Swing Bowling - Playing Swing Bowling

Playing Swing Bowling

Playing swing bowling is considered to be a hallmark of a batsman's skill. While often a batsman will be encouraged to play defensively, in many instances he may be skilled enough to attack.

Firstly, a batsman needs good eye reflexes which are considered to be the major thing in playing swing bowling.Secondly a batsman often needs to anticipate beforehand what the ball will do and adjust accordingly to play swing bowling. This can be done by observing the bowler's grip and action (which may have a marked difference depending on which type of swinger is to be delivered), by observing the field set, which may depend on the types of deliveries expected (as a rule outswingers will have more slips assigned) or by means of prior knowledge of the bowler; many can bowl or are proficient in only one type of swing. Traditional methods include the batsmen playing the ball as late as possible, and not playing away from the body. Other effective measures for combating swing bowling include standing well outside the crease, thus giving the ball less time to swing; and guessing the direction of swing based on the seam position observed in the ball's flight.

Since reverse occurs at faster speeds, later in the trajectory of the ball and with no real obvious change in action and grip (Waqar Younis from Pakistan for example had the same action and grip for nearly all his deliveries), batsmen with a quick eye and reflexes will do well. In his autobiography Wasim Akram mentions four batsmen— Rahul Dravid, Brian Lara, Aravinda De Silva and Martin Crowe —who had such reflexes and who were exceedingly difficult to bowl to.

Controversy regarding reverse swing has never left modern cricket, as the Pakistani team was accused of ball tampering by the controversial Australian umpire Darrell Hair during the fourth test against England in 2006 when the ball began to reverse swing after the 50th over. His co-umpire Billy Doctrove fully supported him in this action. A hearing subsequently found that there was insufficient evidence to convict anyone of ball tampering. Indian bowlers Praveen Kumar and Irfan Pathan are good swingers of the cricket ball.