Looks fast, feels faster - why the speed gun is only part of the story

Data on release points and trajectory are helping to break down the mysteries of why some bowlers are harder to face than others writes Cameron Ponsonby in Cricinfo

Shubman Gill ducks a Pat Cummins bouncer during India's Test tour of Australia in 2020-21 AFP/Getty Images
 
 


South Africa's Andrew Hall is on strike against Brett Lee at the Wanderers stadium in Johannesburg. The ball is bowled and Hall tucks it into the leg side before setting off for a gentle single.

As he jogs to the other end he hears a belated cheer from the crowd. Confused, he looks around to see the big screen displaying an announcement. He has just faced the fastest ball ever to have been bowled at the Wanderers.

Still confused, Hall's eyes move from the screen to Lee and they trade a quizzical look: "There's no way that was that quick."

The next ball, Lee runs in and bowls a bouncer to Gary Kirsten that flies past his face. Lee and Hall catch each other's eye once more,

"That one was."

You see, the speed gun is the movie adaptation of your favourite book. Yes, it tells the story. But it doesn't tell the full one.

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"A lot of what makes Test players special happens before the ball comes out of a bowler's hand."

Those are the words of England analyst Nathan Leamon, speaking on Jarrod Kimber's Red Inker podcast. As a starting point, it shines a light on one of the limitations of the speed gun. It only tells us how fast a ball is at the point of release and tells us nothing about what has happened before or what happens after.

And what happens before is crucial. It is very easy to think of facing fast bowling as primarily a reactive skill. In fact, read any article on quick bowling and it will invariably say you only have 0.4 seconds to react to a 90mph delivery.

But what does that mean? No one can compute information in 0.4 seconds. It's beyond our realm of thinking in the same way that looking out of an aeroplane window doesn't give you vertigo because you're simply too high up for your brain to process it.

However, the reason it's possible is because, whilst you may only have 0.4 seconds to react, you have a lot longer than that to plan. And the best in the world plan exceptionally well.

Hall describes a training method that South Africa would use in order to be able to associate a bowler's release point with length. After a ball was bowled, they'd walk down the wicket and place a cone or mark a spot with their bat where they believed the ball had landed. The coach would confirm it or correct what the player thought.

The idea is in essence basic trigonometry. Over time, you learn to associate that if a bowler releases the ball with his arm at 12 o'clock, the delivery would be full. If he releases the ball at 1 o'clock, it would be short. It's a process designed to consciously train the subconscious, and Jacques Kallis was the best at it.

"Whether he played and missed," Hall says, "or left it, or ducked out the way, he'd be able to come down the track and isolate a rough area of where that ball had landed. And the reason he was so good at it is he became really sharp at picking up length and he made some bowlers look slower because of that. Because as they let go of the ball, he knew within a couple of inches where it was going to land."


Jasprit Bumrah roars after having Joe Root caught in the slips AFP/Getty Images



There are a number of pre-delivery cues that Hall, as an international player, would be looking out for. Some were obvious tells, such as a bowler running in that bit harder before bowling a bouncer; others more subtle, like a bowler's head falling away in their action so they were able to push the ball into the batter and bowl an inswinger.

These cues weren't restricted to fast bowlers either. When talking about how to face Muthiah Muralidaran, Hall explains that one of the cues the South Africans would look out for was where his right elbow would be pointing as he entered his delivery stride. If it was pointing out at 90 degrees with his hand by his ear lobe, that was the sign that Muralitharan was going to bowl his off-spinner. If his elbow was pointing down towards the batter, it was probably a doosra coming up.

"You still wouldn't be able to play it half the time," Hall adds, "but you had an idea."

And some bowlers give you more of these cues than others, meaning a bowler at 87mph may feel quicker than one at 90mph if they give the batter fewer clues in their action.

Mark Ramprakash spoke of this when comparing his experience of facing Lee and Jason Gillespie in the 2001 Ashes. Lee was the faster bowler of the two, but his textbook action, with the ball always in sight, meant that Ramprakash felt he could consistently time his pre-delivery movement. But when he faced Gillespie, despite his being slower on the speed gun, it felt quicker. And this was because Gillespie would appear almost to release the ball before he'd really landed on the ground, throwing off Ramprakash's timings. When facing Lee, Ramprakash was planning. But when he was facing Gillespie, he was reacting.

In simple terms, there's a correlation between a bowler being "different" and the feeling that they are faster than they actually are. Batters are brought up on a diet of right-arm-over bowling that is released from nigh-on the same area, ball after ball after ball. Remove that familiarity, and the feeling of speed goes up.

In the Caribbean in 2019, TV showed Jasprit Bumrah's release point was half a metre closer to the batter than Kemar Roach's. This gave Bumrah the effect of bowling 3.7mph faster than the speed gun was showing

"Take Lasith Malinga," Hall says. "If you've not faced him before, you're literally going 'what am I supposed to watch?' But you soon get told, when he gets into his action, to watch the umpire's chest and neck. If you're watching his arm, you're struggling. And that's why in the beginning he'd clean people up and they'd say 'ah, he's quick'. He's not that quick. You just couldn't follow the ball."

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Another quirk of how we consider pace is that by measuring the speed at which a ball is released, we're not actually measuring how long it takes to reach the batter. And there's a difference.

For instance, if you set up a bowling machine at 85mph and deliver three balls in a row, one of which is a full toss, the second a good length delivery and the third a bouncer, each of the three balls will reach the other end in a different amount of time because when the ball hits the pitch, it slows down. And the steeper that impact is, the more it will slow. So counterintuitively, the bouncer, cricket's scariest delivery, is actually the slowest of the three, whereas the full toss, cricket's worst delivery, is the fastest.

But what we don't know is how different bowlers compare to each other in terms of how much pace they lose off the wicket. The information is out there, but it's just not readily available. Angus Reid from VirtualEye - the company that provides ball-tracking data for Test matches in Australia - recalls how, during Naseem Shah's Test debut for Pakistan, they did a piece for broadcast comparing how he and Australia's Pat Cummins were releasing the ball at very similar speeds, but Shah was reaching the batter faster due to a combination of his height, ball trajectory and "skiddy" nature.


Steven Smith was pinned by a Jofra Archer bouncer at Lord's in 2019 Getty Images


And we know from player anecdotes that these things matter. Hall explains how bowlers will sometimes bowl their bouncer with a cross-seam in the hope that the ball lands on the lacquer and loses less pace when it pitches. It is the same notion that Joe Root expressed earlier this year when he said India's spinner Axar Patel was beating England for pace in the pink-ball Test at Ahmedabad, because the skid off the lacquer gave the feeling that the ball was "gathering pace" off the wicket.

Conversely, many bowlers are said to bowl a "heavy ball", whereby batters feel that the ball is "hitting the bat harder" than expected. One such bowler was New Zealand bowler Iain O'Brien, who believes this was a consequence of the ball kicking up off the pitch and striking the blade higher than anticipated, due to more backspin being imparted upon release. Such was the backspin that Andrew Flintoff imparted on the ball, in the lead up to the 2005 Ashes he was accused of chucking as his wrist would snap so dramatically at the point of delivery.

This is one of the difficulties of trying to express the feeling of speed to a wider audience. For the spectator, it's merely a number because we have no other frame of reference. But for the batter, it's an experience. A moment in time that is almost over before it's begun.

One former international cricketer laughed when asked whether he would check the speed gun after facing a delivery. "Why would I need the speed gun to tell me if a ball was fast? I was the one who just faced it."

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The final piece of the puzzle concerns the ball's release point.

When India were touring the Caribbean in 2019, TV showed an overlay of Jasprit Bumrah's release point compared to Kemar Roach's, demonstrating that Bumrah was bowling the ball half a metre closer to the batter than Roach. Some quick maths showed that this gave Bumrah the effect of bowling 3.7mph faster than the speed gun was showing. Cricket has long been played on a pitch that is 22 yards. Bumrah plays on one that is 21.5.

Admittedly, this advantage was spotted because Bumrah is on the extreme, gazillion-jointed end of the scale, enabling him to bowl closer than anyone else in a way that other bowlers can't. But given we pay attention to how wide on the crease a bowler will bowl and also how high a bowler's release point is, surely we should know how close a bowler is bowling to the batter, given it is the single easiest way of apparently increasing pace.

This effect is measured in baseball. In fact, everything is. While cricket shrugs its shoulders and says "I guess we'll never know, folks" for a myriad of data-points, every intangible detail in baseball is known and measured.

How close a pitcher releases the ball to a batter is known as "Extension" and translates to what's known as "Perceived Velocity". Famed pitching coach Tom House believes that, if you can throw the ball one foot closer to the batter, then it equals an extra 3mph for the person at the other end. Tyler Glasnow and Luis Castillo are two pitchers who both throw their fast-ball at 97mph. Glasnow's extension is one of the best in the league and Castillo's is one of the worst. As a result, Glasnow feels like he is throwing at 99mph and Castillo feels like he is throwing at 95mph.Spin rates, which could resolve cricket's heavy-ball phenomenon, are a hugely important measurement in baseball - so much so that they can now be taken into consideration in the selection process.

Even the ultimate intangible, the impact an action has on a batter before the ball has been released, is beginning to be quantified by a biomechanics company known as ProPlayAI, who have started tracking what they call a "deception metric", which measures the amount of time a batter has to see the ball in a pitcher's hand before release.


Mitchell Johnson was ferociously quick during the 2013-14 Ashes Getty Images



The culmination of all these factors comes in the form of a pitcher named Yusemeiro Petit, described by baseball writer Ben Lindbergh as "the poster boy for the power of deception".

Petit's average fast-ball is 87mph. A whole 7mph slower than the rest of the league. He is 37 years old and over 500 games into his career. And he has made it this far, not by being a force of nature but by representing the mystery of it. He is one of those alien fishes at the bottom of the ocean that has lived forever and we don't know why.

In the 2005 edition of the Prospect Handbook, Baseball America, which is the sport's annual guide on the young players to look out for, Petit was described as leaving "batters and scouts scratching their heads ... Nothing about it [his fast-ball] appears to be exceptional - except how hitters never seem to get a good swing against it."

Fast forward to the present day and the reasons for Petit's success are beginning to be decoded. Simply put, Lindbergh describes him as a "hider and a strider". Throwing the ball far closer to home plate than would be expected and giving the batter little to no sight of the ball in the process. The result of which is a pitcher who is far quicker than the speed gun would lead you to believe.

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All of this isn't to say that the speed gun is useless. It isn't. But it represents different things to different people. As a broadcasting tool, it's an excellent way of telling a story in a bite-size chunk. And for a bowler, it represents the result of their process. Get everything right and watch that number go up.

For batters, however, it represents part of the process that leads to their result. Yes, the speed of a ball upon release is important. But we know that there are other factors at play, because the players at the receiving end of it say so. And ultimately, who would you rather face? A bowler that a machine says is fast? Or one that a human says feels even faster?

Why Indians Don’t Bat Left Handed

 

Spin Bowlers - Going through life as an individual

Suresh Menon in The Hindu


Spin bowlers tend to be like French verbs — they follow rules peculiar to their type, and the exceptions to the rule are fascinating. Often exceptions have rules too. Shane Warne didn’t need to bowl an off-break; Graeme Swann didn’t bowl the leg-break, not even the fashionable doosra. Yet cricket’s great mystery bowlers have been the spinners, not the fast men who might threaten life and limb, but seldom leave the batsman feeling foolish.

It would have been nice to get into the heads of India’s leading batsmen Virat Kohli and K.L. Rahul after they were beaten and bowled in one magical over by Sri Lanka’s latest mystery spinner, Mahamarakkala Kurukulasooriya Patabendige Akila Dananjaya Perera.

It wasn’t the classical duel where the bowler teases and tantalises, torments and mocks over a period before the kill. There isn’t time for that in a limited overs game. Here, speed of execution is of the essence, and both batsmen were fooled by an apparently innocuous delivery. There was something gentle about it all. A slight drift, a final dip, and batsmen with a reputation for dominating spin bowling were done in, playing the wrong line.

Perhaps ‘mystery’ applies to spin bowlers in general. The flighted delivery bowled above the eye line works against the steady head and tricks the batsman into believing the ball will pitch closer to him than it actually does. Then there is the problem of figuring out which way it will turn.

To those watching from the outside it is a cause for wonder that a slow delivery, sometimes spinning, often not, hits the stumps ignoring the bat and pads. It is one of the most satisfying sights in cricket, to watch a Goliath, complete with protective gear fall prey to a bowler whose greatest deception sometimes is that there is no deception at all.

Dananjaya is an off-break bowler who also bowls leg-breaks, doosras and the carom ball. He will be studied with great care by batsmen who will work out where his shoulder and feet and hands are at the time of delivery.

In modern cricket, mystery spinners need to be able to beat both the batsmen and the coaches armed with their computers. The most artistic of deliveries can be reduced to their mathematical specifics. Before the advent of technology, the average spinner sometimes needed to develop ‘mystery’ deliveries to be successful. Now the ‘mystery’ spinner needs to get back to the roots of his craft, focusing on the traditional.

It is a lesson the phenomenally successful Test off-spinner R. Ashwin has to absorb if he hopes to be a permanent fixture in the one-day side.

‘Mystery’ spinners through history, from Jack Iverson to Johnny Gleeson to Ajantha Mendis have tended to have early success, and then faded out. Once the opposition worked them out, they lacked the control over their basic craft to take wickets.

Iverson’s bowling action was characterised as that of a man flicking out a burnt cigarette. That might have been the original carom ball, except that using his long middle finger and thumb he could turn the ball from off to leg. Some batsmen began to play him as an off spinner although he took wickets with his leg break and top spinner. He was sorted out in the inter-state matches in Australia by Arthur Morris and Keith Miller — in the days when players had to think for themselves, who recognised the top spinner as the one tossed up higher and went hard at the bowler.

Gleeson, who also had a long middle finger and could bowl the Iverson delivery in the 1960s, strengthened his fingers by milking cows. Despite their short stints, the game has been the richer for their presence.

Increasingly, cookie-cutter coaching tends to convert the unorthodox spinner into something more comprehensible. As David Frith says, “Every young spinner turned into a colourless medium-pacer constitutes a crime against a beautiful game.”

The one country where the unorthodox is not just accepted but actively encouraged is Sri Lanka. Think Muttiah Muralitharan, or Lasith Malinga or Mendis, bowlers who were allowed to remain themselves with no coach attempting to iron out so-called deficiencies.

It might sound counter-intuitive, but spinners with too many variations tend not to be as successful as those with a few, of which they are the masters. It is the fox versus the hedgehog theory all over again. The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing. Sometimes in cricket, it is smarter to be the hedgehog.

“There seemed to be an absence of orthodoxy about them, and they were able to meander through life as individuals, not civil servants.” That is a line from the Australian spinner Arthur Mailey. He was speaking about spinners in general. It applies equally to Dananjaya and his special kind.

Why are most captains inevitably batsmen?

Rob Steen in Cricinfo


James Anderson: one of many who have questioned why more fast bowlers aren't considered for captaincy © Getty Images



James Anderson has nothing to prove to anyone but, one assumes, himself. Nor is he one to mince words. So when he expresses disappointment at not having been considered for the England Test captaincy, then says he doesn't know why more fast bowlers aren't entrusted with leadership, and leaves the question hanging in the air, the point is worth considering. What possible reason can there be to maintain the lazy, prejudiced, time-dishonoured view that batsmen should be the default choice as coin-tossers?

Naturally, the record books tell their own flagrantly biased story: of the 57 men to have captained in 25 or more Tests, 46 have been batsmen first and foremost (including 15 of the 16 who have done so on 50-plus occasions, the exception being MS Dhoni). Even if we include two top-notch allrounders, Imran Khan and Garry Sobers, the number of seam bowlers runs to just six: Imran (48 Tests), Sobers (39), Kapil Dev (34), Darren Sammy (30), Shaun Pollock (26) and Wasim Akram (25). Still, that's twice as many representatives in the chart as the spin fraternity can muster - Daniel Vettori (32), Ray Illingworth (31) and Richie Benaud (28) - never mind the stumpers, who contribute only Dhoni (60) and Mushfiqur Rahim (30). As for those who would classify him as a spinner, Sobers is remembered better by this column for his left-arm swing than his spin, so let's indulge it.

It gets worse. Late last year the Cricketer magazine asked readers to vote for their favourite England captain; of the 23 candidates proffered, only Illingworth did not count run-making as his primary occupation. It's all a matter of class, of course. Back when such distinctions were made, the amateurs were almost invariably batsmen, cravat-wearing types accustomed to being served hittable offerings by lowly, gnarly professionals; chaps to whom authority was a birthright. "In England," noted Mike Brearley in his definitive The Art of Captaincy, a revised edition of which is due out this summer, "charisma and leadership have traditionally been associated with the upper class; with that social strata that gives its members what Kingsley Amis called 'the voice accustomed to command'."

If Anderson is "all for bowlers being captains", Don Bradman offered the counter-argument in The Art of Cricket, reasoning that they would lack objectivity about their own workload. "They tend either to over-bowl themselves or not to bowl enough," reinforced Brearley, "from conceit, modesty or indeed self-protection." On the other hand, he continued, two of the best postwar captains in his view were Benaud and Illingworth, outliers both.



It's all a matter of class, of course. Back when such distinctions were made, the amateurs were almost invariably batsmen, cravat-wearing types accustomed to being served hittable offerings by lowly, gnarly professionals


In his 1980 book Captaincy, Illingworth argued that the allrounder, and especially those who were also twirlers like himself and Benaud, were the best equipped for the job. He also took issue with Bradman in his autobiography Yorkshire and Back:

"Basically, I felt my two strongest points were, first, after playing for quite a time I knew batsmen pretty well and I knew their temperaments so I thought I set good fields; and second, I think I was able to get the best out of people because they trusted me. I knew when to attack and when to defend, which governed field placing, and my handling of the bowling."

Video has aided such knowledge, granted, but there's no substitute for a bowler's instinct.

Benaud also rated Illingworth high above the herd. In his 1984 book, Benaud of Reflection he wrote:

"He was a deep thinker on the game, without having any of the theories which sometimes produce woolly thinking from captains. He was a shrewd psychologist and one who left his team in no doubt as to what he required of them. Above all, though, he made his decisions before the critical moment. It was never a case of thinking for an over or two about whether or not a move should be made. If he had a hunch it would work, and if it seemed remotely within the carefully laid-down plans of the series, then he would do it."

What counted above all, felt Illingworth, under whose charge England enjoyed most of their record 26-match unbeaten run between 1969 and 1971, was honesty. During the summer of 1970, opener Brian Luckhurst asked him, somewhat tentatively, whether he had any chance of being picked for that winter's Ashes tour, having made a fair few runs in the first three Tests of the series against a powerful Rest of the World attack. "You're almost on the boat now," replied Illy. "Now what I liked about that," he recollected, "was that Brian had only played three matches with me, and yet he felt that not only could he ask a question, but he was reasonably sure he'd get an honest answer."

Ah, but what if the truth had been, in the captain's view, that Luckhurst was nowhere near the boat? "I wouldn't have told him, 'You've no bloody chance.' I like to think it is possible to be less brutal than that while being sincere, but I would have told him straight that his chances were slim, or even less than that."



Ray Illingworth (right): "I felt my two strongest points were, first, after playing for quite a time, I knew batsmen pretty well, so I thought I set good fields; and second, I think I was able to get the best out of people" © PA Photos


So, knowledge of batsmen, intelligence, psychological insight and honesty: all assets that Anderson possesses, and has employed in support of his captains. Unlike most fast bowlers, moreover, he fields in the slips - one of the better vantage points, if perhaps overrated. He says he enjoyed leading Lancashire on a pre-season tour but acknowledges that, as a fast bowler of advanced age, promoting him now would have made little sense. And yes, if we're brutally honest, had the vacancy arisen, say, three years ago, it is questionable whether he could have been relied upon to control the flashes of temper that have occasionally plunged him into hot water.

Brearley, for his part, contended that a fast bowler should only ever be made captain as a last resort. "It takes an exceptional character to know when to bowl, to keep bowling with all his energy screwed up into a ball of aggression, and to be sensitive to the needs of the team, both tactically and psychologically. [Bob] Willis in particular always shut himself up into a cocoon of concentration and fury for his bowling." The exception, he allowed, was Mike Procter. "Vintcent van der Bijl, who played under Procter for Natal, speaks of his ability to develop each player's natural game and of the enthusiasm that he brought to every match."

Benaud disagreed with Brearley, hailing Keith Miller, a fast bowling allrounder, as the best captain he played under. "No one under whom I played sized up a situation more quickly and no one was better at summing up a batsman's weaknesses," Benaud wrote. "He had to do this for himself when he was bowling and it was second nature for him to do so as captain."

Unaccountably to many, while his tenure as New South Wales captain kicked off a run of nine consecutive Sheffield Shield titles, the nearest Miller came to leading his country was when he took over from the injured Ian Johnson for the first Test of the 1954-55 Caribbean tour in Jamaica, which saw him handle his attack astutely over both West Indies innings, score a century and grab five wickets.


Brearley, for his part, contended that a fast bowler should only ever be made captain as a last resort

Naturally, it is pure conjecture as to whether Australia would have fared better under him on the 1956 Ashes tour - Johnson, a so-so offspinner but the establishment man, was again preferred. There seems to be no better explanation for Miller being passed over than that the selectors were fearful that, as a free spirit and renowned party animal in an image-obsessed trade, he might project the wrong one. "I never seriously thought I would be the captain," Miller would reflect. "I'm impulsive; what's more, I've never been Bradman's pin-up." Nearly half a century later, Shane Warne suffered similarly.

Anderson's main thrust, nonetheless, was about bowlers in general. So, is it fair to say that selectors and committees are still blinded by tradition? Not remotely as much as they were. That two-thirds of the longest-reigning Test bowler-captains (and both wicketkeeper-captains) have assumed charge in the post-Packer age seems far from coincidental.

As Tests have proliferated and media scrutiny has soared, so appointing the right man has never been more important; shelving reservations based on ritual has become equally crucial, as evinced most recently by the appointments of Rangana Herath (Sri Lanka), Jason Holder (West Indies) and Graeme Cremer (Zimbabwe) - one of whom, Holder, is a remarkably young fast bowler, albeit not a furiously aggressive specimen. Nevertheless, at a time when central contracts have placed pre-international captaincy experience at an ever-scarcer premium, this open-mindedness, such as it is, must gain pace.

Whatever the future may bring, there is only one certainty: there will never be another Brearley, another accomplished strategist, deep thinker and wise leader of men otherwise unworthy of his place. All the more reason, then, for that revised version of The Art of Captaincy to be mandatory bedtime reading for Joe Root.

Aakash Chopra - On opening batsmanship

Aakash Chopra in Cricinfo

The IPL is now nine seasons old. Having spent a few seasons in an IPL dressing room, I was soon convinced that T20 was here to stay, and second - a not-so-healthy upshot - that the format would seriously affect the growth of Test openers and spinners in particular. This because no other players are forced to change their basic game to suit the demands of the shortest format as much as Test openers and spinners.

A Test opener is a skeptic by nature. He is trained to distrust the ball till it reaches him. Early signs can be misleading; the ball might appear to be traveling in a straight line after the bowler releases it, but it's wrong for the batsman to assume that it will follow the same path till it reaches him. The new ball could move very late in the air or off the pitch, and so openers are hardwired to view it with suspicion. They are also trained not to commit early to a shot because that can leave them in a tangle. They're told to wait till the ball gets to them and play close to the body. Reaching out with the hands is a temptation a Test opener must guard against.

But in T20 cricket, an opener's role is to set the tone. Go really hard in the first six overs, which is when scoring is considered to be easiest. If you can't find the gaps, go aerial. If you can't go down straight, trust the bounce and go across. Don't get too close to the ball, as that will block the bat-swing. Stay away from the ball and use the arms and hands to reach out and hit. A spell of 12 balls without a boundary in the first six overs is considered to be pushing the team back. Patience might be a virtue in Tests; it's a liability in T20.

The same is true for the spinners. Flight, dip, guile and deception aren't the most sought after virtues in the world of T20. Instead, the focus is on keeping the trajectory low and bowling it a little quicker to discourage the batsmen from using their feet. Bounce is revered in Tests, but the lack of it is a boon in T20. We have seen spinners go extremely roundarm (remember Ravindra Jadeja in the IPL?) to prevent the batsman from getting under the bounce.

It takes a long time to master the art of bowling long spells to plot and plan dismissals in Test cricket - a tactic that's alien to T20 bowlers who are used to bowling four overs across two or more spells. You can't practise crossing the English Channel by spending 30 minutes in the swimming pool everyday. T20 cricket has challenged the fundamentals of spin bowling.

The reason I think middle-order batsmen and fast bowlers haven't been forced to change their game is because T20 hasn't demanded they do anything that they weren't already doing. A middle-order batsman in a Test side, as in a T20 game, is allowed to rotate the strike and play along the ground before accelerating the scoring. He does the same in Tests and ODIs, albeit later in the innings. The only adjustment he is called on to make is to shift gears a little sooner. That's easier to do than being asked to move from riding a bicycle to driving a sports car, as spinners and opening batsmen are.

Similarly, fast bowlers aren't pressed to do anything radically different either. Make the new ball swing, change lengths and pace regularly, and find the blockhole on demand. It's challenging for sure but not a skill-altering demand.

After weighing in these factors, it is only fair to assume that the next generation of spinners and openers for the longer format might take a lot longer to come to the fore, or worse, not do so at all. After all, why would somebody invest in the skill set required to play the longest format given the huge rewards on offer in the shortest format? Unless you just can't cut it in T20, leaving you with no choice whatsoever.

While the likes of David Warner and R Ashwin excel equally in both formats, it's worth noting that both honed their skills as youngsters when playing the longer format was still the way up. Also, both are aberrations and not the norm. Increasingly, Test teams are forced to pick specialists in these two departments.

KL Rahul comes across as the first to challenge my hypothesis, and perhaps he provides an insight into how cricketers of the future will be.

Things that look improbable now, both physically and mentally, could become reality in the near future. And Rahul's early success across formats offers proof. He was only 16 when the IPL started, in 2008, and his first-class debut came two years later, which makes him a wonderful case study.

Rahul is happy leaving the ball that is only a few inches outside the off stump in Tests, and equally adept at flaying anything wide. He puts in a long stride to get close to the ball and then lean into drives in the longer format, but in T20 he doesn't mind staying away from a ball pitched on the same length, the better to allow his hands to go through. Like a true Test opener, he is skeptical at the beginning of a Test innings, but he doesn't mind going down on one knee to scoop the first ball he faces in the shortest format.

He got out pulling from outside off in his debut Test match and since then he hasn't played that stroke early in his innings. By his own admission, he really enjoys playing the pull and hook to anything that is short. To shelve a shot that's dear to you in one format and play it in other formats shows discipline and patience. That's a virtue the new-age opener wasn't mastering, or so I thought.

Most importantly, a fifty or an eighty isn't enough for Rahul. In fact, save for one occasion, he has scored a century every time he has passed 50 in Tests. He has shown that if you train the mind as much as you train the body, it's indeed possible to find a game that's suited to Test cricket without compromising on success in other formats.

Over on the bowling side, we are still struggling to find spinners for the longer format. I won't be surprised if some boards decide to keep young spinners away from T20 cricket till a certain age, for it is widely accepted that the shortest format is affecting the development of young spinners.

Perhaps I'm taking Rahul's initial success too seriously. After all, he could be just like Warner, an aberration. But his style of play is reassuring and has given me hope. Maybe he's the first of the new breed of Test openers. Amen to that thought.

'You try to construct an over before you think of how to get a batsman out'

Shane Bond interviewed by Subash Jayaraman

You were able to play only 18 Tests and 82 ODIs for New Zealand. Did you think of cutting back on your pace or shortening your run-up or changing your bowling action to reduce the stress on your body?

No. I had to remodel my action once I had surgery on my back. I spent a lot of time making adjustments. In terms of throttling back: no. In hindsight, perhaps I should have taken more time and dropped my pace a little bit. But I always felt that my success came from going 100% all the time. That was my role in the team. So I tried to prepare the best I could and fulfil that role. Unfortunately, a few injuries came along the way. But that's sport.

Did pride or ego get in the way?

No, I don't think so. My point of difference [from other bowlers] was my pace. If I dropped the pace to be more accurate, I would have fallen back into the pack and would have been competing with every other bowler. My ability to bowl 90mph added a different sort of variety to what was already a very good bowling attack. That's the role I wanted to do and I loved doing it.

Your career began towards the end of Dion Nash's, who also struggled with injuries. Was there any advice from him on how you should go about managing your body?

If you play international sports you're going to get injured at some time. We talked about different things that we were doing as bowlers and the strengths of each other.

You want to stay on the field as much as possible. But some people are more durable than others. The stresses we had on our bodies, we just didn't cope that well. I think that was a frustrating thing. It is always frustrating when you cop some stick that you are hurt all the time, but you are doing everything you can behind the scenes to stay on the park.

You were the bowling coach for New Zealand for three years, from 2012 till the end of the 2015 World Cup. Now you are with Mumbai Indians. When you have younger fast bowlers under your tutelage, are there things that you pass on about how to protect their bodies a bit more?

Yeah, definitely. That's one side of the game that I actually quite enjoy. They call it "bowler loading": it's being aware of the amount of load that's going through a bowler - not just from the bowling point of view, but everything that goes along with the game, like weight training, running - and to make informed decisions around that.

I'm quite big on measuring those bowling loads. You can see what has transpired and make adjustments to their programme to lower the chances of the players missing any games. I think you are always having those discussions with the bowlers: how much they are bowling, the type of bowling they are doing, rest and how they take it. You try to build trust with the bowlers so that they are confident that even if they take the rest - a couple of days off - they can perform at their top level.

We now have young fast bowlers like James Pattinson and Pat Cummins, who have had injuries to their backs. Considering what you had to go through in your career, what would you tell them so that they can have productive careers?

When you return from injury, take a little bit longer than you think you need to. A week or two at the back end of a recovery could save you a lot of time and perhaps prevent a reoccurring of the injury. With players like Pattinson, Cummins and Corey Anderson, you want them playing for your country because they can win you matches, so there is a tendency to hurry these guys back into the starting teams.

They go from bowling in the nets straight into international cricket. Not only is the intensity high when you are bowling at that level, there's also intensity in the field, the promotions, the travel etc. That takes its toll. So sometimes you want to take a measured approach. Play some club cricket, first-class cricket, just to manage that intensity back up into the national team. And once you are there, you still need to give the guys an opportunity for breaks, because you just can't do fast bowling 12 months of the year. You can't sustain your fitness, your performance or pace.



"My ability to bowl 90mph added a different sort of variety to what was already a very good bowling attack" © Getty Images



When the ball is delivered in excess of 150kph, the batsmen facing you realistically have no time to see the ball delivered and then plan a shot. So there is premeditation. Listener Kartikeya asks: does that premeditation have an effect on how you plan to get that batsman out?

I think premeditation is more prevalent in the shorter forms of the game. The batsmen guess to manipulate where the bowler is going to bowl. They will charge down the wicket and predict that the bowler is going to pitch it short [next ball]. Given the fields and the patterns that the bowlers bowl to, the quality batsmen will have the best guess. That's why you see them paddle or walk across the stumps. But when you bowl at 150k's, you wonder sometimes how they do that?

From my experience, just working with Tim Southee and working through some variations in the nets up against Kane Williamson, his ability to see what was going on in the hand was staggering. Even I [watching, as the coach] couldn't see the seam, but Williamson could see the different finger positions and what Tim was trying to do. He could see whether the ball was wobbling, he could tell which way [Southee] was trying to swing it. Maybe that is a mark of a genius. I was staggered by his ability to pick that up so early. Maybe that's what separates the great players from the not-so-great.

Let's say you are bowling at 150kph in a Test match. A top-level batsman is picking it from your hand, and he can sense what is coming from your angle and the field. When you see that the batsman is already prepared for what you are going to deliver, how do you adjust?

That's a good question. I've played against a number of great players who, even when you are bowling quick, seem to have all the time in the world (laughs). That's a real challenge. You do your work before you take the field, so you have ideas of the zones that you need to be bowling, and you just try to hang in there. With great players it takes a little bit longer. If it doesn't work, you have a word with your captain and away you go. You pick a different line or length of attack, or set different fields. If you can create doubt, they will make mistakes and you will get the wicket. The challenge against top batsmen is that they know the game so well it can be very difficult to do that. Sometimes it turns into a patience game. At other times, you bowl balls that are too good for them - it's nice when that happens.

What sort of visual cues do you take from the batsman to say, "All right, he's picking me really well right from the hand. Even before I'm delivering the ball, he's already made up his mind." What sort of things do you look for to recalibrate your bowling strategy?

When you go into a game, you already have an understanding of the zones that the batsmen like to score in. Obviously you want to stay away from those. Sometimes you think there is an area you want to attack and play to a batsman's strengths. Also, you know the areas they don't score in, and try to target those, make them go out of their zones to score. You look at their technique, see how deep they are batting in their crease, what sort of shots they are looking to play, what tempo they have brought to their game. Some players, like AB de Villiers, will bring different stuff on different days. So you've got to be adaptable.

Was there any premeditation to your bowling, or was it just a product of what happened the previous delivery?

It's a combination of both. You have an idea of where you want to bowl and how you want to set the batsman up based on an over. You might feel the best way to get a batsman out is to bowl the wider delivery and get him to drive. Maybe you feel like it is going to take you two to three overs to get him to do that, so you bowl a tight line, bowl the bouncer, and after two or three overs, you prepare to throw the wider ball out there as the sucker ball. That may not necessarily be the ball that gets him out, but in your mind, you try to construct an over before you start thinking: how am I going to get this player out?

The whole process gets shorter in the shorter formats of the game. In T20 every ball is an event. Every ball is vital. You have to have the ability to think clearly under pressure. Weigh up what happened the ball before and execute what you think is the very best ball you can bowl given the situation.



"You are always having those discussions with the bowlers: how much they are bowling, the type of bowling they are doing, rest and how they take it" © AFP





As the bowling coach of New Zealand, how did you construct a bowling plan going into a Test series?

We had two world-class bowlers in Southee and Trent Boult, who are swing bowlers, who want to bowl fuller. We talked about how they would bowl at the back end of the innings. We wanted to be aggressive and hostile at the back end, to the tail, make things as uncomfortable as we could to the lower order. You sift through all the information, you work out where the batsmen scored, the zones they are weak at - the line and length you want to attack. Then you sit down and discuss that as a group.

You come up with plans A, B and C. You also dig out all the information on the bowlers themselves, about the certain times in a Test match where they have had the most success, the length that they bowled with most success, and where the ball got hit when they had success. You can break down Trent Boult and tell that when the ball swings in the initial few overs, you might leave mid-on open and allow the batsman to push the ball when it moves across; and you might get a couple at midwicket because the ball swings and goes quickly through that area and brings in a catching chance.

Not only is it working out stuff on the opposition but also working out where and when is the most effective time to use your bowlers. If they did miss, where did they miss, so you can prepare a cover. Also, perhaps, areas you might open up for fielders so that it can be difficult to score there because of the balls discussed in the talks. You can manipulate your bowlers to the times when they bowled at their very best and hope they perform that role. Obviously, you crosscheck it with the captain.


There will be days when the balls are not coming out right, or the plans that they have in place don't work out. How swift is your feedback then? Are you continuously looking at what is happening on the field and then trying to pass on a message for any correction, or reaffirming faith in the plan?

That is the art of coaching, isn't it? There are times when it is important for the players to speak their mind, and you don't mind if they have a tough season or a tough match. It is important that they work out how they do certain things in a game. Other times, when it might be a critical part of the game, you might just walk around the boundary and offer a little bit of an advice: "Hey, if you thought about this as a plan, would you consider doing something like this?" I think that is all part of the trust process. It takes a little bit of time to build that up.

You start to understand the body language of the players. You can wander on the boundary sometimes and you may not even have to talk about cricket - just distract them if they are a little bit down on themselves. The longer you coach, the better you know your players. You start to understand when the player is feeling good and when they want to be spoken to. Some days you are not going to get it right, but the players have to understand that you are going to help them as best you can.

Let's say you have a plan where bowlers A, B and C were supposed to bowl three different lengths to a batsman, but then you realise they haven't done what they were supposed to do. So you get to them at the interval and tell them to stick to certain areas. How ready are they to take criticism and accountability for their actions?

It is important that all roles have a level of accountability. What the planning does is that it gives you a starting point. You want to have a plan you can fall back on when the percentages are not in your favour. Obviously, when you get into a match, sometimes the pitch is playing differently than what you expected and you have to have the ability to adjust and not just be stuck your ways. You need that start point, where you say, "If all else fails, we can go back to this. What history has told us is that this is a pretty good area to bowl as a group." And as the game goes on, as the ball gets older and the conditions change a touch, you need that ability and flexibility to say, "Hey, this hasn't quite worked. What are we going to go to now?" I was lucky that I had the expertise and the brains in the team to come up with plans to do this and that.



"You really need to know clearly at the back end of an ODI or T20 innings what you are going to do. That is when things can get away from a bowler" © AFP





You want the bowlers to own it. Some bowlers enjoy the preparation side more than others. You really need to know clearly at the back end of an ODI or T20 innings what you are going to do. That is when the real pressure is on and things can get away from a bowler. You have to be very careful about not making things too complicated for the bowler. When you are under pressure, you only want to know one or two key things about what you need to do. That is the big thing for me, to say, "Look, as long as you have a plan, back your plan under pressure." If it doesn't work, sometimes a batsman is going to play well and that is the way the game unfolds. I try to encourage players every day and get their confidence in doing their thing. If they have confidence, a lot of the times they succeed.

It seems like AB de Villiers has had a purple patch going for a few years now. How do you prepare for someone like that? Is the plan essentially defensive?

There is an understanding that when you are playing the best of the best - AB is one of the finest players in the world, if not the finest - that if he has his day, sometimes there is very little you could do to stop that. What happens, though, in my opinion, is that too often you get on the defensive too quickly. Once you are on the defensive and get the team to bowl full to players like AB, he knows where the ball is going to be. Then you are probably in more trouble.

The information is all out there about where these batsmen's lower-percentage options are. The challenge for the bowler is to stay there for as long as he can. That is why players like de Villiers are so hard to bowl to. They work you off your plan. The next thing you know is that they are on 60 or 70 and you are in trouble. They score so fast that they take the game away from you. I can bowl a good ball at these blokes and get whacked, but I just have to hang in there a bit longer. If I can hang in there, they can make a mistake.


You played under Stephen Fleming, who is considered a tactician, a strategist. When you were coach, your captain was Brendon McCullum, who came across as very aggressive, positive, going for wickets all the time. As a strike bowler, how do a captain's tendencies - hanging back and defending versus attacking all the time - affect you?

The biggest thing, from my point of view, is that you want to have faith in the captain and know that the captain has faith in you. It is a huge confidence boost. You can be the best captain in the world and have very ordinary bowlers. Then you certainly cannot go on the attack with four slips and a gully.

In the World Cup, when the likes of Southee and Boult were bowling and were on top of their game, you can captain in a manner like that because those guys can keep the line and length required. Sometimes, when those guys aren't quite in their form, it makes it a little bit more difficult. At the end of the day, a captain can only use the resources he has got. That is why preparation is important. Even though you may have the resources, sometimes the wickets are flat and you have to know how to stop the run flow and still have a plan to get somebody out. It is a combination of both.

The captain should have the right mindset, should sum up the conditions well, and have good preparation to know the zones for each player. It is a big responsibility to have, particularly in T20 cricket. If the captain is not on top of his stuff, you can run into a little trouble.

Are there any Test match and ODI spells that come to your mind when you look back at your career?

When you got bags of wickets, when you have spells with three or four wickets that turned a Test match, they are the most memorable ones. The six wickets against Australia was like a dream unfolding. That it was in a World Cup was unbelievable. Just sad that we lost the game, really. I was lucky enough to have some great spells. You still relive those moments and never forget the feeling that you had, particularly when you did something and the team had success. As you said, there have been a few in both ODIs and Tests. I will always enjoy the wickets that led to a Test win - they were the most special.

Any regrets about your body not allowing you to continue?

Ah, no. People still say that my career was cut short by injury. I was a late starter anyway, at 26, and I finished at 34. Mitchell Johnson has hung up his boots at the same age as I did. Having watched that last Test match [in Perth], what he was going through, I was going through the same. I wasn't bowling as fast as I used to in training before. I found it hard to stay motivated.

I think Ian Chappell made a comment about retirement - when you start to think about it, it is the time to go. I agree with him. I had a couple of years, but with back injuries, I never thought I would play for New Zealand again. All the games that I did were a real bonus. I am really lucky that the game has been good to me, that I am still involved in it and making a living out of it. It has been brilliant.

We need sophisticated technology to deal with chucking

Darren Berry in Cricinfo

The Muralitharan case is more complicated than your garden-variety dubious action, given his flexible joints, rubber-like wrists, and the "carry angle" of the forearm © AFP

Let's get one thing clear from the outset - almost every offspinner in world cricket has a bend in his bowling arm. It is unnatural to bowl offspin without some degree of (flexion) bend. It is the degree of bend that is the contentious issue.

In fact, it's not the bend but the straightening (extension) of the arm as it rotates to bowl that causes the headaches. It is a complicated topic, but given the increased scrutiny and subsequent angst it is causing around the world it's time for some explanation.

It should also be recognised that it's not just offspinners who have this problem. Daryl Foster, a biomechanics expert with the University of Western Australia, and a former state coach, was recently quoted as saying he has greater concern with the fast men who bend it more than the highly scrutinised offspinners do. Some would be surprised to know that even the most pure actions of Dennis Lillee and Richard Hadlee had a degree of straightening as they flung down the ball in the '70s and '80s.

The legal limit of straightening of the arm is 15 degrees. In biomechanical terms, this means the angle (flexion) at the elbow joint when the bowling arm is horizontal prior to delivery is measured, and the degree of extension that has taken place at the point of release is also measured. If the change in angle is greater than 15 degrees then a bowler's action is considered under current ICC rulings to be illegal. Sounds complex? Well, it gets worse.

The most famous name embroiled in this "chucking" controversy was and still is the Sri Lankan great Muttiah Muralitharan, who was called 19 years ago in a Test at the MCG. It strained relationships and threatened to bring a halt to the series at the time. It also elevated to the surface a talking point that still rages today as to the legality of many bowling actions around the world.

	In my experience, none of the bowlers I have worked with who have come under scrutiny deliberately try to throw the ball to gain an advantage. It is usually a biomechanical defect and/or a technical issue

The Muralitharan case is even more complicated given his flexible joints, rubber-like wrists and another complex biomechanical term: "carry angle" of the forearm. This is the degree of angulation a person has in the forearm when standing in the anatomical position (upright with arms by the side, palms facing outwards). In most cases the greater the carry angle the greater the perception to the naked eye is of the appearance of throwing as opposed to bowling. It would take a biomechanist to explain this comprehensively, but I have learnt a lot in this area through necessity in recent times.

My coaching experiences in this area over the last decade have involved a couple of fast bowlers from the subcontinent, who came under severe scrutiny during my time at the IPL (with Rajasthan Royals) and more recently my involvement with the current South Australia captain and offspinner Johan Botha. In my experience, none of the bowlers I have worked with who have come under scrutiny deliberately try to throw the ball to gain an advantage. It is usually a biomechanical defect (very hard to rectify) and/or a technical issue that requires constant drilling and alignment to remedy. For the record, Botha has been reported on three occasions and on each of them found not guilty in testing and cleared.

Pakistan's Saeed Ajmal is the most recent high-profile offspinner to be called for a dubious action. This week, he was laboratory-tested in Brisbane to clear his action, or face a lengthy ban. We will know the outcome in a few weeks. Laboratory testing is the most contentious issue, as trying to reproduce exactly what happens in a competitive game environment is very difficult. Until we have sophisticated 3D technology that can be used in games, a true reflection of exactly what is taking place will never be attained. Scientists testing in a sports lab will never be able to replicate or reproduce exactly what players do in a highly competitive game environment, hence the great debate continues.

	It is vital the front arm acts like a rudder to steer the mechanics of the action © AFP  Enlarge

What exactly does an offspinner tend to do to give the perception that he is chucking, and more importantly how can it be rectified?

1. The jump or take-off position and finishing position in delivery stride is crucial. Any offspinner bowling right-arm over the wicket who jumps from wide of the crease and lands close to the stumps at the point of delivery has started the kinetic chain incorrectly. The results of this in the lower half of the body will greatly effect what happens in the upper half during delivery. To make matters worse, if the feet are in an open position when the front foot lands, this also tends to increase the lag of the bowling arm and ultimately exaggerates firstly flexion, then the dangerous forearm extension at the point of delivery.

2. The result of point no. 1 will cause issues with upper-body lean or hyperextension of the spine in delivery motion, and this impedes the arm's natural pathway in the bowling action. The result is a compromised action, where the body lays back significantly to allow natural arm path and consequently a bent arm inevitably results. The lower half of the body has jumped in too far and does not allow a smooth, clean action to be completed.

3. The non-bowling arm is a crucial aspect in a dubious offspin action. It is vital that it acts as a rudder to steer the mechanics of the action. It must remain strong and assist to align the body correctly in a side-on manner. The bowler must look outside the arm in delivery mode, otherwise the action will be too front-on, which generally results in bowling-arm lag time and often increased flexion and then extension in the elbow joint as the bowling action is completed.

4. Load-up position of bowling arm and hand. This has proved to be another vital component in a dubious action. Any offspinner who allows his bowling hand to rise above the mid-line of the body in wind-up generally then turns his wrist and forearm open too early before the hand passes the hip at the start of the delivery arc, and a bend in the arm occurs before the bowling arm reaches the horizontal. The action always looks ugly in these instances.

5. Finally, spearing the ball or firing it in at a pace greater than the normal arm speed of an offspinner causes all sorts of problems. The bowler endeavours to keep the batsman pinned to the crease and thus increases the velocity on the ball. The natural windmill arc of the action is lost and a javelin-type of action results. The introduction of T20 cricket has increased this tendency and created bad habits among many offspinners worldwide.

Smoothing out chinks in a bowling action is not an easy task and only constant remedial work with slow-motion video and ultimately 3D technology will assist. The naked eye can be a powerful tool but my experiences in ICC-approved testing labs around the world (Canberra, Perth and Cape Town) tells me that until we have 3D slow-motion replays available in games, the debate over illegal bowling actions will sadly continue to smoulder.

The speed-gun myth

Stuart Wark 

 

 But what does "pace" or "speed" actually mean?

In recent times, the proponents of various fast bowlers often base their argument around the figures generated from the speed gun. While the overall speed readings are very interesting, it would appear misleading to rely solely on these figures, as they don't actually come close to telling the whole story about how "fast" a batsman will consider a bowler to be. It was not uncommon to hear commentators literally jump with excitement about the extreme pace of a certain Johnson delivery that caused a batsman significant problems, only to then see a speed-gun rating show that it was actually slower than the previous ball that the batsman had played easily.

In the most recent Ashes series, a recurring theme among the commentators was that James Anderson was tired and "lacking a yard of pace" compared to his spells during the English summer. This would appear to be supported by raw statistics that show he took 22 wickets at an average of 29 in England, whereas in Australia he took 14 wickets at nearly 44. However, a review of his average bowling speeds across both Ashes series makes for interesting reading.

In the first Test in Nottingham he averaged 84.9mph; in the fifth Test in Sydney he averaged 84.5mph. Anderson's average bowling speed per innings was remarkably similar across the ten Tests, and only varied around three miles an hour. His highest average speed per innings was actually in Perth, the "eighth" Test, where he averaged 85.5mph. Whatever the reasons for his relatively poor performance in Australia, it can hardly be argued that it was due to him "lacking a yard of pace".

At this point, I understand that many readers will no doubt be striking their foreheads on their monitors and shouting, "You idiot - he is a swing bowler and doesn't rely solely on pace." This is precisely why the speed gun is an unreliable measure. Ultimately, does it matter how we judge the "pace" of opening bowlers? Unfortunately, and this was primary reason for this article, the speed gun is becoming a concerning aspect of team selection. It was only a few weeks ago that Australian coach Darren Lehmann outlined that bowlers need to be bowling at 140kph to be considered for the Test team. Clearly the speed gun is becoming a determining factor that helps fast bowlers get selected.

There is a former Australia Test opening bowler, still only 27 years old, who has taken 202 first-class wickets at an average of 25.10, and took 5 for 105 in his last first-class match, but appears to have been forgotten about in terms of national selection. Trent Copeland doesn't bowl at 140kph, and therefore doesn't appear likely to add to his three Test caps. However, players who have faced bowlers such as Copeland, Chadd Sayers or even Glenn McGrathwill note that they are "faster" than they appear. A few years ago McGrath's deliveries were measured as being slower than those of Greg Blewett. However, if you asked opening batsmen which one was "faster", without any reference to the speed gun, Blewett would have struggled to gain a vote.

Phrases such as "hitting the bat hard" or "bowling a heavy ball" are used to describe bowlers who manage to bowl "faster" than someone with an identical speed-gun rating. From discussions with many batsmen over a number of decades, I have concluded that certain bowlers seem faster than others because they force batsmen to make a late adjustment when the ball is not quite where they expect it to be.

From the point when the bowler hits his delivery stride, the batsman starts moving into position to play a shot. With only half a second or so from the bowler letting it go until the batsman plays the ball, the batsman has to move on instinct into the correct position. A bowler who delivers a "heavy ball" is generally one who consistently hits the bat slightly higher than expected, thus leading to a batsman feeling a less than ideal contact and subsequently having less control over the shot.

Likewise, if a bowler has an unusual or strange action that prevents a batsman getting an early sighting of the ball, they will appear faster. The great South African Mike Procter was rated by Tony Greig as one of the "top five" paceman of his era; Greig thought Procter bowled at a similar pace to Andy Roberts, John Snow, Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson. However, it was interesting that in one of the early speed tests, conducted in 1979, Procter came second-last among 12 bowlers, and only managed to beat Pakistan medium-pacer Sarfraz Nawaz. At that time Procter was in his early 30s, but he played first-class cricket for another decade, and he opened the bowling for the WSC World XI.

While the actual speeds recorded in this trial cannot be fairly compared to those of current bowlers, due to differing measuring techniques, the comparative nature of the test showed that Procter was a long way behind Thomson, who led the field. However, opening batsmen of that era would clearly not agree that Procter wasn't a genuine fast bowler. He is an example of how speed can be disguised, as his "wrong foot" action meant that batsmen were not picking the ball up early.

When Brett Lee was bowling at 135kph, batsmen perceived him as far "slower" than McGrath at the same velocity, as Lee had a flat and predictable trajectory. This meant that a batsman was in position to play a shot earlier than against McGrath, who tended to achieve extra bounce or movement off the seam that forced batsmen into a late readjustment. This then made the batsmen perceive the bowler as being faster than a pure speed reading would have given them cause to do.

It would appear clear that Anderson's lack of effectiveness in Australia related more to his inability to move the ball consistently, rather than him being tired and "losing pace", as some commentators argued. Speed is not easily defined, and success does not always equate to high speed-gun measurements. The current No. 1 bowler in the world, Vernon Philander, is a great example of this, but it appears that he would not get a run for Australia as he bowls at a "mere" 130kph.

I hope the Australian selectors and coaching staff are willing to recognise that the speed gun alone does not define the effectiveness of an opening bowler, or just how "fast" he may be.

Why Mitchell Johnson fails the hipster test

Ahmer Naqvi

 

Mitchell Johnson: not one to delight old-school fans  © Getty Images

Enlarge

Over the past few weeks, the cricketing world has been agog at the achievements of Mitchell Johnson in the Ashes. There has already been talk that his performance in two matches merits him being rated the world's best bowler.

In digesting and reacting to this news, I realised that I was a fast-bowling hipster. 

At its heart, the whole point of hipsters is not about being counter-culture, but rather laying claim to authenticity. You can't be a hipster if you jumped on a bandwagon or showed up without appreciating what you were there for. A hipster is authentic because an authentic experience means being there before it was cool and marketed. Consequently, while the rest of the world treats fast bowling as a seasonal fad, for Pakistanis it is more like l'bowling rapide pour l'bowling rapide.

As soon as I decided that I belonged to this ridiculous category, I realised I would need some codes to define what kinds of things fast-bowling hipsters, at least the ones from the Pakistani school of thought, would look for. The first person I turned to for inspiration was Osman Samiuddin, the high priest of the Pakistani fast-bowling cult. I remembered how he once related Shoaib Akhtar's reaction to Irfan Pathan: "Kaun Irfan? Saala spinner! Dekho ek cheez, paceispaceyaar. Can't beat it. [Irfan who? Damned spinner! Look here, paceispaceyaar. Can't beat it."]

Osman insists that in its true spirit, "paceispaceyaar" is one word, and so it is no surprise that pace - and an abundance of it - is the first sacrament of the fast-bowling hipster. Undoubtedly pace is at the heart of Johnson's prowess, and he manages to maintain his 90-plus speeds while bowling short. This means that he brings in the desire for mortal self-preservation into play in the batsman's psyche. This is a bowling tool so powerful that cricket has changed its laws to mitigate it.

Yet pace by itself means nothing - just take a look at Mohammad Sami, Fidel Edwards and a few others. A true fast bowler needs to develop all his skills with pace only as the foundation upon which they rest. Shoaib's point above is not about what Irfan can do with the ball, but rather that unless he is doing it at pace, he can't really be called fast. After all, paceispaceyaar.

The second major facet of this proposed manifesto is the bowling action and its aesthetic effect. I must qualify here that the aim is not to extol the virtues of textbook actions, since hipsters are not puritans. What the hipster looks for is a sense of uniqueness to the action. The sight of a bowler in full flight must be an intensely evocative experience, replete with a sort of hypnotic seduction and the ability to display vastly different facets of the action when watched at various speeds.

Take a look at the actions of Pakistan's great pantheon. Waqar Younis felt like a plastic footruler, bent outwards to its extremes before lithely snapping back. Wasim felt more like a snake that coiled up suddenly and narrowed its gaze before lashing out with a swift, fatal stab. The most majestic was Imran, who seemed to float like a bird of prey for several delicious moments, almost willing time to slow down before accelerating instantaneously.

Mitchell, though, is a slinger, from a breed of pacers who sometimes lack a sense of rhythm as well as lacchak (sway) that other actions provide. My favourite slinger was Shaiby (Shoaib Akhtar) , but a lot of his appeal had to do with his hyper-flexing elbows and the spectacle of his run-up. But the slinger ideal for hipsters would probably be Jeff Thomson, whose run-up was a bit bustly, but whose delivery stride and action were an absolute wonder to watch. Mitchell's run-up, in contrast, is quite stodgy, and he uses his bowling arm almost like an appendage that he hurls with rather than as an extension of a greater process.

This idea of synergy between the various facets is imperative, because it suggests both coherence and honesty. Many people have talked about Mitchell's new-found attitude and aggression, but it's not something I buy at all. Mitchell's wickets came while he was sporting a charity moustache during a particularly desperate and shrill search for redemption amongst the Australian media. In order to create a simple narrative, Mitchell was suddenly made out to be a bloodthirsty brute.

Mitchell's wickets came while he was sporting a charity moustache during a particularly desperate and shrill search for redemption amongst the Australian media. In order to create a simple narrative, Mitchell was suddenly made out to be a bloodthirsty brute

To me, this new perception of him is the latest example of cricket's habit of enforcing macho ideals on fast bowlers. For a long time, those in charge of cricket's narrative have tried to stereotype fast bowlers as a violent, angry, primitive lot. The appropriation of the shy Harold Larwood is the oldest example I can think of, but this has been repeated over time, and is patently unfair.

Mitchell himself has often been a victim of this desire to project alpha-male fantasies on pacers. For example, Michael Atherton once described listening to Johnson explaining his tattoos as similar to "listening to a warrior talk us through his flower arrangements before battle".

Despite my fondness for Atherton's writing, this opinion rankled, because I felt players like Johnson were needlessly criticised based on their personal choices. Who said that the leader of the attack needed to be some sort of medieval warrior? However, it now seems that Johnson has stopped trying to get people to understand that he is a soft-spoken, easy-smiling Australian who bowls fast, and is instead trying to look and act like a surfer masquerading as Merv Hughes.

Such charades are an affront to the hipster, since the persona of fast bowlers must be an organic part of their psyche. It is true that this translates into many pumped-up macho figures, but those are not the only kinds of demons a fast bowler has to deal with. In either case, for hipster appreciation eligibility, a fast bowler should never conform to what society deems desirable, but rather must force society to accept him on his own terms.

The third sacrament for the hipster is a cricket brain. This might well be the most important factor of them all, because it is the one thing that cannot be compensated for. For example, Glenn McGrath might have had a lot of vertical velocity and funny one-liners, but when he bowled, he looked like a grimacing elderly man trying very hard not to snap one of the metal pins in his replacement hip. Yet he remains one of the quintessential hipster choices, simply because of the suspense novels he wrote with his spells. Few other bowlers had his ability to not only predict what the batsman would do but also force him to willingly fall into the traps he had laid for him.

Mitchell Johnson's involvement with the psyche is so far limited to creating panic and fear. Now, that is not to be scoffed at, but as a Pakistani I have plenty of experience of watching panicked collapses, and like with Mitchell's wickets, these often come off poor deliveries. Take a look at his pitch maps from the two Tests and you see few deliveries pitched up, which means that there was little attempt at lulling players into false strokes or bamboozling them with movement.

Mitchell could claim that he didn't have to do anything more to pick off the English, and while he would be correct, the hipster cares not for such excuses. The hipster needs variety, needs elaborate plans, needs to see batsmen fail despite having tried their absolute best.

These three sacraments, or pillars, of the hipster faith can be represented as a set of stumps, and that brings us to the final point.

The Pakistani school of thought regarding fast bowling is inextricably linked to wickets, or more precisely, to flying, walking, cartwheeling wickets. Think of Waqar reversing the ball so rapidly and so late that you felt there had been a tear in space-time. Think of Wasim bowling round the wicket and taking the ball away to knock back off stump. It is the ultimate humiliation for the batsman, and a singular achievement for the bowler, who didn't need fielders to complete the job for him. In contrast, a catch at fine leg doesn't give the same sense of drama or spectacle.

Moreover, being able to bowl short is a luxury few teams afford their bowlers. For the hipster, then, being able to bowl short and fast isn't so impressive if all you have known growing up are fast and bouncy wickets. Bowling fast and full in a country and climate where there is no rational reason for doing so is what the hipster looks for, and that is why the Pakistani fast bowler has such a sense of romanticism attached to him.

So please don't offer me gentle souls dolled up in hairy costumes and tell me they are the real deal. Please don't insult cricket's answer to Keanu Reeves by pretending he's Sylvester Stallone. And please, please, please make sure to consult hipsters when jumping on your next bandwagon, so we can immediately tell you how wrong you are.