Maybe retirement has brought out the Victor Meldrew in me but does anyone else get frustrated when bowlers talk about “hitting the right areas” as soon as a microphone is put under their nose? Is this phrase a media-training device to avoid having to analyse how they really bowled or has this coaching jargon been around for time immemorial?

Could those asking the questions please check for understanding on what “the right areas” actually are? Judging by some of the performances from our best bowlers over the past 12 months the specifics of where they’re intending to pitch the ball could be enlightening.

I’m not intending to be facetious. It’s just a fear that our current generation of young seam bowlers seem to think that they will be successful if they run up and land it there or thereabouts. I’ve seen it a lot in county cricket: a bowler charges in 30 yards and sends down a delivery a foot wide of off stump, which gets left by the batsman yet has the fielding side clapping and hollering “well bowled, great areas” at the tops of their voices.

The best bowlers know how they take wickets. There is more to their method than simply “hitting the right areas”. They are craftsmen who carve out their wickets. Take Ryan Sidebottom, for instance, whose setting up of a right hander by pushing several deliveries across him before swinging one back to pin him leg-before has been a delight to watch this summer.

The top fast bowlers try to work batsmen out. They push you on to the back foot till you forget all about coming forward, whereupon they slide one up to induce an error from a flat-footed drive. Others might pull you across outside off stump before letting you have an in-swinger.

I remember feeling quite pleased with myself having hooked Courtney Walsh for four against the touring West Indians of 1995. I was closing in on a hundred and playing well but Walsh had set me up. The next ball was another bumper but it was three yards quicker and I gloved it to the keeper. I had been done good and proper.

My fear is that talk of the “right areas” encourages bowlers to simply look to hit the deck in the channel outside off-stump, which, while it might sound like a plausible enough ploy, is not enough to get good players out consistently.

Masters of line and length (an old-fashioned but much more creditable term for “the right areas”) like Glenn McGrath and Angus Fraser worked on the theory that if they got enough deliveries in the right spot then one would do something or a batsman would make an error, but theirs was a channel that threatened the off stump, a length that constantly had you pinned on the crease. They wore you down with their accuracy. For “areas” read sixpence.

Good bowlers bowl straight. Not middle and leg straight but off-stump and fractionally outside so a batsman has to play. They threaten off stump. It makes sense; those stumps were put in the ground for a reason after all. They also bowl a large percentage of their deliveries on a good length where batsmen are unsure whether to play forward or back.

Ed Smith, the Middlesex captain, tells an interesting story of his time on tour with England A a few years ago. Rod Marsh, director of the national academy and England selector at the time, was asking the England quick bowlers the length they looked to bowl. All of them replied “back of a good length Rod”. At which point he asked Smith and Kevin Pietersen, the two senior batsmen, what length they found most difficult to play. “A good length Rod,” came the answer.

A good length. A good line. The basics of bowling and less vague than all that talk of “areas”.

Murali still hungry for scalps

Congratulations to Muttiah Muralitharan, who not only took Test wicket number 700 this weekend but also promptly announced he’s hungry for many more Test scalps before he retires.

“I hope to play until the next World Cup in 2011 and the challenge is that before I retire I am thinking of taking 1000 Test wickets,” the 35-year-old spinner said. At his current rate (he has taken 100 wickets in his past 12 Tests) he could reach the magic figure in as little as three years.

“Murali” is already closing in on the world record of 708 wickets held by his great friend and rival Shane Warne, whom he could overtake in Australia this winter where Sri Lanka play their next two Test matches.

Warne is powerless to stop the little Sri Lankan wizard from overhauling his record, having retired from the international scene, but he will re-ignite their rivalry when the two go head to head in the LV County Championship at Old Trafford on August 21.

Expect Dravid to rise to the battle

“Beware Rahul Dravid” should read England’s notes for the forthcoming Test series against India. Sachin Tendulkar is making all the headlines, such is his almost god-like status among India fans, but in Dravid India have a captain who knows all about English conditions and what it takes to win here.

I had the honour of watching Dravid at close quarters when he played for Kent in 1999 and can bear witness to the fact that while, he appears calm and laid back on the surface, there is a streetfighter that lurks beneath.

The bigger the contest, the better he played. His duel with Andy Caddick on a bouncy wicket at Bath (the ball was rearing off a ridge at pace) will live long in the memory, while he demolished Shane Warne at Portsmouth on a last-day pitch that was turning square.

Dravid is not one for big statements at press conferences but he’s quietly confident India can win the Test series and he’ll be determined to leave a lasting impression on his final tour of England.