2004 Team v 2024 Team

[Terryalderman]

Larwood was a guy really ahead of his time and lab geeks could probably figure out how quick he was. There was a claim that they'd worked out he was 10kph faster than Brett Lee
That's rubbish. It's this primal urge to exaggerate a myth.
Goliath was 6 cubits and a span- 9ft 9 inches

The ABC in Australia did credible research on Larwoods pace which they turned into a TV programme a couple of years ago. They suggested he was as quick as Lee. Might be on YouTube if you googled it.

[Terryalderman]

ABC program on Larwoods pace: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Ut5fDUH6b ... dvb2QgYWJj

[Googly]

Ya I found it a while back, just finished watching it. Brilliant stuff. The facilities in Australia are mind boggling.
They interpolated that he was around 140-147 when he was at his quickest . Short guy so was skiddy. I'm honestly surprised, when I first saw footage I thought he was mid 130's.
Such good footage of Larwood as well. Didn't look like that old fashioned film we always see. He was formidable, must have been terrifying without modern gloves, helmets, thigh guards and pads. Terrifying with them!! I don't know how batters do it.

They have, but should make it part of modern television, guns that show speed before and after the bounce. I mean that dictates whether the pitch is batter friendly or not and we rely on the batters saying its holding or its two paced.
That footage of the ball hitting the ballistic gel was direct full toss, not off the pitch.

I said before the thing that has probably most improved batting in general is the simple side-arm. You can face pretty much whatever pace you want for as long as you want. I remember Kevin Curran didn't use the side arm too often, he could throw as quick as most guys who used one.

[Googly]

I listened to Holding a while back claiming he (himself) was quicker than was registered because in his day they measured average speed and today they measure speed essentially as the ball leaves the hand. Not buying his story at all.
I'm trying to find out how much the ball slows down (a 150 ball) from point of release to wicket as a full toss due to air friction. Drag is the square of speed so a fast ball will slow down quicker. Obviously if it bounces its totally variable, depends on the pitch and how short it's bowled.

[Googly]

A ball bowled horizontally at 123 km/hr experiences a backwards horizontal drag force that is equal to the weight of the ball. At world record bowling speeds around 160 km/hr, the drag force is 1.7 times greater than the weight of the ball. Regardless of the speed of the ball when it leaves the bowler's hand, air resistance causes the ball to slow down by about 12% by the time it lands on the pitch. It slows down by another 30% or 40% when it hits the pitch, depending on the speed of the pitch and the angle of incidence. A ball bowled at 150 km/hr will arrive 0.46 s later at the batter's end, travelling at about 85 km/hr.

Interesting!!

Here is a fantastic link-

http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~cross/cricket.html

[Googly]

Batters need to learn the "gravity step" and there's a new era in batting

[Pat_Bee]

That’s very comprehensive bro

[zimbos_05]

In every sport on the planet they're not as good, maybe cricket 100 years ago was the exception. I'm not discrediting anyone, it's about perspective.

The larwood absence is just fact. Bradman was a mortal.
A 256 score against larwood, whom he struggled against was unlikely. Every batter has a bowler he doesn't like, why should Bradman be the exception? Maybe he'd have averaged 40, it's hardly shit, probably would have still topped the averages. He was a great player.
I'm also prepared to bet that every single well directed bouncer hit someone. They had no idea how to avoid them or play them. And not a single broken hand in that series with beefed up gardening gloves? Brett Lee would have killed more people than Billy the Kid

Oh here's the other thing about bowling in the 30's- not a lot of swing bowling on offer, not many trickster spinners either. The Don ain't averaging 99 against Murali, Warne, The Waq attack, the WI big 4 etc etc. Nor is he averaging 65. Its just not happening. Sorry boss. I'll give u 51 to hopefully stop the argument as we're not going to agree.
I'd really have gone with not making the side, but maybe that's too extreme

Sir Viv wouldn't be in my top 8 T20 sides. Fantastic as he was he didnt even play the format. Too many good T20 bats out there these days. T20 cricket has moved on.
You want to pick a bloke who never even played the game?
And it is a different game.

Nah, I can't agree at all. Bradman may not average 99 against the bowlers of today but the man was still class. Same goes For Sir Viv. I saw enough of his quality to know that if he was a player now with everything that the modern players have, he would be a devastating batsman.

I'm just going to leave it there though because no matter what I say, we will never agree. You lost me when you chose Maruma over Bradman a few pages back.

[eugene]

Maruma has scored more runs in the Logan Cup than Bradman admittedly.

[Googly]

It's an interesting topic, yet folk get heated. I do too, it's always better when people agree
I was meaning Maru, not Maruma. I always puzzle over Maruma actually. I've watched him bat often, he has all the time in the world and looks a really classy batsman and then inexplicably goes out. I watched him the other day change his mind half way thru a shot and still executed an attacking shot really well, not many guys can do that. We have so many guys like that, promise so much and then fail to deliver.