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Wide and worrying

The wides are beginning to be a worry for the teams taking part in this championship. Everyone was talking about how much help the conditions are going to offer for the fast bowlers in this competition. Nobody had reckoned what difficulty the bowlers would have in controlling the movement.

With the white Duke balls of extra shine, it is beginning to be a nightmare for pace bowlers to cut down the movement. The West Indies took the cake against Pakistan the other day when their bowlers sent down 23 wides. There were ten from young Mervyn Dillon alone - this when he conceded only 29 runs in his 10 overs for three wickets!

When West Indies batted, Pakistan were equally generous. Twenty wides resulted from their efforts, with every bowler on view, including off-spinner Saqlain Mushtaq, logging at least once against their name.

Scotland could have been pardoned if they had bowled 22 wides against Australia at Worcester the other day. Unfortuantely, it was the other way around! Imagine unknown Scottish batsmen upsetting the experienced Australians enough to bowl 20 wides. Glenn McGrath contributed six and Adam Dale, usually a line and length bowler, provided seven.

Now, you may be wondering which team has bowled the most wides in this competition so far. Not India, in case your mind is already wandering to our beleagured cricketers. It is Zimbabwe, who sent down 25 wides against lowly Kenya. Kenya returned the compliment in almost equal measure, sending down 16 numbers themselves.

It will be interesting to note, for everyone of us, that the team with the least number of wides in this tournament is India. Mohammad Azharuddin might criticise his bowlers for being indisciplined in the opening game, yet he cannot fault them for bowling wides since only three were registered against them on the scoresheet. However whatever runs and balls were saved from wides, it was compensated with no-balls. In all, ten times bowlers overstepped the line, and between Srinath and Ajit Agarkar, the number was nine.

So we have a situation where extras are being conceded in profusion. In the rather low scoring Pakistan-West Indies game, only 431 runs were scored and as many as 74 of them, or nearly 20 per cent, were extras.

Colin Croft, the fearsome quickie from the West Indies, who was part of a glorious West Indian era in the 70s-80s, feels even though the conditions are suited to fast bowlers, they do not mean it does not have its pitfalls.
"The wickets here are generally slow," says Croft, now a well-known writer and commentator. "The overcast conditions does help seam and swing but when a fast bowler comes into operation, it not only means the ball comes to the bats quicker but also it becomes difficult for him to control seam and swing. That is the reason why teams prefer to have bowlers not express fast but the ones who come slow to the bat and who move the ball around."

Now this theory is supported by the statistics. Both Javagal Srinath and Lance Klusener went for nearly 70 runs in their 10 overs on the second day of the tournament. Ajit Agarkar conceded 59 in just nine overs. Shoaib Akhtar himself was down by 54 runs in his 10 overs.

Zimbabwean coach Dave Houghton hinted so much when he wondered if he would have a place for Henry Olonga in his team in the match against India. "I have no complaints about Olonga's development as a fine bowler. But in these conditions I am no sure if he would start as an automatic selection."
What he implied was that a fast bowler can actually concede extra runs in these conditions.

Imran Khan, the celebrated Pakistan captain, has an entirely different opinion on the matter. Imran feels attacking bowlers are going to decide the fate of teams in this competition. They might go for extra runs and concede no balls and wides.

Prithvi Anand