Garner or Jeff Thompson less skilled than James Anderson, they just have different skills!
In contrast I could probably claim that recent events and rule changes limiting short pitched bowling, to make the game friendlier to participate in at lower levels, have left batsmen less skilled in dealing with it. What would Ian Chappell, Gordon Greenidge or Viv Richards have done to Wagner, Kim Hughes even and Kim was hardly a hard man of the game?
That doesn't make the Wade / Wagner tussle less interesting, it just makes it different from the norm and somewhat extending the range of Test Cricket beyond modern vanilla!