Swing Bowling - Conventional Swing

Conventional Swing

Typically, a swing bowler aligns the seam and the sides of the ball to reinforce the swing effect. This can be done in two ways:

• Outswinger: An outswinger to a right-handed batsman can be bowled by aligning the seam slightly to the left towards the slips and placing the roughened side of the ball on the left. To extract consistent swing, a bowler can also rotate his wrist toward the slips while keeping his arm straight. To a right-handed batsman, this results in the ball moving away to the off side while in flight, usually outwards from his body.
• Inswinger: An inswinger to a right-handed batsman can be bowled by aligning the seam slightly to the right and placing the roughened side of the ball on the right and towards leg slip. To extract consistent swing, a bowler can also rotate or "open up" his wrist towards leg slip. To a right-handed batsman, this results in the ball moving in to the leg side while in flight, usually inwards towards his body. Also, Waqar Younis employed the technique of covering the ball with his hands during his run up to hide the grip.

The curvature of swing deliveries can make them difficult for a batsman to hit with his bat. Typically, bowlers more commonly bowl outswingers, as they tend to move away from the batsman, meaning he has to "chase" the ball in order to hit it. Hitting away from the batsman's body is dangerous, as it leaves a gap between the bat and body through which the ball may travel to hit the wicket. Also, if the batsman misjudges the amount of swing, he can hit the ball with an edge of the bat. An inside edge can ricochet on to the wicket, resulting in him being out bowled, while an outside edge can fly to the wicket-keeper or slip fielders for a catch.

An inswinger presents relatively fewer dangers to the batsman, but can result in bowled or leg before wicket dismissals if the batsman misjudges the swing on the ball.

An inswinger combined with a yorker can be especially difficult for the batsman to defend against, especially if used as a surprise delivery after a sequence of outswingers.

There has been a distinct lack of left-arm swing bowlers in the game. Some of the most famous left-arm bowlers were Pakistan's Wasim Akram, India's Zaheer Khan, Australia's Alan Davidson and Sri Lanka's Chaminda Vaas.