Mixing it up
If a bowler sends down the same sort of delivery
every time that he runs in to bowl, the batsman
can often get used to this and as a result find
the bowling much easier to play. As a result of
this, it's useful for a quick bowler to develop
a 'variation' in order to prevent this kind of
situation from occurring. A variation can come
from a change as simple as slowing down the
run-up, but there are several other, less
obvious, ways that a bowler can change the type
of delivery he's bowling - after all, if you're
trying to surprise the batsman, you're much
better off if he can't tell that you're doing
something different!
As mentioned earlier, if the seam of the ball
doesn't stay straight (or is 'scrambled'), then
the ball won't swing as much - so by simply
holding the ball with your fingers across the
seam, you can reduce the movement that you get.
It's also possible to slow down the delivery by
changing the way that the ball is gripped -
again, there are many different ways that this
can be done, ranging from simply increasing the
distance between your index and middle fingers
on the seam through to the 'reverse release'
made famous by Ian Harvey.
This slower ball, also known as the
back-of-the-hand ball, involves twisting the
wrist at the point of release so that the back
of the hand faces the batsman, slowing down the
release and hence the speed of the delivery to
great effect. A well-disguised ball like this is
often at its most effective in the final overs
of a limited-overs game when the batsman are
attempting to hit everything out of the park,
and slowing a delivery down by that 10-20mph
(15-30kph) can deceive the batsman enough to
make the difference between the ball clattering
into the pavilion roof and the middle stump
being knocked out of the ground!
Due to the significant differences in actions
between in-swing and out-swing, it's very hard
to disguise one type of delivery as the other.
Martin Bicknell, of Surrey and England, is one
of the few people who can do this - in the Test
Series against South Africa during summer 2003,
he bowled two outswingers to Jacques Rudolph
that were both left well alone. The next ball
pitched in exactly the same place only to swing
in the other direction and remove the batsman's
off-stump. Whilst for many bowlers this kind of
scenario is an impossibility, deliveries called
'cutters' make up the next best alternative.
Cutters involve the bowler placing spin on the
ball so that it rotates in the air, and then
moves off the pitch in the opposite direction to
the batsman's expectations. This can be done
simply by rotating the wrist as the ball is
released - as it leaves your hand, it will then
begin to spin sideways over itself in the
direction that your wrist rotated. The amount of
movement can be increased with the fingers
helping to increase the speed of the rotation of
the ball. For a right-handed outswing bowler,
the most common variation is the 'off-cutter',
achieved by rotating the wrist and fingers in a
clockwise direction and moving back in to a
right-handed batsman, whilst an inswing bowler
is likely to find the 'leg-cutter' - which moves
away from the right-hander and is attained by
anti-clockwise rotation - more useful.
Of course, these different variations can be
mixed and matched depending on what you feel is
the best for the situation, and are an important
part of a fast bowler's armoury when it comes to
getting batsmen out. Like any part of cricket,
some will work for some bowlers but not for
others - so don't be concerned if one particular
method doesn't work for you, there's almost
certainly one that will!
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