Bowling Anamoly

A very strange thing happened to me while bowling against Acasia in the Lawson Trophy match of 7th December 2007. The first ball that I was about to bowl, I went in with the intention of bowling my regular legcutter delivery in which I pitch the ball on the middle and leg and let the ball rip from my fingers with seam upright. But I had bowled against the batsman who was facing me and knew that he was good at hitting on the leg side, so I thought that I should use the crease and bowl a little wider so that the ball pitches a little outside off and moves away from the batsman.

I came to the crease, bowled from a little wide of the crease, the ball pitched as per plan but instead of moving away it came in !

The North Nazimabad ball always is fun to ball with since it will move and bounce if you want it to. I was happy to repeat the action and delivery style and kept on getting incutters to some good affect. Although I didn't get any wickets but it was a pleasure to watch. I did feel a little guilty about it since except for the line and length I was not controlling much.

But I guess this is a normal thing in cricket, since I just read about Muralitharan telling about his record breaking wicket, in which he expected the ball to go to the opposite direction. Also Wasim Akram often told about his bowling in the initial overs when he ensured that the ball falls on the seam, because if it does then it would move as per its own will. So he used to say, when even I didn't know which way the ball will go how can the batsman know.

So in the next matches I will try to keep the seam up, rip it from my fingers, control my line and length and let the ball do the talking. At least initially I will do that especially with the North Nazimabad ball.