Talent drain in Test bowling
The ICC's annual Test XI underlines one thing in particular: that bowling stocks are at a generational nadir, writes Barney Ronay in the blog The Spin in the Guardian .
Siddhartha Talya
25-Feb-2013
The ICC's annual Test XI underlines one thing in particular: that bowling stocks are at a generational nadir, writes Barney Ronay in the blog The Spin in theGuardian.
The Spin is, of course, entirely unqualified to explain why this talent-drain should have taken effect. Some will say it is merely cyclical. Others will point to the de facto collapse, for various reasons, of two great Test bowling nations in West Indies and Pakistan. Perhaps there will even be those who suggest Test bowling is a refined art, one that rests on an acute and painstaking process of skill-refinement and the honing of a specific kind of fitness, something that is just much harder to achieve on the current multiformat treadmill.
Easiest of all would be to blame the decline of Test bowling on the lukewarm, generalist's skill-set of the sport's newest and shortest format, Twenty20. The Spin, naturally, would never stoop so low. Although it is worth noting that Bresnan is at least up for an entire award – Twenty20 International Performance of the Year – for his 3-10 against Pakistan last year, while Shane Watson is also in the mix for for scoring 59 (yes: 59) against England.
Siddhartha Talya is a senior sub-editor at ESPNcricinfo