: Fri Jul 17, 2009 9:18 pm
Cibaman wrote:
Who are they trying to kid with these speed guns? Every seamer is touching 90 mph without really making the batsmen hurry.
Holding & Thomson must have bowled at 110 mph.
I disagree. I think the difference is that if lots of bowlers are bowling around 90 mph the batsmen acclimatise to it. If only a handful can hit that sort of speed (as was the case thirty years ago) there's more shock value. It was also a more brutal game in those days with protective headgear only just being introduced and no effective restrictions on the number of short deliveries permitted.
Lots of international 100 metres sprinters regularly clock under 10 seconds these days, whereas thirty years ago only a few could, and even then not every time they raced. The pace of the game in all codes of football is much faster and more relentless than thirty years ago. Watch old footage and players seem to be standing around or barely moving off the ball compared to now. Given the advances in nutrition, sports science etc. it's logical that fast bowlers are generally faster than in previous generations.
