The Hindu : Sport : Odds stacked against bowlers

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Aug 26, 2006

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Odds stacked against bowlers

Bowlers are not fools, but proud competitors and skilled craftsmen, writes PETER ROEBUCK

SHORT-CHANGED? It is quite conceivable that someone like Glenn McGrath would have been even more successful had he belonged to an earlier generation.

Pity the poor bowler. An entire game has conspired to defeat his purposes. An inquest is opened after every low-scoring match but his pleas remain unheard as batsmen once again gorge themselves. In every cricketing controversy that ever arises the bowlers end up on the losing side. And so the cunning begins.

In the rough old days, bowlers could hope periodically to enjoy themselves on helpful surfaces. Months spent in backbreaking work on doped pitches flattened by groundsmen anxious to impress their lords and masters might be balanced by a chance to work upon a rogue or wet pitch. Then a gleam came into their eyes, the look of the suffering whose time had finally come. And a fine time they had of it, the old professionals wheeling away, landing the ball upon a coin.

Such favoured days are nowadays seldom permitted. Nowadays pitches are protected from the elements. Not even the tiniest drop sent down by the thinnest cloud is allowed to compromise their purity. Umpires are likewise unsympathetic. They are better paid, and more anxious to remain on the list. To that end they shake their heads when even the remotest doubt has been detected. Most captains are batsmen, and most officials as well. All of the supposedly great umpires have been "not outers" — Dicky Bird called his autobiography "Not Out!"

Groundsmen are also hostile to the bowler's cause. Woe betide a curator leaving a coating of fresh grass on his pitch, for the batsmen will moan and groan like an overladen barge. Woe betide the greenfinger who produces a dusty track because batsmen will regard it as an affront, and cluck like alarmed hens. Meanwhile, the silence will be deafening whenever the batsmen fill their proverbial boots on a beaten track that turns leather-flingers into bowling machines.

Improved bat technology

Nor is it only a matter of pitches and umpires. Modern bats are thicker. Lighter wood is used. No-one worries that these weapons are as fragile as an actor's ego. They can be replaced. Not long ago Andrew Symonds broke 3 bats in a single innings. Thanks to these logs, the leather can be hit further with less effort. Meanwhile the ball has remained the same. If anything it has become less potent. And woe betide any bowler seeking to make it more accommodating.

Since bats and batsmen have become more powerful it might be imagined that the bowler at least enjoys the benefit of longer boundaries. Quite the opposite. Boundaries have been shortened in an attempt to encourage brighter cricket. No one asked the bowlers about that. Moreover modern batsmen are as well padded as gridiron players. Obviously this takes most of the remaining fun out of bowling. They might as well play with a tennis ball and be done with it.

Over the years bowlers have tried to fight back. Appealing to officialdom has been a waste of time. Realising they must live by their own wits, they have resorted to various strategies, underarm, roundarm, overarm, straightening arm, leg theory, raising the stitches, applying resin to the leather and, say it quietly, gouging the ball.

It's hard to blame them. Every lively pitch, every misbehaving ball provokes howls. Yet the scores keep mounting, so that 500 is routine, 300 a calamity. No wonder the bowlers rebel. They are not fools, but proud competitors and skilled craftsmen. And they know the dice have been loaded.

Next time the score reaches 530 for three let the umpires be as vigilant, let the protests be as loud.

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