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Why can't every seam bowler swing the ball the same?


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@rkt.india @express bowling and other fast-bowling experts.

 

To a novice, it is relatively easy to understand the factors behind successful fast bowling from just a speed perspective because they are more physical - strength/power and proper body mechanics.  If you are physically limited, so is your ceiling for high pace.  

 

But, beyond a certain minimal physical requirement, the ability to swing a ball seems more technical and intuitively should be more easily acquired.  But, quality swing bowling seems rare.  Why can't someone as skilled as Shami swing it as much as say Bhuvneshwar under the same conditions?  When I was like 8 or 10 y.o, someone gifted me a cricket coaching book and all it said - for new ball swing - was to hold the seam pointing towards slips and with spread fingers for outswing, and seam pointing towards leg slip with fingers closer together for inswing.  Never worked for me.  It was only in my 20s and playing with a scuffed, taped tennis ball that I got some movement (no skill required there).

 

What are some of the technical nuances that go into being a quality swing bowler and why can't every top-level pace bowler acquire them?  

 

 

Edited by BacktoCricaddict
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30 minutes ago, BacktoCricaddict said:

@rkt.india @express bowling and other fast-bowling experts.

 

To a novice, it is relatively easy to understand the factors behind successful fast bowling from just a speed perspective because they are more physical - strength/power and proper body mechanics.  If you are physically limited, so is your ceiling for high pace.  

 

But, beyond a certain minimal physical requirement, the ability to swing a ball seems more technical and intuitively should be more easily acquired.  But, quality swing bowling seems rare.  Why can't someone as skilled as Shami swing it as much as say Bhuvneshwar under the same conditions?  When I was like 8 or 10 y.o, someone gifted me a cricket coaching book and all it said - for new ball swing - was to hold the seam pointing towards slips and with spread fingers for outswing, and seam pointing towards leg slip with fingers closer together for inswing.  Never worked for me.  It was only in my 20s and playing with a scuffed, taped tennis ball that I got some movement (no skill required there).

 

What are some of the technical nuances that go into being a quality swing bowler and why can't every top-level pace bowler acquire them?  

 

 

To swing the ball, you need to bowl with tilted seam, Shami bowls with upright seam so he gets more seam due to natural variations of the pitch than swing.  Also, how a bowler grips the ball in his hand. Swing Bowlers have loose grip and try to float the ball with locked wrist like BK and also tries to give back spin like Dale Steyn. Hit the deck bowlers have tight grip and flick the wrist on top of the ball to find more zip.

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1 hour ago, rkt.india said:

To swing the ball, you need to bowl with tilted seam, Shami bowls with upright seam so he gets more seam due to natural variations of the pitch than swing.  Also, how a bowler grips the ball in his hand. Swing Bowlers have loose grip and try to float the ball with locked wrist like BK and also tries to give back spin like Dale Steyn. Hit the deck bowlers have tight grip and flick the wrist on top of the ball to find more zip.

That being the case, it is not possible for guys like Shami and Steyn to throw in variations where they tilt the seam, loosen their grip, lock their wrist etc?  Add to their repertoire?  Or would it mess up their rhythm?

Edited by BacktoCricaddict
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3 hours ago, BacktoCricaddict said:

@rkt.india @express bowling and other fast-bowling experts.

 

To a novice, it is relatively easy to understand the factors behind successful fast bowling from just a speed perspective because they are more physical - strength/power and proper body mechanics.  If you are physically limited, so is your ceiling for high pace.  

 

But, beyond a certain minimal physical requirement, the ability to swing a ball seems more technical and intuitively should be more easily acquired.  But, quality swing bowling seems rare.  Why can't someone as skilled as Shami swing it as much as say Bhuvneshwar under the same conditions?  When I was like 8 or 10 y.o, someone gifted me a cricket coaching book and all it said - for new ball swing - was to hold the seam pointing towards slips and with spread fingers for outswing, and seam pointing towards leg slip with fingers closer together for inswing.  Never worked for me.  It was only in my 20s and playing with a scuffed, taped tennis ball that I got some movement (no skill required there).

 

What are some of the technical nuances that go into being a quality swing bowler and why can't every top-level pace bowler acquire them?  

 

 

 

 

 

While bowling conventional swing, the ball moves away from the shiny side.

 

For outswing, the seam has to point towards third man with the shiny side being on the leg side of the batter. Just the opposite for inswing, when the seam has to point towards fine leg and the shiny side is towards the off side. But the seam has to remain upright while staying angular. Plus the ball is released with a loose grip. 

 

Not all pacers are able to do all this consistently as it depends on how they grip the ball and release it. 

 

Or they may choose not to do this as they want more natural seam movement and bounce, for which you need a straight and upright seam and a tighter grip.

 

In a nutshell, it is either choosing one of the bowling styles or being forced to choose a bowling style based on a pacer's grip, ball release and natural ability.

 

 

Edited by express bowling
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1 hour ago, BacktoCricaddict said:

That being the case, it is not possible for guys like Shami and Steyn to throw in variations where they tilt the seam, loosen their grip, lock their wrist etc?  Add to their repertoire?  Or would it mess up their rhythm?

 

 

They do.

 

But what one does a high percentage of times, defines one's bowling style. 

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@BacktoCricaddictI will share with you two important things - Cross seam and swing. 

 

Let's talk about swing first - one reason why some of the faster bowlers swing much less than your average 80-85 miles bowlers is because of simple physics. The quicker you are at releasing the ball, the lesser the ball is going to curve. Somone bowling at the pace of Sandeep Sharma or even Sachin will or could get more swing than someone like Brett Lee, because of the impact of the ball upon release from their hand. That doesn't necessarily mean that high speed guys won't get any speed, its just that players with lesser pace can exploit the use of this physics law. 

 

Cross seam

Faster bowlers change it up a lot and hold the ball with seam and sometimes hold the ball cross seam. Holding the ball cross seam is another thing which many players do these days a lot becuse the new ball and the wind becomes a factor now a days for a bowler who wants to bowl quicker and not swing.

 

I will give you an example of Bumrah - sometimes his role is to come first change and there could be times he might also he might also open the bowling. Now there could be wind at times and while holding the ball with proper seam, he might have hard time controlling the swing as if the temperature in the city is little windy, like it is in Wellington, New Zealand, he might get more swing than what he wants. Yes, sometimes players don't want too much swing also since they are focusing on hitting the fourth stump or on top of off stump. So what Bumrah in this case will do is he will hold the ball cross seam on certain deliveries. What the cross seam will do is that it will not only reduce the swing for Bumrah or any bowler in the windy city of Wellington, but it will also increase the bounce for Bumrah as he pitches the ball on the pitch.

 

 

Also the reason I want to bring Bumrah and the cross seam example is because this example works for both fast bowler in ODIS and in Test. Imagine Bumrah wants to bowl yorkers? or any bowler who wants to bowl yorkers. Holding the ball cross seam will reduce the swing and it will help a bowler avoid the unwanted swing which otherwise could impact the movement of the ball. Bumrah is likely to hit more yorkers with cross seam in swinging conditions than when he will hold the ball with seam.

 

So a lot of bowlers these day in all forms of cricket have started practicing more and more holding the ball cross seam. 

 

 

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9 hours ago, BacktoCricaddict said:

That being the case, it is not possible for guys like Shami and Steyn to throw in variations where they tilt the seam, loosen their grip, lock their wrist etc?  Add to their repertoire?  Or would it mess up their rhythm?

Shami has started doing that at times.

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2 minutes ago, Sean Bradley said:

Two words Wrist Position, Md Asif was arguably the greatest seam bowler that I saw in my time, he used to sort of whip his wrist at the time of release, even Bhuvi in his earlier days used to do that. Anderson does it too. Mcgrath did it enough to take the edge of the bat.

 

Anderson and Bhumi both are singh bowlers. They both bowl with cocked wrist.

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From my personal experience seam movement is easy than swing movement. In Indian conditions, I have hardly come across very small percentage of pace bowlers who can swing the ball. It's a tough art. I have also seen that some of those who could swing the ball did not even make an effort to swing, it was a result of the way they delivered the ball. The balls of different brands may be having an impact. The polishing or the lacquer on the various brand is different , so is the threading. Conditions are also important to swing it. We did not see as much swing in summers as we did. Generally the swing was more common in winter. 

 

The swing bowling comes naturally to some bowlers. When we coached some Underage teams level probables we were surprised to see that some of them could swing it even though no such training was imparted to them. There was one case - one of my team mate who had never played with season ball before, in his first nets session I saw him swing the ball when he bowled to me. We had a bowling coach as well, but he had not told him anything in his first nets session. And without even any conscious effort to swing in his first bowling session with hard balls, he swung it atleast by few inches. 

 

Based on my observations swing bowling is rare as compared to seam, a very tough art to master and it comes naturally to some.

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23 hours ago, rkt.india said:

Anderson and Bhumi both are singh bowlers. They both bowl with cocked wrist.

Yes they could be swing bowlers, be it swing or seam, wrist position is the key.  Most fast bowlers have good Seam position, some way or the other but not all have same effect on the ball. Asif and philander both had wobbly seam position. 

Edited by rkt.india
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14 hours ago, express bowling said:

 

 

 

While bowling conventional swing, the ball moves away from the shiny side.

 

For outswing, the seam has to point towards third man with the shiny side being on the leg side of the batter. Just the opposite for inswing, when the seam has to point towards fine leg and the shiny side is towards the off side. But the seam has to remain upright while staying angular. Plus the ball is released with a loose grip. 

 

Not all pacers are able to do all this consistently as it depends on how they grip the ball and release it. 

 

Or they may choose not to do this as they want more natural seam movement and bounce, for which you need a straight and upright seam and a tighter grip.

 

In a nutshell, it is either choosing one of the bowling styles or being forced to choose a bowling style based on a pacer's grip, ball release and natural ability.

 

 

 

I think that explains why Steyn never had a good inswinger - his seam position does not point towards either third man or fine leg but bowls with a straight upright seam like Sreesanth.

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17 hours ago, MechEng said:

 

I think that explains why Steyn never had a good inswinger - his seam position does not point towards either third man or fine leg but bowls with a straight upright seam like Sreesanth.

Steyn bowls with seam pointing towards slip/third man, doesnt bowl with upright seam.

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3 hours ago, rkt.india said:

Steyn bowls with seam pointing towards slip/third man, doesnt bowl with upright seam.

Got it.  Steyn does point it to slip but still had that upright seam position, Bumrah had a very angled seam postion in that 5-7 spell especially that ball to Holder (watch it in slow motion).

 

Steyn never bowled inswing, probably he never wanted to. He praised Jimmy Anderson in his instagram chat for his ability to bowl inswing and using the crease.

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2 hours ago, MechEng said:

Got it.  Steyn does point it to slip but still had that upright seam position, Bumrah had a very angled seam postion in that 5-7 spell especially that ball to Holder (watch it in slow motion).

 

Steyn never bowled inswing, probably he never wanted to. He praised Jimmy Anderson in his instagram chat for his ability to bowl inswing and using the crease.

It all boils down to your bowling action and wrist position in the end. Steyn started to angle the ball in at the fag end of his career. Anderson had more skills just not the pace of steyn. Steyn had that extra gear that made him dangerous even with swing and he was very good at executing the skills he had. 

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On 10/17/2020 at 11:41 AM, Sean Bradley said:

Yes they could be swing bowlers, be it swing or seam, wrist position is the key.  Most fast bowlers have good Seam position, some way or the other but not all have same effect on the ball. Asif and philander both had wobbly seam position. 

Asif and Philander both had wobbly seam.

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