Sport Today

The obligatory retort by Shane Warne :

============================================================================

Sportswatch

CRIK: YOU AIN'T SEEN NOTHING YET: WARNE

 By Paul Gough

 VISAKHAPATNAM, India Feb 28 AAP - Shane Warne, a resounding loser in his
first battle with Sachin Tendulkar on Australia's Indian
 cricket tour, is confident the batting sensation will find him far
tougher when they next meet in the first Test starting in Chennai on March
6.

 Warne endured one of the most humilating days of his illustrious career
at the hands of Tendulkar during the Aussies' tour opener in
 Mumbai, conceding 111 runs off 16 wicketless.

 Tendulkar's display gave the Australians' a timely reminder of why he is
rated the best batsman in the world, scoring 204 not out off just 192
 balls.

 His innings helped Mumbai to a shock ten wicket win.

 The Australians are desperate to put that result behind them in their
final lead up game before the first of the best of three Test series, when
 they meet an Indian Board Presidents XI in a three day game starting here
tomorrow.

 Tendulkar will not be playing for the Board Presidents XI so he will go
into the Chennai (formerly Madras) Test with a major psychological
 edge.

 However, Warne believes two crucial factors will work in his favour when
he again confronts Tendulkar; the chance to show his full repertoire
 and the increased pressure on the 24-year-old right hander, who carries
the hopes of nearly one billion Indians on his shoulders.

 Warne said he deliberately did not bowl many of his best deliveries to
Tendulkar in Mumbai and while disappointed with his performance
 sees no reason to panic.

 "I'm not too worried about it," he said.

 "I think in every big tour I've been on I've been whacked out of the park
in the warm-up games, so it's happened before and it will happen
 again.

 "There were lots of balls I didn't use or show him.

 "For example I only bowled one flipper to him, I didn't go around the
wicket to him, I didn't bowl any topspinners, I only bowled one wrong
 'un and no backspinners.

 "But mind you I'm not making excuses. He still played ***y well."

 Warne said Tendulkar had the freedom to attack during the Mumbai match
but believes he may not be able to play with the same audacity
 when the stakes are much higher in the Test matches.

 "His intention in the last game was to go after us at all costs
(Tendulkar struck 25 fours and two sixes) and if he got out it didn't
matter,"
 Warne said.

 "But the Test match will be completely different because he has the whole
weight of the country on his shoulder and he knows if he plays a
 bad shot he will be out."

 Warne believes that is a big weight for Tendulkar to carry having seen
first hand the amazing passion for the game in this country since the
 Australians arrived a week ago.

 "There are 980 million people here and everyone of them likes cricket,"
Warne said.

 "It's just unbelievable over here and I don't think people back home
realise that it just means everything for these people to go and watch a
 cricket game.

 "I've already had little kids ringing me in the middle of the night just
saying 'I love you, I love you', and it is quite tough to deal with so it
 does take a bit of time to settle in to this country."

 The likely Australian team to meet Presidents XI: Mark Taylor (c),
Michael Slater, Greg Blewett, Mark Waugh, Steve Waugh, Ian Healy, Paul
 Reiffel, Gavin Robertson, Shane Warne, Mike Kasprowicz, Adam Dale.

=============================================================================

Shalabh (what the hell is a backspinner???) Mohan

<delightful article, snipped>

I know I've been going off my rocker just as loudly as the next person
ie about generally wanting to see Warne plundered during this upcoming
series, but I'll confess that after wading through pieces like the last
one, I can't help feeling myself softening *considerably* on my earlier
stance.

Thanks for nothing, Warnie.

Cheers,

Harish [a pushover in his old age]

A back spinner is a ball like a topspinner, except that it spins in the
opposite direction. I've always wondered why I've never seen a spinner
bowl this ball - but if Shane Warne can bowl it then I'd like to see it.

This ball is a straight ball which slows down on pitching - fooling the
batsman into palying early. Could result in a caught and bowled.
A well pitched backspinner can probably only safely be hit straight
over the bowlers head, but is nonetheless a dangerous ball, especially
as it's bounce may be unpredictable.

We had a discussion last year on this newsgroup as to what the
differences between a topspinner, flipper, and a backspinner were.
Shane Warne's comments seem to confirm my views that a flipper is not
a backspinner.

As a analogy, if you replace a cricket ball with a motor vehicle ...
If you face the 'car' towards the batsman, put it in reverse gear,
and floor the accelerator ( representing backspin ) , and then bowl
the car towards the batsman, it would behave exactly like a backspinner
-
ie the car/ball would tend to reverse on pitching, but its greater
forward momentum would cause it to slow down on pitching instead.

If anyone, perhaps only Shane Warne, could get a backspinner to
actually reverse direction on pitching ;-)

This delivery may have caused the dismissals of Dravid and Laxman in the
Vizag game. Both were out driving uppishly on the front foot (probably
playing too early); in fact, Dravid was caught and bowled.

Narayan

This is a very interesting comment ( below )....

A look at the slow motion reply should indicate wether the ball slowed
on pitching implying that some sort of underspin ( =bottomspin=backspin)
was on the ball.

With a super-slow motion ( 'spin vision' ) you should be able to also
see the direction of spin in the air.

If Warne is going to bowl underspinners, it would be interesting to
see how long it takes the Indian batsmen to work out a method to
read/play it.

When SA played Paul Adams against India - it took the batsmen some
time ( 5 matches I think ) before most of them could play him
confidently.

I can't remember which the first two balls were, but Warne explained
how they're bowled and what sort of effect he hopes to achieve when
bowling them. Then the third ball Richie said he'd never seen before.
Warne was bowling with his fingers straight over the top of the ball
kind of like he'd bowl a seamer. As he delivered the ball he pulled
his fingers back over the top of the ball, imparting backspin on it.

When Richie asked him about it he was obviously rather miffed because
he'd probably been hoping to catch people by surprise with it and said
something like "Er... um... that's the backspinner. I won't explain it,
I'll let you figure it out for yourself if I bowl it in a game."

Stephen
--

|       University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa        -==UDHISS==- |
|  For Space Quest fans: http://www.cs.uct.ac.za/~stjasink/sq/   -==UDIC==-  |
\ For Bubble Bobble fans: http://www.cs.uct.ac.za/~stjasink/bb/ ---- \/ -----/

I have to agree - that in contrast to his on field behaviour,
Shane Warne's interviews have shown him be a very reasonable
person.

Warne has for a long time now, considered Tendulkar to be the best
bat in the world ( whatever that means ) and he does not seemed
to have changed his views no that they are actually facing each other
in a test ( I ,for one, would love to be a fly on the wicket when
Warne bowls to Tendulkar .... but then again would the wicket
be a safe place to be ?? )

He also seems to be very open about his (most of his) bowling 'secrets'.
I remember reading a while back, that Shane Warne had a lot to
do with the return to form of Mustaq Ahmed in the AusPak series in
Aus.

Whatever his on field tantrums, he's an excellent bowler.