KREJZY TALK | Thebigtip

If I have to listen to a cricket commentator talk about how well N. Hauritz, X Doherty or N. Lyon bowled to get their figures of 0-47 off 20 overs or 1-60 off 25 in a test match innings i think I’m going to explode. “Great economical bowling” or “really tidy spell” are the phrases that make my hair stand on end. What is this ongoing fascination with a spin bowler’s economy rate? There seems to be a trend in Australian cricket at the moment which dictates that only the stingiest of spin bowlers are considered for Test selection, correct me if I’m wrong but last time I checked winning test matches against quality opposition requires the taking of 20 wickets.
Ever since the retirement of the Great Shane Warne, Australian spin bowling has been mediocre at best on the big stage. Nathan Hauritz is a good bowler don’t get me wrong he bowls with good flight and has control over the ball which allows him to produce 5 to 6 reasonably accurate balls an over but he spins the ball less than my 97 yr old grandmother who has bad arthritis in her spinning finger..... Not the aggressive wicket taker we need to once again dominate world cricket. The Most recent of the bowlers to be tried in an ever growing list of spinners since Warne is Nathan Lyon, I like this guy, I really do, but taking a few wickets against a New Zealand side that the Bendigo 2nds could knock over for under 200 DOES NOT mean that he has “Arrived” on the international stage like all the media suggest, he followed this performance up by being barely able to take a single wicket against India, who admittedly are quality players of spin. But Lyon didn’t look dangerous, he bowled without venom or aggression, but boy did the commentators and the media love his “Tidy” and “Tight” bowling.
There has been very little to get excited about in Australian spin bowling, that is except one seemingly forgotten performance from a seemingly forgotten man. 8 wickets from a spinner on debut against the best players of spin in the world and the only thing you hear is “Krejza takes 8 in expensive spell” Sure it was 8 for 200 but tell me this if you have a team 8-200 in a test are you not clearly winning????? Of course you are! Krejza went on to take another 4-100 in the second innings to take his wicket tally for the match to 12. This magnificent display of spin and aggression was rewarded with been axed from the side only 1 test match later after being miss-bowled on a concrete Perth wicket.
Krejza is the forgotten man, the only genuinely attacking spin bowler that Australia has in its arsenal, Australian selectors prefer to play a spinner who will return figures of 0-70 off 30 to help the fast bowlers “Build pressure” rather than an attacker bowler in his own right like Krejza who would return figures of 4-120 off those same 30 overs. Krejza is not that “expensive spin bowler with a happy knack of taking wickets” or “a little bit inconsistent with a fluke-ish ability to take wickets” There is nothing fluke-ish or lucky about the way Krejza bowls, Krejza bowls the way he does by design, he is prepared to possibly leak some more runs than the next guy by relentlessly attacking the batsman, why this is frowned upon by this current cricketing administration is a mystery to me and I’m sure puzzles some of our past greats. I’m not saying Krejza is necessarily the answer to our post-Warne problems what I am saying is this ridiculous attitude that discourages our modern day spinners from being genuine attacking weapons in their own right is nothing but KREJZY TALK!