Dearth of death bowlers?

With the failure of Bresnan and Dernbach as death bowlers, who are the alternatives for England?

Finn if he bowls slightly more full, had the idea of full and straight more than often and bowls quickly

Meaker, when he gets it right, can bowl fast and straight and he possesses a good yorker at 90mph +. He is very inconsistent at the moment though, but no doubt his death bowling potential is a reason why the selectors have their eyes on him.

Dernbach is a good death bowler in CC.

I would stick with him as he will learn from these experiences.

He outright bottled it yesterday though, Stella. Far too excessive use of the slower ball, which he completely lost control of.

His ODI record is abysmal at this moment in time, and I think it may even be beneficial to him if he is dropped out of the firing line for a short while.

Fists
Yes, maybe a rest for these dead rubbers but he is normally ok and is a cocky young man so will come back better.

Meaker looks promising. Quick and accurate.

Is Joel Garner still available?

Finn, Meaker, Briggs?

Haha, if only.

Oh yeah I'm not saying drop him for good, he is a promising talent. However, he should be using the slower one as a surprise ball, so needs to work on making the full fast one his stock delivery in the 'death' overs.

Personally, when Broad comes back I'd let him and Finn do the opening/death bowling job and, if he's retained, let Bresnan bowl more in the middle of the innings.
Joel Garner would be a pretty good role-model for Finn, don't you think?
If he could develop a yorker like Garner's he'd be a world-beater.

Is Bresnan's place safe?

I still think Dernbach will be good given time and matches. Too many slower balls isn't the answer and if I and Fists know that then surely he does..........now.

I'd suggest resting Bresnan, he is another that has performed poorly, possibly due to simply playing too much cricket.

Impressed with Finn, bowled well yesterday and was very unlucky in his final over, with Jadeja's edge etc.

Now that the series is dead let's get Meaker in and Borthwick.

Hoggy
Jimmy and Finny to bowl with the new ball.
Finny and Broady at the death.
No Bresnan.Quality Test bowler but a bit inconsistent in the shorter formats for my liking.
Handy reserve though.

Hmm not sure about Finn at the death, doesn't really have much variation, so his pace could tend to fly around a bit like his last over yesterday (note: he was fantastic yesterday and IMO the guy who got us back in the game, but at his pace if you get the yorker slightly wrong it can easily disappear, be it off the edge or off the middle). I quite like having Finny have a good burst at the start, and then use him as an attacking option in the middle, like we did yesterday.

When Broad comes back he should bowl at the death, and though Bres was poor yesterday I still feel he's a good death bowler. As for Dernbach, just think he doesn't do enough with his stock ball yet, so overdoes the slower one. I've seen him bowl some brilliant yorkers, so maybe he needs to work on that. Be interesting if Meaker can improve. As for Jimmy, it's odd because when he started England used him to good effect at the death, but as his bowling in test matches has sky rocketed he seems to have lost the ability to bowl a good yorker consistently, and is now pretty rubbish at the death.

Dernbach's having a tough time of it at the moment, so what?

everyone goes through bad patches of form, lets not all get on his back after a couple of games, its ridiclous.

cricketfan90 wrote:Dernbach's having a tough time of it at the moment, so what?

everyone goes through bad patches of form, lets not all get on his back after a couple of games, its ridiclous.

Just a couple of bad matches?
When has he ever done well in an ODI?
I am not saying we should discard him and personally I would give him the next 2 games and maybe even the series against Pakistan provided he doesnt disgrace himself in the next 2 matches but the calls from other posters for him to be dropped now arent exactly baseless.
Maybe you should look at others' point of view before calling it ridiculous as they do provide a logical reasoning to their views unlike Fleming in an All Time XI

shanky why do u keep bringing up that fleming issue now, its irrlevelant!

cricketfan90 wrote:shanky why do u keep bringing up that fleming issue now, its irrlevelant!

Because you dont respect others' opinion and accuse others when they do so

How about the responding to the rest of my post?

how about no, im fed of you keep referring back to fleming, when its gone now, its irrevelant to this topic, and to be honest, its pretty boring that u keep referring back to it.

cricketfan90 wrote:how about no, im fed of you keep referring back to fleming, when its gone now, its irrevelant to this topic, and to be honest, its pretty boring that u keep referring back to it.

Then stop callling others' opinion as 'ridiculous' particularly when they have a good reasoning behind it.

Kiss and make up fellas.

Am I the only one who thinks England somewhat overcomplicate it at the death. They seem to set a field with a particular delivery in mind, and change every other ball? My advice would be 4/6 balls full and straight, and the remaining two a selection of slower balls, bouncers, wide yorkers and slow bouncers. Mix it up but not too much.

With regards to personnel I think you just look for the best yorkers. Actually that's Finn and Bresnan (Broad if he comes back).

Don't rate Dernbach that highly in ODIs TBH.

Fists of Fury wrote:Haha, if only.

Oh yeah I'm not saying drop him for good, he is a promising talent. However, he should be using the slower one as a surprise ball, so needs to work on making the full fast one his stock delivery in the 'death' overs.

I agree with this. It seems like the slower ball has become Dernbach's stock ball at the death, with the fast,full one being the suprise. Needs to be the other way around.

Broad and Finn would be the two I'd use at the death in the moment, providing it's full and straight at the death.For me that is where our problem is, trying to vary it too much. It should all be full,fast and straight(or at least attempted to be there) with the odd slower ball for suprise.

Agreed Mike. They seem to have got carried away with the T20 bowling after the success they had in winning the World Cup. They are constantly looking to innovate a new delivery to keep the batsman guessing. We've had the round the wicket and across the right hander with a strong off side field, the slower ball bouncer, the array of slower balls from Dernbach, and you have to ask why? The most effective way of stopping a batsman scoring is the yorker! Just bowl it more! Broad, Finn and Dernbach can bowl 90mph, just bowl a yorker at 90mph and no batsman in world cricket gets that away regularly.

Best death bowlers in the world are the likes of Lee, Malinga and Gul.

They all have one thing in common...yorkers pushing 90mph. That is the key.

Agree that Dernbach has lost it at the moment after his promising start for England. I think he could come back - particularly for T20 but it would do him no harm to be dropped.

Meaker hasn't been able to command a regular place in Surrey's T20 or CB40 team because he is so erratic and often gets carted around. But he has big potential...probably more so than Dernbach. No harm in giving him a go in one of the dead matches....

Economy of bowlers who bowl at the death

Lee 4.70
Khan 4.91
Mills 4.71
Johnson 4.87
Malinga 4.93
MPatel 4.95
Rampaul 4.92
JTayor 4.80
Morkel 4.82
Gul 5.08

Bresnan 5.37
Dernbach 6.23

You often hear people saying Bresnan and Dernbach have a high economy because they bowl at the death but most death bowlers don't have high economies. I think England's best death bowler was Flintoff. His bowling economy was 4.39 and he didn't need to use slower balls.

Lee was an incredible death bowler, those 90+ mph yorkers were nigh on unplayable and unerringly accurate.

Flintoff was fantastic, too, as you rightly say. Bowl full, bowl fast, bowl straight. Nothing else is needed.

Fists of Fury wrote:Lee was an incredible death bowler, those 90+ mph yorkers were nigh on unplayable and unerringly accurate.

Flintoff was fantastic, too, as you rightly say. Bowl full, bowl fast, bowl straight. Nothing else is needed.

Yes I agree with you about Lee but at the moment I think Malinga is maybe the best. It's probably because he is a hard bowler to pick up anyway with his action. It's only in the last year or so he's added his slower ball yorkers so becomes even more deadly.

One of the best balls I have seen bowled at the death was by Abdul Razzaq when bowling for Leics. Haven't seen it being done by anyone else. It looped and landed at the bastman's feet at 50mph.

Joel Garner was the best in his era.

Stella wrote:Joel Garner was the best in his era.

Agree he was easily the best at that time - hardly any batsmen could score quickly off his toe crunching yorkers.

Honourable (?) mention should also go to Trevor Chappell who bowled the perfect "death" ball in 1981. This led to expressions of outrage from the Prime Minister of New Zealand.