Australia / England

Craig Overton: first look in Test cricket

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Craig Overton dismisses Steve Smith (via BT Sport)

We don’t believe you can draw meaningful conclusions from players’ debuts – but we report on them anyway.

Craig Overton looks like a big fast bowler. Then he humphs in and dobbles it like a good ‘un.

Dobblery is not a craft that is highly regarded in Test cricket, but when allied to height – Overton is 6ft5in – you can certainly build a career on it. Plenty of tall seamers have dobbled their way through a sizeable proportion of their careers.

Shaun Pollock dobbled for many a year. Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh purveyed bouncy dobble for longer than anyone cares to acknowledge. Glenn McGrath was pretty much King of Dobble.

Craig Overton is a good few hundred wickets away from the Pantheon of Dobblery, but in failing to get absolutely murdered by every single batsman who faced him, he encouraged the notion that he might yet play a few more matches. He also does the Alan Mullally thing of giving it a bit more oomph whenever he jams in a bouncer.

His first wicket wasn’t bad either: Steve Smith dirtily bowled off pad and then bat.

It was a pure dobbler’s dismissal, leaving the batsman with an infuriated sense that he hasn’t properly been beaten, even as he looks back at the splayed stumped evidence to the contrary.

More of this kind of thing.

Similar deliveries:

Default ThumbnailCommence the straw-clutching Default ThumbnailCraig Kieswetter dominating second-class cricket Default ThumbnailOf course Craig Kieswetter’s in the England one-day team

20 comments

  2. I reckon Paul Collingwood would have been a handful on this pitch, not sure anyone has mentioned him as an option for England?

  3. As Morrissey probably never asked, why are some bowlers quicker than others?

    Is it natural talent, technique, practice, strength as a result of gym work, or a bit of all three?

    1. Wouldn’t it be nice if we find that Hazlewood & Cummins have shaved their poxy tashes off and resultently lost their pizazz.

      2. Can’t decide whether Cummins still has a poxy tash and poxy chin fur this match, or simply didn’t bother to shave this morning.

        Less Cummins and more Cunis – neither one thing nor the other, face-fluff-wise.

  5. Think my definition of “dobble” may be out of sync with your own. Ambrose and Walsh I would have described as purveyors of dobble-plus; McGrath as dobble-plus-good.

  7. Am I the only one amongst us who is finding today’s play absolute agony?

    Or am I the only one who is putting e-pen to e-paper to say so?

    1. Maybe it just goes without saying for many. Or maybe through the magic of phones, people checked the score earlier and then opted for “massive lie-in”.

  8. Best thing I’ve learned from that brief Stokes cameo for Canterbury is that Anaru Kitchen has a great name.

    Very solid first-class and List A record too, anyone know why he hasn’t played international cricket? Seems odd when NZ is not a big country that he can have got to his 30s without being given a chance at some point.

  9. KC, have you noticed Mitchell Johnson’s Hayden-esque twitter offerings? He gave Shaun Marsh a well done and told him to keep ‘winning on skill’ earlier today.

    He also exhibits a rare willingess to get involved with random punters in online sledging matches.

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