I agree with parts of this, and disagree with some of it. Athletes are doing a lot more training etc but there is a great argument as to whether it is the right sort of training. Certainly, I think overall they are far more athletic- not only fast bowlers but cricketers overall… however, I believe a Trueman or a Tyson would probably be as dangerous today as they were in the 50’s.
And I would say that a lot of modern batsmen would not be very comfortable facing them with no helmet and far less body armour.
In Bradman’s time there were a lot more factors that made fast bowlers pretty difficult (good fast bowlers). There were sticky wickets, different actions, and- as was seen in Bodyline- different rules.
It is very difficult to judge- I would not think that McGrath would be a lesser bowler than Wesley Hall- maybe a more skillful but certainly less express bowler- great bowlers of any era will dominate.
That’s certainly true. If you assume that the great players of the past were “transplanted” to today, and had access to the same advances in nutrition, medicine, kinesiology and so on, there’s no reason they wouldn’t be great.
Look I am not saying that a modern bowling attack which suddenly has to face Bradman at 24 will not be saying “oh fuck”. The point is that the game has changed in drastic ways since then.
Bowling
The bowlers can make the ball misbehave in ways that could not be imagined in his time. Reverse swing, doosras, change of pace etc. And they can do it consistently at a rate that will shock him, he will get very few bad balls. Indeed from what I have read of accounts by players, who played in the 60-80 era (when modern cricket was born), that was emphasized, you could no longer hope for a bad ball to ease pressure.
**fielding **
Fielding today is a whole different universe from 20 years ago never mind 80. Bradman will see shots which would have been boundaries in his time being intercepted. Fielders will routinely take catches which would not even have been considered chances. Direct hits will be far greater.
Running between the wicket
Not really a skill that was taught in Bradmans time. Batsman today are expected to rotate the strike and take quick singles
re the Catholic protestant divide, I would like to know more. How did it effect the Performance of the State and National sides? I presume it reflected society as a whole.
Re the Catholic/Protestant ‘divide’ in the team - the only people it is ever brought up about is Bradman and O’Reilly. Bradman was the solitary, non-drinking, quiet puritan stereotype not greatly popular with teammates (Protestant) while O’Reilly was portrayed (mostly as a counter-point to Bradman) as the feisty, aggressive hard-playing, hard-partying Irishman (Catholic).
There was a bit of an issue in the 1936/37 season where the Aussies were getting belted by the poms, and the selectors and Chief Officials decided to ask the players what was wrong - but they didn’t go to Bradman (who was captain) - they asked O’Reilly and a couple of other senior players. It does seem to have been a bit of an odd thing to do. Anyway, Australia fought back and won the series (inevitably, Bradman was the star), O’Reilly felt let down by Bradman (no support) and the issue would never have been brought up except Fingleton wrote about in the 1950s, hinting at ‘factions’ and the like, and inventing spurious reasons (religous divide).
I cannot think of a single other reference in Australian Cricket to religous differences affecting any part of the Australian team. But it’s the colour and controversies tha make sport history interesting (even if invented). Stats are dull.
Both Fingleton and O’Reilly thought Bradman was the best batsman they ever saw - yes, O’Reilly thought he had a ‘chance’ against Bradman, but he also acknowledged he usually got destroyed by him.
I will say that Fingleton is the best Cricket Writer I have ever read - Cricket Crisis (about Bodyline) is one of the greatest sports books ever written.
Which is why the recently teleported Bradles wouldn’t be losing sleep over the prospect of facing the pie chuckers of todays ICC second tier, nor many of the 1st tier. How often in days of yore did the first ball of a Test end up taken by second slip, without being touched by the batsman?
Let’s not get too nostalgic. Glen McGrath rarely bowled a delivery much above 70mph. Didn’t need to. Best described as “military medium”, he was a preeminent spearhead for over a decade because line and length are more important than pace . Which is precisely why the bigger, stronger, fitter modern athlete is not ipso facto a better bowler. Better fielder, unquestionably.
And just to remind the freshers that those old timers would bowl upward of 100 8-ball overs in a day’s play. Nowadays they struggle to bowl 90 6-ball overs in the day … and break down with a frequency that makes millionaires of sports orthopaedic surgeons.
Marvellous. Maybe if they spent more time practicing their craft by actually bowling and less time working out in the gym they wouldn’t need so much time in either wads of protective cotton wool or in the recovery suite.
McGrath bowled mid 80’s most of the time. Point was that he could and did bowl fast when be wanted/needed to. Not the case today. I would agree, today’s bowlers break down more often. The improved fitness comes at a price, they can perform amazingly in short bursts but they cannot go the long haul. They don’t play near the level they did in the old days, even as much as they did two decades ago.
I would add that McGrath himself has said that he didn’t believe speed cameras were especially accurate with bowlers of height. Be that as it may, he was never express- he was just a clever bowler.
Wallaby, thinking back, I believe you are correct about the Catholic/Protestant argument being bought up about Bradman and O’Reilly and being pretty well ignored elsewhere.
I don’t recall either O’Reilly or Fingleton saying Bradman was the best they saw (though of course they may have). Without asking specifically for a cite, is there a book or other reference which I could look at?
And Pentultimute Thule, the 8 ball over was used predominantly in Australia. It was briefly used in RSA and NZ I think, but it was more the exception than the rule.
I think more of a fitness sort of guide would be the players on tour in England (as an example) would play a game, get on a train to arrive to play a game the next day. (1920’s). However, the tours would only happen every few years.
As I said, Cricket Crisis by Fingleton is a brilliant book. He points out how Bodyline was specifically formulated to target Bradman, because the Poms accepted that he was just too good. Sure, it worked on everyone else as well, but it was only initially implemented because of Bradman. But once the genie was out of the bottle, they had to ban it.
In the book, Fingleton picks his best ever side - and leaves out Bradman! The reason being he says ‘Bradman was automatic - and too good. He swamps everyone else’. Fingleton proposes to send his World XI on tour with Bradman - but Bradman always plays for the opposition.
Also in the book, he writes about O’Reilly and his (O’Reilly’s) impressions of opposition batsmen. The comments are open to interpretation. He calls Ponsford ‘the Greatest’ and Bradman ‘The best - handled me like no other’. You could argue either way. O’reilly really disliked Bradman - not because of Protestan/Catholic thing, but more because he felt he was a lousy player’s rep (the Captain is supposed to represent the team to management). When O’Reilly became a journo, he was of the ‘Modern Players - Bah! It was tougher and better in my day!’ school. Feisty Irishman, indeed.
Cricket is with Baseball, Horse Racing and Boxing the sports that have the biggest library of literature. And by anyone’s recommendation, Cricket Crisis is one of the greatest cricket books ever written.
Yet a person of the calibre of Benaud said Bradman was the best administrator he had known. (Not exactly the same thing). However, if you draw a line through the way Bradman was treated (having to leave NSW etc) you would imagine he would have been a bit sympathetic to the players.
RNATB, I remember them from the late 60’s and into the early 70’s. They were good in the sense that fields did not have to be placed so frequently (as in running from one end to the other) and I don’t really remember any complaints from the bowlers either. To some extent it gave them a better chance to set up a batsman.
And those were the days when we had Wes Hall and Charlie Griffith off very long runs.
I guess we fell into conformity with other nations.
As an aside it would be interesting to ask someone like Warne or Murali what they would think of an 8 ball over. (Maybe not Warne as I think he is as thick as three posts).
Honestly, I always thought the six ball over was the worst thing about cricket. Made it like an American sport - three minutes of play, then three minutes of shuffling around.
Hmm, I believe even in India they generally manage more than ten overs an hour. Foot-dragging as a matter of policy didn’t really come in until after WW2, though there were occasional exceptions before. I even read somewhere that while Victoria were piling up 1107 all out against New South Wales, the over-rate averaged 18 8-ball overs per hour.
In evening cricket in England, I’ve sometimes seen matches played over 15 8-ballers a side to save a bunch of field changes and make the most of the daylight. But then over here in high summer you can start at 6 pm and be done before sunset.
It has always been a 6-ball over in England (and in most other countries). Australia and NZ played 8-ball overs up intil the late 70s. There does not appear to be much discernable difference between them in how the game pans out. Then, when Packer started World Series Cricket, commercial TV coverage set the rules. 6-Ball overs = more overs = more breaks between overs = more ad breaks.
Like every sport, cricket is now played at a funereal pace. The players and spectators have just got used to it, and when you mention previous over rates of 15 8-ball or 20 6-ball overs per hour, people are disbelieving.
It’s funny that you say that. I had never really noticed that it is such a general trend, but in sports that I see, you are right, most are now really stop/start, painfully slow and often tedious. And this is entirely the opposite of the trend in all other entertainment. I wonder how this relates to the fact that, with a few notable exceptions, much modern professional sport appears to be played in near empty stadiums.