Conventional swing has been prominent by its scarcity, but come the tail end of innings, the ball has started to go
Sidharth Monga03-Nov-2023It is a sight for sore eyes. A dirty, raggedy ball, hurled in fast, dipping, moving late and towards the (relatively) shiny side, shutting down some of the heavy scoring in the second half of an ODI innings. A sight that had been legislated out of the game. And before we blame Australia and Cape Town, it is worth a reminder that ODI cricket made reverse swing nearly impossible well before the yellow sandpaper came out in the Newlands Test in 2018.Cricket has a love-hate relationship with reverse swing. It’s the sport’s guilty pleasure. It loves it when examples show up on the highlights reels. Arguably the most iconic image in ODI cricket is of Wasim Akram hooping it away from right-hand batters from around the wicket in the 1992 World Cup final. It just creates a dramatic sight: a fast bowler running in, the ball leaving the hand straight but beginning to develop a mind of its own past midway through its flight, and then batters protecting their toes or getting their stumps messed up.Cricket loves reverse swing, but it doesn’t quite like to know what goes into its making. If it could happen magically, cricket would love it. And it doesn’t want to be seen to be providing the prerequisites for reverse swing. In addition to demonising the work required on the ball to achieve reverse, the ICC all but made sure there wouldn’t be any reverse in ODIs by providing for a ball at each end after the 2011 World Cup. The ball just wouldn’t get old enough for reverse.Related
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And then Jasprit Bumrah jogs in in the 36th over in this World Cup and bowls a hard length. It moves so late and against the angle that we think it is seam movement, because he did not bowl a legcutter. It squares Shadab Khan up and takes the off bail. One man in the commentary box, a past master of the art, Waqar Younis, disagrees with everyone and says Bumrah has bowled a reverse-swinging outswinger. The subtlest of deliveries, especially given Bumrah’s natural angle.In hindsight, the signs were all there. India had clearly seen a dry square in Ahmedabad, began bowling cross-seam with the new ball, kept bouncing the throws in, and even delayed Bumrah’s return, which is usually just after the 25th over. This time Mohammed Siraj got a return spell first and he kept bashing the ball in cross-seam.The bowlers had to do something. The new ball wasn’t swinging as much as it had earlier in the year. The batters were coming at the new ball with renewed hatred, making this the most brutal World Cup for bowlers in the powerplay: the run rate has been about half a run per over higher in that period in this tournament than in the two before it.We don’t know why exactly the ball has not swung conventionally in the tournament as a whole, because if it was to do with this particular batch of balls, as some bowlers have suggested, what explains the above-average swing in Delhi, Lucknow and Dharamsala? (And then, in Dharamsala the swing disappeared in the last two matches played there.)India have managed to get the ball scuffed up on the dry parts of the wicket square to help their bowlers achieve more swing•Surjeet Yadav/Getty ImagesWhatever it was, the teams were smart enough to identify dry squares in certain venues and began working on reverse swing. In Dharamsala, India again brought Siraj back before Bumrah, in the 25th over. The old ball swung again. Mohammed Shami uprooted Mitchell Santner’s off stump with a yorker that the commentator Shane Watson observed looked like it would pitch three balls’ width outside off.It was not just the wickets Shami took. India conceded just 68 runs in the last 13 overs, though New Zealand had wickets in hand.New Zealand themselves tried to get the ball “ready” in their next match, in Dharamsala against Australia. The umpires warned Tom Latham against throws bouncing twice. Mitchell Starc got some tail with the old ball later in the day.In Kolkata came the most glorious use of reverse, fittingly by Pakistan. In the 31st over, Shaheen Shah Afridi went around the wicket and got the ball to straighten against the angle to clean up Bangladesh’s best batter, Mahmudullah, for 56. Once Afridi was done, Mohammad Wasim took over, knocking over three sets of stumps in seven balls. Bangladesh went from 130 for 4 to 204 all out.
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