0أفضل هجوم البولينج في العالم?

أجرى المدرب الأسترالي ميكي آرثر مقابلة قال فيها إنه يعتقد أن هجوم البولينج الأسترالي الحالي هو الأفضل في العالم!  أنا أتعامل مع هذا بروح خطاب "جلين ماكغراث" التقليدي الذي انتهى قبل الرماد, لكن آرثر لم يقل أنهم كانوا أفضل من هجوم البولينج الإنجليزي (مشكوك فيه بما فيه الكفاية في حد ذاته) ولكن أفضل من كل الآخرين في العالم أيضًا. لذلك ينبغي أن تكون إنجلترا مرتعشة حقًا?

Lets start with cur­rent test world #1 side South Africa and com­pare their bowl­ing tal­ent with the cur­rent Aus­sie line-up

Ver­non Phil­ander: 16 اختبارات, 89 wick­ets @ 17.13
مورن Morkel: 49 اختبارات, 175 wick­ets @ 29.97
دايل ستاين: 65 اختبارات, 332 wick­ets @ 22.65
Jacques Kal­lis: 162 اختبارات, 288 wick­ets @ 32.43

بشكل عام: 292 اختبارات, 884 wick­ets @ 26.74

جيمس باتينسون: 10 اختبارات, 40 wick­ets @ 23.37
بيتر Siddle: 41 اختبارات, 150 wick­ets @ 28.84
ناثان ليون: 22 اختبارات, 76 wick­ets @ 33.18
ميتشل ستارك: 9 اختبارات, 30 wick­ets @ 34.03
ريان هاريس: 12 اختبارات, 47 wick­ets @ 23.63

بشكل عام: 94 اختبارات, 343 wick­ets @ 28.91

So — the South Afric­an attack have played 3 مرات عديدة كاختبارات بينهما (des­pite com­par­ing 4 play­ers to 5) and have taken many more wick­ets at a lower aver­age. They’re also cur­rently world num­ber 1 and you don’t get there unless your bowl­ing attack is in form. As far as I’m con­cerened there is no fur­ther debate needed. But lets just see how Eng­land fit in…

جيمس أندرسون: 82 اختبارات, 307 wick­ets @ 30.14
ستيوارت برود: 57 اختبارات, 195 wick­ets @ 30.93
ستيفن الفنلندي: 22 اختبارات, 88 wick­ets @ 28.73
جرايم سوان: 52 اختبارات, 222 wick­ets @ 28.50

بشكل عام: 213 اختبارات, 812 wick­ets @ 29.73

The Eng­land attack has played more than twice as many Tests and taken more than twice as many wick­ets. The Aus­sie’s have a slight edge in the aver­ages but there’s very little in it (0.8 runs per wick­et, أو 16 أشواط لكل مباراة).  The Aus­sie line-up is also less ver­sat­ile (بمعنى آخر. Swann is a much bet­ter spin­ner than any­thing the Aus­sies have to offer).  Arthur also talked about strength in depth, but with the exper­i­enced Bresnan avail­able, and oth­er top bowl­ers also avail­able Eng­land also have con­sid­er­able strength in depth.  In Eng­lish con­di­tions the Eng­land bowl­ers can reas­on­ably expec­ted to have the advant­age — espe­cially with Graeme Swann being so effect­ive against left-handers (The Aus­sies have 5 left-handed bats­men in their 16-man squad — Hughes, وارنر, كوان, Khawaja and Wade)

بالتاكيد, the Aus­sies want to talk about bowl­ing attacks because they have major con­cerns about their bat­ting line up. I would do a com­par­is­on, but it’s not even clear what the Aus­sie line-up will be. In my opin­ion the only Aus­sie bats­man who would get into the Eng­land side is their injured cap­tain Michael Clarke. Cook, تروت, KP and Root are all rock sol­id and Matt Pri­or is prob­ably the best keep­er-bats­man in the world at the moment.

In con­clu­sion: the bowl­ing line-ups may be reas­on­ably evenly matched, but over­all there is no con­test — Eng­land are strong favour­ites and rightly so. Of course Aus­tralia have a decent chance — but they’ll need some luck on their side from injur­ies, إرم, or the Eng­lish sum­mer weath­er. Giv­en no injur­ies and an even break of weath­er and the toss I expect Eng­land to win as com­fort­ably as they did in Aus­tralia last time round — by at least 2 matches. Call it 3–1 or better.