Proof reading

[himani patterson]

Dear Mentors,
I was reading a cricket article this morning and below is a line that was written:

The home side were in trouble at 325-8 after Brett Lee bowled Geraint Jones for 25 with the ninth ball of the day.

Don't you think there is something wrong in the above sentence and it should be
The home side were in trouble at 325-8 after Brett Lee had bowled Geraint Jones for 25 with the ninth ball of the day.

i.e had should be there after Brett Lee.

Can you please cofirm this
Thanks
Himani Patterson

[Pete]

Dear Mentors,
I was reading a cricket article this morning and below is a line that was written:

The home side were in trouble at 325-8 after Brett Lee bowled Geraint Jones for 25 with the ninth ball of the day.

Don't you think there is something wrong in the above sentence and it should be
The home side were in trouble at 325-8 after Brett Lee had bowled Geraint Jones for 25 with the ninth ball of the day.

i.e had should be there after Brett Lee.

Can you please confirm this
Thanks
Himani Patterson
I think you would more often hear this the way it was written, though your suggestion that the past perfect be used is indeed possible. People tend to use the past perfect to make the sequence of actions clear when you wouldn't be sure otherwise. With explicit terms like "after" and "before", the sequence is already clear, so often the simple past is used for the earlier action. In this case, the earlier action was immediately before the later one; they essentially took place at the same time. That makes it even less natural to use "had" to make it the past perfect tense.