Bang Test tour of Oz, Aug 13-26

[sussexpob]

Indeed, you can make a case that bad technique/good bowling and bad conditions all factor what has occurred on the field, but then write an inconclusive 100 page essay on which of these factors are most prevalent in controlling the outcome.

Take the first BD wicket of the morning as an example. Shadman Islam's footwork and weight distribution is a car crash in playing that Starc ball, but the ball also swings very late at rapid pace from a line clipping leg to around middle of the stumps, would it make a difference if he was fully committed forward or is he still playing down the wrong line? Starc had bowled 9 balls at this point, everyone had moved sharply away late. And like I said yesterday, Haque then comes in, you can see the ball when released is the away swinger from the seam angle just like all the other stock balls, but Starc doesn't get the release right and the seam angle right, the ball therefore does not catch the late swing and goes straight, and if anything nibbles back in off the deck.... castled first ball.

Sometimes its easy to sit in front of a tv and fault a batsman, but after watching it boomerang in the air for 1.5 days Haque just got that natural, impossible to pick variation and was gone. It would have been the correct stroke for 99% of the balls bowled there in the game.