8 May 2011

Buying wickets - a lost art?

Is buying wickets a skill that's dying out of the game? It certainly feels like that to me. Years ago the standard club cricket game was to get 250+ and declare, and then toss the ball up to ensure that a result was inevitable, taking wickets as the batting side pushed for victory. Time and time again, we won fielding second with the opposition 10 or 20 short.

These days I'm not sure a young player would know the term "buying wickets". I don't think it's about denying the opposition batting points - it's more about not risking a loss. How disappointing! For me declaration cricket is all about the tactics required to force a result but somehow that seems to be a declining part of the game.

There is a reason I've turned to this topic - our game yesterday! We won the toss and fielded, which of course means that you can't complain when the opposition doesn't let you into the game. But their tactics made a draw inevitable. Didn't they want to win? Having been in a decent position we lost 2 wickets in a few balls and two of us were at the crease on 0. One hit over the top and suddenly I was faced with deep square, deep mid-wicket, long on and long off. Not surprisingly the rate went up and up, but the field remained the same even with 10 an over needed.

It made a draw inevitable, and all we could do was play for the bonus point that came with 160, 180 and 200. But for our opposition Billingshurst it meant they had little chance of winning, even bringing back their opening medium pace bowler, rather than bowl spin from both ends. They took a wicket in the final over as we pushed for 180, but the game was over as a spectacle with 15 overs to go. They could have won the game had they been willing to risk losing it - hopefully they'll continue those tactics throughout the season when they're playing everyone else too!

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5 comments:

Peter Lamb said...

You did win the toss and put them in! If you do this and don't bowl them out I don't think they are obliged to give you too much of a chance to win, even if they also thus give away their own best chance of winning.
However, having said that and without knowing how fast a scoring ground yours is, I would have thought they batted for an over or two too long: a target of around 230 off 48 or 49 overs could have produced a more interesting game, and a better chance of a result.
I'm sorry to say that I think you must share the blame for what looks like a dull game: winning the toss and putting the opposition in is always a negative move unless the wicket is really dodgy.

pitchvision said...

Sadly, this had been the way of declaration cricket for a long time. The attitude is to avoid loss rather than take a risk.

The lesson is always bat first because it gives you control of the declaration and control of the game.

Ed said...

I take your points about the toss, which is why I caveated slightly. They of course aren't obliged to create a game, but whoever wins the toss and whatever they choose to do shouldn't the skipper of both sides be using tactics that make their sides most likely to win...as opposed to the tactics that make their side most likely not to lose?

I never judge a declaration until I've seen the fields set after tea because 350 could be sensible if you have 7 slips throughout, but given the fields 220 would have been about right. They were targeting 270 apparently.

And finally, just to explain about why we fielded (as generally I agree that batting first allows you to control the game): (1) overnight rain meant that the there was a little bit of dampness in the wicket as it had sweated under the covers, (2) the opposition always choose to chase so we wanted to make them do something they weren't comfortable with, and (3) with the threat of a shortened game due to rain, batting second could have been a distinct advantage - as it was we only had a tiny bit of drizzle when we batted and we got the full game in.

Mark Davis said...

Wow! It disn't look like a dull game for Minh Nguyen 20-2-93-8 !

Ed said...

No, pretty sensational stuff from Minh. It must be his low trajectory!