The speed gun is killing swing

[chinaman]

Wasim Akram reveals a few secrets of his success, but not all. The interview was conducted during the Sydney Test in January, and appeared in the February 2004 issue of Wisden Asia Cricket and now in cricinfo.

Few Quotes:

Swing is all about using the wrist. Seam bowling is about hitting the seam consistently, but on most Indian and Pakistani wickets there is no seam movement. So you have to use your wrists and learn to swing.

Reverse swing is easier to control. Bowling with the new ball and controlling the swing is more difficult. That's why you get a lot of wide balls with the new ball.

With reverse swing, you need pace, but with the new ball you need control and skill. I could bowl big inswingers with the new ball and then I could take one away. That gets you wickets.

Your wrist could go a little this way or that, and you might have thought that you had bowled an inswinger and it could go out. That's why you had to keep the ball around the off stump, so that whichever way it went, it would still trouble the batsman. And the beauty of it is that if you didn't know which way the ball would go, neither would the batsman.

With the new ball, of course, it didn't matter much because the shine was the same and the batsman tried to read the swing from your wrist, but with the old ball you could judge which way it would go by looking at the shine.

When we did it, it was ball-tampering. People were just baffled; they didn't understand what was happening. And we came from the subcontinent. .... Now of course, everybody understands it. So it's called reverse swing.

Nowadays you see bowlers like Mohammad Sami, Ajit Agarkar – they all have a quick arm action, which makes the ball skid on. It's a blessing.

And then you have a guy like Aamir Sohail, who is a joke, as the chief selector. What do you expect? Majid Khan was one. He didn't know how to handle the boys. He even stopped our mineral water saying it was expensive, though we were getting it free.

Complete Interview

[Arnab]

Absolutely gem of an interview.

I always like intelligent cricketers. Wasim is the supremely intelligent bowler, of all time.

[reverse_swing]

no doubt about that.

[reinausagi]

He even stopped our mineral water saying it was expensive, though we were getting it free.

In the Khan clan, Imran seems to have monopolised talent, looks and common sense. Cousin Majid obviously lacked the last one.

[reverse_swing]

One of the best interview I have ever read! Sorry to dig out old thread. Our Mashrafi should read this.

[Carte Blanche]

Good job digging it out. What surprises me is not many people replied to it.

The mineral water incident is a gem. By the way, if this was an interview, how come we don't get to read the questions?

[reverse_swing]

Chinaman bhai also gave the link

Complete Interview

Edited on, July 5, 2005, 4:45 PM GMT, by reverse_swing.

[Mahir]

great interview. Its actually helping that you dug it out, reverse_swing. A must read for all the fast bowlers!

[RazabQ]

has akram written an a/b yet? Also can anyone find me a copy of All Round View. It's been out of print for a while and my copy was stolen while in college.

[reverse_swing]

RazabQ bhai, Have you read Patrick Murphy's Wasim: Autobiography of Wasim Akram . Not that good and may be out of print now. You can search in amazon if you are interested.

[akabir77]

can we hire wasim as a bowling coach????

[TheWatcher]

A very good read.

I did not know the difference between seam and swing bowling. Now it makes sense when Mashrafe said he can move the ball more on subcontinental pitches using his wrist (before I thought he was bulshiting). But it is unfortunate that he could not master how to use seam of the ball to consistently produce same degree of movements.

Edited on, July 10, 2005, 8:19 AM GMT, by TheWatcher.

[couger]

This is easily one of the best interviews with a sports personality in recesnt times. Love it.