Fast bowling

Fast bowling, sometimes known as pace bowling, is one of the two approaches to bowling in the sport of cricket. The other is spin bowling. Practitioners are usually known as fast bowlers or pace bowlers although sometimes the label used refers to the specific fast bowling technique that bowler prefers, such as swing bowler, seam bowler or strike bowler.

Swing bowling

see main article swing bowling

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Swing bowlers attempt to cause the ball to move while it is in the air instead of off the pitch like a seam bowler. Although the action of the bowler plays a big part in their success at getting the ball to swing, it is an essential prerequisite that one side of the ball is shiny while the other is rough. New cricket balls are shiny on both sides, so swing bowlers rarely open the bowling. The reason you often see cricketers licking and polishing the ball is to attempt to keep the shine on one side while natural wear makes the other side rough. The swing is caused by air moving at different speeds across the different sides of the ball - it moves faster over the smooth side than it does the rough side.

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A swinging ball is classed as either an outswinger, which moves away from the batsman or and inswinger which moves in toward the batsman. In most cases the outswinger is seen as the more dangerous ball because, if the batsman fails to recognise it, it will catch the outside edge of the bat instead of the middle and fly up to be caught in the slips. Inswingers have their place too, especially combined with the Yorker as the inswinger can catch the inside edge and break the wicket.

Related Topics:
Slips - Yorker

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Swing balls are bowled with the same grip and technique as fast balls although the seam is usually angled slightly rather than straight, and the slower ball grip may be used. For an outswinger the shiny side of the ball is nearest the batsman and the seam is angled away from him while for an inswinger, the rough side needs to be nearest the batsman and the seam angled toward him. A bowler cannot achieve swing with a cutter grip since the ball will spin in flight, varying the orientation of the shiny and rough surfaces as it moves through the air. Many bowlers swear that swing is easier to achieve in humid or overcast conditions, and also that the red ball used in test cricket swings more than the white ball used in the one-day game. There is no scientific evidence to back up either claim.

Related Topics:
Test cricket - One-day game

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Reverse swing

Reverse swing is a phenomenon which causes the ball to swing in the opposite direction to that usually produced by the orientation of the shiny and rough sides of the ball. When the ball is reverse swinging, the shiny side of the ball nearest the batsman will produce an inswinger and vice-versa. Balls which reverse swing move much later and much more than is usual in swing bowling, both factors increasing the difficulty the batsman will have in trying to hit the ball.

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Reverse swing is much more dependant on conditions than normal swing, and so it is nearly impossible to achieve consistently. Reverse swing does not usually happen until the ball is around 45 overs old and requires the weather to be hot and dry. The techinque of getting reverse swing was first perfected by Pakistani bowlers in the 1980s but has since spread through all the cricketing nations, and in particular features greatly in England's bowling attack in the 2005 Ashes series.

Related Topics:
Pakistani - England's - The 2005 Ashes

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Dippers

see main articles indipper, outdipper

Related Topics:
Indipper - Outdipper

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A dipper is a swinging ball which is deliberately bowled as a yorker or a full toss, the latter not normally being a ball that a fast bowler would choose to bowl. The indipper moves in to the right-handed batsman while the outdipper moves away.

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In order to be effective, a dipper has to generate a lot of swing to make up for the variation in movement lost because the ball is not bouncing on the pitch. However, because the batsman usually expects a full toss to be an easy ball to score off, dippers have huge surprise value and can be extremely difficult to play especially if the bowler is very accurate and managers the yorker rather than a genuine full toss.

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