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The magic of swing bowling

Ben Hilfenhaus has called time on his first-class career. (AFP Photo/William West).
Roar Guru
21st November, 2015
4

It’s wonderful. It’s thrilling. It’s sheer poetry. To watch a swing bowler on top is one of the joys of cricket.

On those days he’s doing well, it feels so simple. To the spectators watching, it feels so simple. There’s action every ball, plays and misses, edges, and wickets.

It’s lovely to watch a batsman struggling against an excellent swing bowler. To watch him getting more and more frustrated. To watch the ball hit the inner-middle or the outer-middle of the bat, rather than simply the middle.

The bowler owns the ball, it does as he commands, and as much as he commands. Against whomever he faces. Any fielder is only irrelevant because the bowler chooses to make them irrelevant, or their stubborn captain, who should simply do as the bowler asks, insists on it.

Nine fielders and one wicket-keeper are all he feels he will ever need.

Pace is the ultimate weapon. Any seam-up bowler who tells you that they don’t wish they were quicker is lying. They may not crave it, or realise it is necessary or feasible for them to have it, but if you offered them even a little extra speed, they would take it.

But swing is an empowering weapon. When that cordon is justifiably filled, a swing bowler knows, and the batsman knows, that only one swinging delivery has to be misjudged. There is some showmanship. The audible conversations with the skipper about adding another slip, the occasional gentle remark to the batsman, the analytical stare. The one that says he knows he will trap his man shortly – the question is just how.

However, there are plenty of bad days. Days when the ball doesn’t swing as he wants to, or when he wants to or when he needs it to, or at all. Days when the batsmen are on top, or survive a good spell. Days when batsmen can take liberties with his bowling.

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Days when having the bloke at cover for a well-set opponent results in the ball flying through a vacant second slip. Days when there have to be blokes on the drive because of the perception they may go through the shot too soon.

Days when the satisfying feeling of the wrist and the fingers behind the seam of the ball have to be sacrificed for – swallow hard – cutters. Days when he is on the chain gang, while the off-spinner is bowling an obligatory long and tight spell from the other end, to bowl dry, and not in the liquid magical way that he remembers from his best ever spells in matches or even at training.

So why do swing bowlers do what they do? Is it because they lack the pace to be faster?

Well, partly. But on the great days of a career, swing is almost as intoxicating a weapon as pace. It feels magical. Such days will occur late as well as early in a career, unlike those who only want to bowl fast.

The magic days are worth the pain for a swing bowler. The frustrating days, the flat pitches, the good batsmen, the years of dedication are worth it.

Even if never comes, or comes so rarely. Even if they secretly wish they could bowl faster to have the speed to justify bowling more bouncers, so that bloody ex-batsman, off-spinner coach doesn’t shout “keep them up” whenever you drop short.

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