What is more difficult: Facing a quality pace attack or Facing a quality spin attack?

[radhe]

If fast bowl is swing than its fast attack other wise spin attack

 

[Howsie]

This thread isn't about "us" FTR, War isn't asking what we would rather face. He's asking what we think international batsmen would rather face.

Howsie added 2 Minutes and 27 Seconds later...

Would you rather face 10-20 overs of fierce pace bowling, or be back in the pavillion after five because of impossible spin.

See above but I'd take the impossible spin thanks.

 

[drainpipe32]

Hey, I wasn't the one who brought up the 'us' debate.

And yeah, it also says what's more difficult, not what they'd rather face if they had the balls or not.

Gazza added 0 Minutes and 25 Seconds later...

See above but I'd take the impossible spin thanks.

I saw above.

So you'd rather fail your team?

 

[Varun]

Like Dale Steyn is most difficult pacemen to face today and Murali is the most difficult spinner to face. But Murali >>> Steyn , so I'd go with Spin.

 

[drainpipe32]

So you'd go with the harder one?

 

[Varun]

So you'd go with the harder one?

I'd go with spin means in terms of difficulty , spin bowling is more difficult to face.

 

[AkshayS]

I'd also go for spin bowling in difficulty.
They are pretty hard to handle.

 

[ZoraxDoom]

Pace. When I bat my concentration tends to fade in and out. Against spin or slow bowling I can still react late and keep the ball out. Not against pace.

Pace is a lot easier to score off though, but I would rather face a team of good slow bowlers rather that good quicks. I'd bat longer that way and still score runs.

ZoraxDoom added 0 Minutes and 54 Seconds later...

This thread isn't about "us" FTR, War isn't asking what we would rather face. He's asking what we think international batsmen would rather face.

Ask them then!

They'd probably take spin too. No one wants to die.

 

[War]

Even if they struggled for that initial period, if they stuck it through those maybe 10-12 tricky overs, conditions are likely to ease. It seems that the ball stops swinging more quickly as the years go by. Plus, with all the protection batsman have these days, the element of fear is long gone.

Protection may have eliminated fear to a degree. But the intimidatory factor of facing 4, 90 mph bowlers on a "Perth like" bouncy deck would still be there regardless of the improvements in protection.

Even if the ball gets older, that wouldn't make it easier for batsmen againts 4 90 mph bowlers either. Since with old ball, such a world-class bowlers should be able to reverse swing the ball @ pace. Which is super difficult to face as England showed in the 2005 Ashes.

Take Ricky Ponting for example. He can slam the fastest of bowlers through the covers in a flash, or plonk himself on the backfoot to dispatch a bouncer over midwicket for a big six. But put him in Indian conditions, against even mediocre (in comparison to the quartet) spinners like Harbhajan, and he averages a mere 20 odd.

It all depends on the batsman. With all the protective gear though, the element of fear that an Ambrose/Holding etc would have held has certainly gone down.

It depends which Ricky Ponting you are talking about here to be fair. If its the young talented - but incomplete Ponting of WI 95 to IND 2001 then yes you are correct.

But Ponting the complete batsman & modern day great which he became from ENG 2001 to now - that wouldn't happen. Since Ponting "the great" counquered his demonds on India 2001 on the 2008 tour to India.

I'm sure if you asked Ponting what was more difficult to face between:

(A) the England attack in the 2005 Ashes

(B) Conquering his past demonds on the 2008 Indian tour

I'd be surprised if he didn't say facing the England attack was tougher.

War added 2 Minutes and 16 Seconds later...

Quality pace. Imagine opening the batting and lasting through the onslaught of the first two bowlers and then having to go through it all again, you just wouldn't be able to win.

Wouldn't imagine there would be too many batsmen in the world that would want to go up against four 90mph+ no matter how badly they play spin.

Yes, couldn't have said it better myself

War added 4 Minutes and 52 Seconds later...

Well yes, all of that is obvious.

I'm curious, what answer are you expecting to hear from people?

Hopefully that facing the quality pace on a pace-friendly deck is more difficult. Since i was surprised to hear an individual the other say otherwise, so i was wondering how other cricket fans around the world viewed it.

As you can see, a few in this thread have taken the "its impossible to say for sure" or "it depends on the batsman" approach. So hopefully they can be convinced otherwise.

 

[Gurjot95]

I rarely face problems while playing pace bowling. Maybe it's because I just have to defend the ball and rest ball takes the speed of pace bowling and goes for boundary. I find difficult to face the spin esp. when spinner bowls googly or doosra. Although there is more time to react but when the ball turns it becomes really hard to score runs.

 

[Owzat]

Impossible question to definitively answer. It depends entirely on the batsman. Some players thrive against extreme pace, some find it very difficult; some players thrive against quality spinners, some find it difficult. Different strokes for different folks.

To some extent I agree. On the other hand how often do players face quality spinners on a helpful wicket compared to even relatively quick bowlers on a wicket helpful to them? I think the answer is in most cases that batsmen will generally be more used to facing quicker bowlers than spinners of any quality in their respective helpful conditions so I'd vote for the spinners given that would cause them problems of inexperience as well as the inherent difficulty posed.

Maybe the fact is that West Indies and their four pronged attack were so famous in the 70s and 80s that people think that makes pace the more difficult proposition. Don't get me wrong, I doubt it was fun but I would think that the pure pace itself wasn't so much the problem as most should know that you can get runs off pure pace by the ball hitting the bat and racing to the boundary. The problem would be not getting out and not getting hurt, whereas with spin you would have to time or get power in a shot more so the score would also not be ticking over, with the physical threat more or less removed as compensation.

And maybe the key swinger (excuse the pun) for me would be movement. Pace in itself can be a threat, but movement can be the killer. If the ball is turning, which you'd expect it to under the circumstances of turning wicket and QUALITY spinners, then the ball should be moving and with variation and control enough supplied by quality spinners that the batsmen would be struggling to leave anything, getting full face on most balls and knowing where the ball would be at point of intended contact to play scoring strokes with any safety whatsoever.

The aussies had Warne who was perhaps the key factor in their success and his absence perhaps the cause of their decline - albeit not a massive one. He took FORTY wickets in 2005, not particularly a series for spin, but he caused the England batsmen problems. Ok there is no such thing as a quality pace attack anymore since West Indies went into terminal decline, but I don't recall pace bowlers destroying England so much. I can think only of Alderman who took 41 wickets in 1989 who wasn't pure pace anyway and that over six Tests, even the mighty Malcolm Marshall only managed 35 in 1988. Those aren't full sets of the respective attacks on favourable wickets, but an example of the respective feats of just one quality bowler and even in 80/81 Garner, Holding and co didn't break 30 wickets against England at home. Sure you might expect the wickets more evenly split, but with 80-100 wickets on offer you'd expect them to be all pushing 20+ which they weren't (all)

 

[Cricketdude]

90mph yorkers at my toes! ouch!

 

[Varun]

90mph yorkers at my toes! ouch!

Is it more difficult than a 105 km/hour flipper aimed at stumps?

 

[Cricketdude]

Is it more difficult than a 105 km/hour flipper aimed at stumps?

Yes. All you have to do is block that...

 

[Varun]

Yes. All you have to do is block that...

You can defense a yorker even if its 90 mph