Neil Wagner is the most unusual fast bowler in modern Test cricket. Can the short ball blitzes that have earned him success elsewhere work on true Australian pitches?
No bowler in Test cricket relies more heavily on the short ball than Wagner.
In the most recent Test between Australia and New Zealand, Wagner was the only Kiwi bowler to have an impact, taking seven of their 13 wickets as Trent Boult, Tim Southee and Matt Henry were neutered by a flat Christchurch pitch.
The left armer’s success against Australia was based on the most relentless barrage of short balls I’ve seen directed at the Aussies in recent memory.
Remarkably, all seven of Wagner’s wickets in that Test were from short-pitched deliveries.
Wagner started in the first innings by having both Joe Burns and Steve Smith caught at square leg while hooking.
Then NZ decided to put two square legs in place to Adam Voges as Wagner continued with his flood of bouncers.
Lo and behold, Voges hooked a shoulder height Wagner delivery straight to one of those catching men.
Then Wagner came around the wicket to Mitch Marsh with a stacked leg side field. The Kiwi dug the ball in short once more and Marsh pulled a catch to mid-wicket. Soon after, Wagner bounced Peter Nevill, who tried to ramp the ball but succeeded only in nicking it to wicketkeeper BJ Watling.
New Zealand bowler Neil Wagner (AAP Image/Dave Hunt)
Wagner finished off Australia’s first innings by aiming for the ribs of Josh Hazlewood who edged the ball to slip. Six short balls, six wickets.
I don’t have access to a database that lets me obtain obscure stats, so I can’t give you any exact figures here. But I would confidently say that very, very rarely in the past decade has a Test fast bowler taken six wickets in a single innings with short balls.
Even Mitchell Johnson never achieved that as he bulldozed England with bouncers en route to 37 wickets in the 2013-14 Ashes. That much I learned from watching this video of each wicket he took in that series.
Never have I seen an entire side rattled by the short ball the same way England fell apart against Johnson that summer.
What you’ll remember, if you watch that video, is that Johnson’s brutal use of the bouncer earned him many wickets from fuller deliveries.
Because the English batsmen were camped on the back foot, terrified of having their helmets broken, they were vulnerable to full and good length deliveries.
By comparison, Wagner doesn’t use his short balls to try to intimidate the batsman, as Johnson did. I’m sure he would if he could, but Wagner is about 15kmh slower than Johnson was back then.
Few Test batsmen are scared of 130-135kmh bouncers, which is what Wagner sends down. Rarely are his short balls ever clocked at a higher speed than that.
Here is Wagner earlier this year taking four wickets on the trot against Bangladesh with short balls that measured between 132 and 135kmh.
Here he is again, in the same series, taking all five of his wickets with short balls that measured between 130 and 135kmh.
As you can see, NZ regularly set a strong leg side field for Wagner as he aims to get batsmen caught hooking and pulling. While plenty of Test fast bowlers fall back on such a plan when more traditional methods have not worked, this is often the first line of attack for Wagner.
Mitchell Johnson – a short-ball specialist. (Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images)
Perhaps I am overlooking someone, but I cannot think of another current Test bowler who bases their wicket-taking strategy around having batsmen caught on the hook and pull. This seems to be why it works so well for Wagner: few batsmen are used to being peppered by short balls so relentlessly.
In this way, the Kiwi plays on their patience. Many Test bowlers plug away on a fullish length on or just outside off stump, waiting for a batsman to get bored and try to force an attacking shot.
This is the most common strategy for Test quicks and has been for a long, long time.
Wagner, meanwhile, keeps bowling short and short and short and short, until batsmen who prefer not to hook or pull get suckered into having a crack.
Even against batsmen who are strong on cross bat shots he’s happy to smother them with short balls, confident that sooner or later a delivery will bounce slightly higher and they’ll top edge the ball to his waiting leg-side catchers.
And it works, too. It works really well. Since the start of 2014, Wagner has taken 148 wickets at 24 in Tests. In that time he has taken 115 wickets at 24 at home and 33 wickets at 24 away. That includes nine wickets at 16 in South Africa, his country of birth and the nation which has conditions most similar to Australia.
Wagner looks almost certain to play this week in the first Test against Australia at Perth Stadium, which may just be the fastest, bounciest pitch in the world. As the likes of Trent Boult, Tim Southee, Colin de Grandhomme and Matt Henry look to bowl in a traditional fashion against Australia, targeting the top of off stump, Wagner will be inundating them with short balls.
Of this I have little doubt. What I’m less sure of is how Australia will counter this strategy and whether Wagner’s curious approach can work here. Australia’s entire top seven don’t mind a hook or pull. Some of them even border on being compulsive hookers at times, like Tim Paine and Joe Burns.
Wagner will be in his element. Pack your helmets Australia.
anon
Roar Pro
Does that count as a smashing?
anon
Roar Pro
Told ya we'd smash NZ
HelterSkelter888
Roar Rookie
My theory on the 'heavy ball' is its a result of the bowler being quicker than their run up/bowling action implies.
peter chrisp
Guest
Smashing us very funny & their batting lineup? Very very competitive don't you think?
matth
Roar Guru
The armpit ball is also a bit more of a problem at Mitch Johnson speed.
matth
Roar Guru
That duct tape on one side can be a give away
matth
Roar Guru
Maybe the heavy ball concept is that they get more bounce than expected, so they are often hitting the top half of the bat outside the sweet spot? That would feel heavier than a ball that bounces as expected? Total guess.
dungerBob
Roar Rookie
It's all about the line I guess Chris. To threaten the ribs and armpits the line has to be as perfect as the length. Right length, wrong line generally means an easy leave or runs. It sounds a bit odd, but a bowler has to be in pretty good nick to resort to a bouncer barrage and not waste his time and energy. It's still line and length, just shorter and straighter.
Sorry meant Boult! Ahah sorry there, yeah Southee is ok but not in the same class as our guys, though he swings the ball well so could do damage in the 1st test.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Of course, in those days they didn't have the bouncer rules they have now, it was just a general "intimidatory bowling" law in the laws of cricket which is very much just up to the umpires to call and they rarely did unless it was against a tail ender.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
It's funny. You'll watch one match and hear the commentators talking about how chest high bouncers are easy and the bowlers need to get them to head high to mark them harder for the batsmen to control, and then another test where they keep saying that the best place to aim the bouncer is getting it into that armpit sort of area. Like, make up your minds guys, which is it? I guess part of it is that playing the pull shot lots, it's not always easy to keep the ball on the ground ever time, no matter what pace it's bowled. So if you set the field with plenty of guys back so that you really have to hit it perfectly to get a boundary, and lots of those shots will only go for singles anyway, then you are daring the batsmen to keep trying the pull shot when they have to hit it straight to ground every time or be at risk of getting caught, and more often than not they'll probably only get a single for it anyway. I'm certainly curious to see him bowl too. Haven't really seen much of him at all. Will be interesting how he goes.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Yeah, agree. Stokes doesn't count in that. Like Labushagne for Australia, he was still a kid when he moved, and it wasn't for cricket reasons. And he then came through his adopted countries cricket systems. Players who's allegiance is for sale to whoever can offer them the best opportunities never appeal to me as much. Same when they play for Australia. Some "aussie" weightlifter who just came here because they were the 15th best weight lifter in Bulgaria but better than the best Aussie, meaning that was their ticket to the Olympics, makes it hard to get behind them as an "Aussie". Pietersen, Wagner, Archer all certainly seem to fall into those sorts of categories. They went somewhere they felt they had more chance of progressing through the systems. In some ways the Archer situation is a worse one. If you have players who could be decent international players, but would never get the chance in their home country, able to move to smaller cricketing nations for more chances, then at least that helps to even out the quality of test sides a bit. Cases like Archers, where he's left a weaker nation to move to a stronger nation (and lets face it, WI cricket has been a bit of a shambles for years) are more worrying, as it takes things in the opposite direction. We really want to be careful about too much of that sort of thing happening.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
A heavy ball. Sounds like ball tampering to me! Better get those channel 7 camera operators to keep an eye on things when the Kiwi's are in the field if they are somehow making the ball heavier! :laughing:
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
For your average park cricketer, 130 is lightning quick. I reckon most fast bowlers in park cricket are more often around the 110 sort of mark. It certainly is a whole other level of pace heading up to the top levels of cricket. On a decent pitch, your 110km/h "quick" in park cricket can still get a bouncer up there. So 130-135 can certainly be decent. I still think this "heavy ball" thing is a complete load of rubbish. I'm with Pope Paul in this one, I think it's in their head as much as anything. May be as much as anything talking of bowlers who get a bit more bounce than expected and it hits a bit higher on the bat, thus feeling a bit harder.
Chris Kettlewell
Roar Guru
Southee has 258 test wickets at an average of 30.01 and a strike rate of 59.7. In what way are his stats better than Mitchell Starc's 229 wickets at 27.57 with a strike rate of 48.9? I must be missing something there. Wagner has 187 wickets at 26.98 with a strike rate of 51.8. So I suppose he beats Starc on test average... just! NZ might be competitive, but can't see them "smashing us"!
Nick
Roar Guru
Any doctor will tell you that it's one day per hour change for recovering from jet lag. It's moot anyway, it will be the heat that will be the biggest challenge to the kiwis.
It's barely any different, your body adjusts within 48 hours and they've already been here a week.
Or they could smash us in Perth definitely, they have Wagner and Southee, two very good bowlers with better stats than Starc
Fox
Roar Guru
Nice article – The other thing is that batsman say he is very skiddy and a lot of batsmen often say the ball seems to skid on to them quicker than it looks through air and he is only 5ft 10″ which is short for a test pace bowler. NZ commentator Simon Doul thinks its his height that also helps the ball really skid on with the short balls he bowls into the chest region. He is however, not a one trick pony – not by any stretch but it is his game, but it is not the only game he has and that is also important with him. The other strange thing about Wagner is that he has bowled more 10 over spells, since his test debut, than any other pace bowler and by some distance. There are many reasons for this but one is that he has freakish fitness but what makes him unique is that he gets quicker and better the longer he bowls. He bowled – I think a 12 ball over against Sri Lanka I think and in over 10-12 he was getting it well into 140’s with 146 his quickest in that game. So he is definitely unique for sure. Also Ronan, watch out for his knuckle ball – which he has recently perfected and it is deceptive – he got 3 or 4 pommy wickets with that ball. Interesting, listening to Ponting recently who thinks he could be a real threat – we shall see. If they pick Ferguson and they dam well should – they may not drop Southee with the pink ball which means Wagner may not play in Perth but I would be surprised to see him dropped – and very disappointed.
J.T. Delacroix
Guest
Did he give him a bit of a tune-up? Sorry.