Carlton Supporters Club

Bit more than intimidation IMO, he is bowling to hit blokes and then waiting at the top of his mark laughing as they lay on the ground.....its got out of hand.
We probably started it with Cummins doing some enforcing but Root has taken it to a new level with Archer and he is delighting in opposing players getting hurt and to me its
not exciting but dangerous.

That peanut who abused Smith was in the Long Room is lucky that he wasn't dropped on the spot.   Happy to bag Smith but probably applauded Root,  who is a bare faced liar and a cheat.

Gee...what would I give to see Punter in his prime take on this joker.....& lets face it, Archer is still over 10kph slower than the likes of Lee & Akhtar.

I don't think the Aussies will give a flying hoot if Archer continues this type of attack....doesn't get top level batsmen out & of all countries, we grow up on this stuff.  of the all the great players of short pitched bowling over the years, the vast majority of them are Aussies, for very good reason.  if there are any batsmen in our top order who CANT handle this....their spot should be vacated.

Gee...what would I give to see Punter in his prime take on this joker.....& lets face it, Archer is still over 10kph slower than the likes of Lee & Akhtar.

The danger with Archer is his accuracy and ability to get
the ball up off a length. Andy Roberts is the bowler that Archer is being compared to and he bowled in similar fashion and a lot of good batsman said Roberts had the most dangerous bouncer out of all the top quicks in that era.

And then, back to basics of defence.

Don't take your eye off the ball, weave left or right, keep the guards and helmet between your face and the pill.

Never, ever, turn your back or head on the ball!

And your bat high as a last split second reflex line.

Helmets (& yes, I accept that they are a necessary part of the game now) have actually contributed to more & more batsmen getting hit in modern cricket.  Batting techniques are far too reliant on the safety net of the helmet & the first move is that push onto the front foot before the ball is even delivered......from that point...they are a sitting duck for the well directed short ball.

Batsmen in the pre-helmet days just didn't have that safety net & so their technique was far better developed to deal with short pitched bowling, their footwork was better, & they used the bat to repel the ball from a better defensive position going back to the short ball, not forwards.  There are at least 3 or 4 helmet hits per test it seems now, yet a batsman getting hit on the head pre-helmet days was a rarity & a shock when it did happen.

I certainly don't have a problem with bowlers bowling short at times (not the only method of attack mind you), they need to have some comeback against the ridiculous power in modern bats, roped in boundaries & batsmen who happily prop on the front foot safe in the knowledge that if they stuff up, they're not (usually) going to injured anyway.

I had a coach that taught me to remove the bottom hand and you could basically get the shoulder of the bat above your head and play the ball to ground one-handed. You could use your lower arm forearm as a brace behind the bat. That skill also helped greatly with back foot drives, see any Steve Waugh highlights when he is back-foot driving with the blade of the bat basically coming down past his lower hand elbow.

Not many test players do it, they are poorly coached in my opinion. It makes dealing with the short delivery so much easier because the risk of being hit in the face is greatly reduced and you stay in control.

Another strange thing some test players do is bat deep in the crease, straight away they can't move back freely and they get pinged by short deliveries.