Broad & Bres

Wassup? Ravi Bopara was bowling 77-80mph today and both of them were barely a few mph faster and have been for much of the season.

Are they holding it back? Bres was regularly 84-86 downunder and Broad was a good 5mph faster last year.

Watched Broad v Aus in a 2010 one-dayer... regularly touching 90... he looked all the better for it, he really did. I don't know what's going on with them, I cannot fathom really - they're both in good shape.

According to the speed guns basically all the Aussie bowlers were bowling faster but the thing that matters most at the end of the day is the scoreboard. Mitch can bowl very fast too but whether it's in the direction of the stumps is questionable. As they said this morning on 'The Offsiders' people in the crowd are thankful he is not competing for us in the archery at Lord's.

They're getting away with it because of the conditions but if it continues this way against the Saffies and miraculously the sun comes out for an extended period and the pitches flatten out, questions will start to be asked.

I suspect though that they're holding back a bit. Probably because the conditions haven't required any sort of pace. I remember in 2005, Fred was only bowling around 83-84 mph in the ODI series before the Ashes and a few of us on C4 were wondering if he was carrying a niggle, but come the test series, he was consistently bowling 90mph+