Fast Bowling - Categorisation of Fast Bowling

Categorisation of Fast Bowling

It is possible for a bowler to concentrate solely on speed, especially when young, but as fast bowlers mature they pick up new skills and tend to rely more on swing bowling or seam bowling techniques. Most fast bowlers will specialise in one of these two areas and will sometimes be categorised as swing or seam bowler. However, this classification is not satisfactory because the categories are not mutually exclusive and a skilled bowler will usually bowl a mixture of fast, swinging, seaming and also cutting balls, even if he or she prefers one style to the others.

Instead, it is more common to subdivide fast bowlers according to the average speed of their deliveries, as follows.

There is a degree of subjectivity in the usage of these terms; for example, Cricinfo uses the terms "fast-medium" and "medium-fast" interchangeably. The fastest bowlers are said to bowl at express pace. For comparison, most spin bowlers in professional cricket bowl at average speeds of 45 to 55 mph (70 to 90 km/h). The ability of some bowlers to deliver a variation ball, faster or slower than their standard, can cause some confusion as they could appear to put them in different categories, for example, Brett Lee bowls his stock ball at around 145 km/h, making him a fast bowler, although he will occasionally bowl a slower ball at around 115 km/h. Conversely, Shahid Afridi, a spin-bowler, has a quicker ball which can reach 134 km/h. However these are rarely taken into account in determining what category a bowler fits in because these deliveries are variations, intended to surprise the batsman, not the standard pace of a bowler.

The slower the fast bowler, the more they have to rely on the variation techniques listed below to get wickets, though fast and to a lesser extent fast-medium bowlers can often get batsmen out through sheer speed and aggression. In practice, very few specialist bowlers fall into the medium-fast and medium categories - bowlers who bowl at this speed are mostly batsmen who can bowl a few overs on occasion. These bowlers are known as medium pacers. The medium-slow and slow-medium categories are mostly occupied by spin bowlers, since a delivery bowled at these speeds with a fast bowling technique, rather than spin, would simply be too easy to hit. Although spinners are sometimes colloquially referred to as "slow bowlers", very few players in professional cricket bowl in the actual "slow" category (below 40 mph or 64 km/h).