cricket with balls

I desperately want Adil Rashid to be good, and he can bowl, but yesterday was not one of his good days.

The Australians scored off him so easily at times I thought I was watching an Australian spinner.

He had good control, some nice variation, and seemed to have confidence, but he looked pretty unthreatening at all times.

His bowling around the wicket to the left handers seemed to be based on a personal preference or some coach showing him a pitch map to Australian left handers, but it just did not work.

Yet he plugged away there almost all day, and being that Katich, Hussey and Johnson were they only three batsmen to make any runs, he spent most of his time bowling around the wicket. Other than a half tracker that didn’t deserve a wicket, but should have been caught, he never looked likely to succeed.

In his current form, and against a team of left handers, Adil does not look more likely to take more wickets than Bresnan, Harmy or Onions.

He probably looks more likely to take wickets than Montybot, but Montybot has had a mental break down.

Once Mushtaq tried to teach how Montybot how to think and bowl, his world crumbled. This year his county figures are pure horror.  6 matches for 6 wickets at 86.

Kill it.

And he played at Cardiff the worlds spiniest non subbie pitch (no, it’s not) taking him 2 for 149.

So Adil is a young struggling leggie who’s better than Nathan, but not test standard, and Montybot is a badly programmed bowler who is better than Nathan, but playing just as bad.

Australia will be hoping one of them gets picked.