RUASCC Bowling 2011 (part 1)

It’s a recurring theme of this season that opposition batsmen of all shapes and sizes have been making hay against our bowling attack. In the twelve weekend matches we’ve played so far we’ve been hit for four centuries (three of them not out) and seven fifties. In the only two matches where no one has reached fifty against us, someone has ended up unbeaten in the forties.

(This post isn’t about our batting, but for comparison no RUASCC batsman has yet reached three figures this season - Zia came closest with 90 not out - although six have passed fifty, unbeaten on three occasions.)

There are several reasons behind this: firstly, the one we can do very little about, there are some very good batsmen out there, batsmen who have scored plenty of hundreds against better attacks than ours. If they get in on a good pitch there’s very little anyone can do about it. Secondly, we don’t always take our chances when they come - sometimes we just can’t catch, the guy gets a second or even a third chance and they take full advantage. Thirdly, our bowling isn’t consistently good enough to put pressure on batsmen who have been allowed to play themselves in. It is this third aspect that I wish to focus on here.

Only one Zia

The root cause of our lack of bowling consistency can be summed up quite easily: we only have one Zia.

* The lynchpin of our attack, Zia has bowled 27% of our overs this season and taken 37% of our wickets.

* Zia’s best bowling figures are 5-39 and 5-45 (twice). No one else has taken more than three wickets in an innings.

* Zia has taken 26 wickets at 15.96; the other 44 wickets have cost 39.02 each.

* Zia has an economy rate of 3.32 runs per over; for the rest of us it’s 5.01.

In our timed games Zia often bowls long spells of 18, 19 or even 20 overs which enables us to at least pin down one end. In the first match at Tilehurst & Theale his 19 overs cost 3.79 each while the other bowlers were going for 5.36. The fact that he then went on to score 90 not out to win the game only emphasises his importance to the team.

The trouble really starts in the 40-over games when bowlers are limited to eight overs. In the match at Wargrave Zia took 3-26 from his spell (economy 3.25) and thanks to good support from Main and Jagesh we had them at 64-7 at the halfway stage. In a timed game there’s no doubt Zia would have been kept on till the job was done, but Wargrave were allowed to reach 229-9 taking six an over off everyone else. This happened to coincide with a desperate fielding display during which we dropped a dozen catches, saw their number nine score 100 not out and allowed a man who hadn’t batted in eight years to score 49 of the streakiest runs you’ll ever see.

Big Scores

The result of all this has been that batsmen are making big scores against us every week. The canny ones will be watchful against Zia and hit the pies that Withers serves up to all parts of the ground, then when Zia comes off they know there’ll be a bad ball coming along soon so they can score some runs, start seeing the ball well and build their innings comfortably.

On several occasions there is no doubt that we’ve let these guys off the hook – individual batsmen and teams alike. We’ve got ourselves into some great positions early on but seen our advantage slip when we should be finishing the innings off. The following games are examples of where we’ve damaged the top order but have allowed the batting side to post a competitive (and in some cases winning) total:

Britwell 56-4 to 168-5 (Lawrence 59 not out)
Wargrave 64-7 to 229-9 (Robinson 100 not out)
Farley Hill 92-6 to 175-8 (Ditchburn retired 48)
Southampton 50-4 to 184-8 (Shibasis 68)
Greys Green 82-5 to 181-6 (Shafqat 98)
Tilehurst 81-5 to 172-7 (Stroud 42 not out)

In an early game against Englefield the Sri Lankan opener, Samad, was seeing the ball so well it didn’t matter who was bowling – he finished 130 not out as they successfully overhauled our 226 for the loss of only two wickets. On the artificial wicket at Blewbury Southwell was certainly helped by the predictable bounce on his way to 110, it was the only time this season that Zia has gone for more than five an over.

In decent batting conditions at Tilehurst, Wigmore (109) and Ali (72) put on a stand of 152 that was promptly beaten by Zia (90 not out) and Ward (69 not out). Not a good day for bowlers on either side.

Consistency

I’m aware I seem to be giving the impression that Zia is among the world’s greatest bowlers and that the rest of us are a bunch of witless chancers who couldn’t buy a wicket in the High Wycombe under-fives league for visually impaired tea bags. But that’s only partly true. We have seen some very impressive spells from other bowlers this season, just not regularly enough.

In the game at Southampton Bruce Main took 3-16 in seven overs before injury put an end to his inspired spell. Main also bowled four maidens in that limited overs game at Wargrave and can usually be relied upon to be economical, but he’s missed a few games this year and we’ve certainly missed him.

At Greys Green, where Shafqat scored 98 of his side’s 181-6, Withers bowled an opening spell of sixteen overs for just 30 runs but, importantly, couldn’t get the opener out until the very last ball of the innings when he’d already done the damage. The problem this season is that we never know which Withers is going to turn up: the one who took 3-26 in eight overs against Britwell Salome or the one who ended up with figures of 3-67 later that same day against Britwell Salome. Withers does take wickets from time to time, but he doesn’t change the course of matches – he doesn’t get the really good men out once they look settled. Two of Withers’ best spells have returned figures of 0-22 and 0-41, on both occasions leaving lots of work for others to do.

Jagesh has only played five times this season; Baker and Koslicki have bowled three times each. Greenhalf, Ashman, Tranter, Carpenter and Stewart haven’t bowled enough overs to get into a rhythm. We have a different bowling line-up every week and it’s very rare we get three or four bowlers on song at the same time. To re-emphasise, in the twelve weekend games we’ve played we have only taken 70 wickets and not bowled any teams out, making it difficult to win cricket matches.

NB: I wrote this article before the Braywood game but have updated the figures to include it because it only serves to strengthen my point. Zia took 5-45 from 14 overs leaving the other five bowlers to share four wickets in 32 overs. Opening batsman Lunn scored 83 (before Zia took his wicket) and the home side’s final total of 210-9 means we once again failed to bowl a side out. On the plus side, we drew the match!