Every act in cricket\u2019s history has begun with a bowler delivering a ball to a batter 22 yards away. Delivering. Like a postman delivers a council tax bill. Like a waiter delivers a round of drinks. Of all the verbs used to describe the bowling of a ball, this one speaks to the deep-seated cultural inequity that has plagued this sport since its inception.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there was ever a word that proves we live in a batter\u2019s world, this is it,\u201d says Steve Harmison, the fearsome fast bowler turned commentator who delivered 16,313 balls for England across eight years. \u201cBut not every delivery is the same. Some come gift-wrapped like a present at Christmas. Some can jump up and smack you in the face.\u201d<\/p>\n
A batter can hit the ball in any direction. As we noted back in August, they can scoop over fine leg, scythe through point or bash it down the ground. But a bowler must effectively walk a tightrope. Anything sprayed too wide will be penalised. Anything floated too full or dragged down too short will be punished. Which is why bowlers aim for the nebulous realm of the corridor of uncertainty.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s just an area where a batter isn\u2019t sure if he can go forward or back, if he can leave or defend it away from his stumps,\u201d explains Dale Steyn, the South Africa quick who claimed 439 Test wickets at 22.95. \u201cThink of it like a blind spot in your car mirror, where you can\u2019t see someone coming past you for a split second.\u201d<\/p>\n
Most balls that land in this corridor \u2013 usually on a so-called \u201cgood\u201d length, somewhere near a fourth-stump line \u2013 are given special names. These are nuts, seeds, peaches. Harmison is fond of the jaffa. And while these arcing, hooping and ragging pills might turn a batter inside out, sometimes they are too good.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou feel chuffed when it happens, and it\u2019s sort of a moral victory, but they\u2019re meaningless,\u201d Harmison says. \u201cSometimes the best wicket-taking ball is actually a pile of shit. The actual jaffa looks great, and it feels great, but if it doesn\u2019t get a wicket it can be really frustrating.\u201d<\/p>\n
And this is where the language of bowling begins to reveal its cruelty. The gap between the perfect ball and a meaningless one can be no more than a couple of millimetres. Harmison remembers Stuart Broad copping criticism for an expensive spell at Trent Bridge. When he reviewed the footage he found it was almost identical to his eight-wicket haul against Australia in 2015. The only change was what happened at the far end. \u201cAs a bowler, you have to accept that once you let go of the ball you have no control,\u201d he says. \u201cYou can feel powerless. It can be isolating.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is why bowling attacks must work as units, with the ruthlessness of a cartel and the coordination of a pack. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing more satisfying for me than when a batting pair looks hunted,\u201d Steyn says. \u201cThat tells a full story about the bowlers and not just one lucky delivery.\u201d<\/p>\n
Steyn and Harmison did the same thing but in very different ways. Steyn would steam through his run-up, gather in his action like a panther coiling before a pounce, then send down rockets that kissed the surface. Harmison\u2019s larger frame would lope forward, his long limbs unravelling as he hit the deck with a heavy ball. Sorry. A what?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s all about the size of the bowler,\u201d Steyn says. \u201cA heavy-ball bowler has more weight behind him. It\u2019s not just about pace. Guys like Jacques Kallis and Andrew Flintoff were perfect examples. I\u2019d kiss the surface, like skimming a tennis ball off a swimming pool. Those other guys weren\u2019t always the quickest, but they felt as fast as anyone when you faced them.\u201d<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Subscribe to our cricket newsletter for our writers’ thoughts on the biggest stories and a review of the week\u2019s action<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n Andrew Flintoff, whose weight gave his deliveries menace, bowls to Neil McKenzie of South Africa at Headingley in 2008. Photograph: Laurence Griffiths\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Bowlers can easily fit into archetypes. The snarler. The golden arm. The one who bowls the hard overs up the hill and into the breeze. These are the narratives we rely on, the stories bowlers tell, and the ones they tell themselves. A thick edge flies away for four, a slog sails for six and the captain at first slip will bark: \u201cDon\u2019t mind that.\u201d Steyn lifts the curtain: \u201cTo be honest, the runs always irritated me. But sometimes I genuinely don\u2019t mind it, as long as it doesn\u2019t happen too often.\u201d<\/p>\n For all this necessary self-delusion, seamers are rarely granted a vocabulary of sorcery. Why can\u2019t they be called wizards? Steyn gives a knowing laugh. \u201cOnly wrist spinners deserve that title,\u201d he says, despite bowling one of cricket\u2019s most magical balls: the late swinger at Gqeberha that uprooted Michael Vaughan\u2019s off-stump in 2004. \u201cFast bowlers cast different types of spells, but we\u2019re not as mysterious as leggies.\u201d<\/p>\n In the end, the physical act of bowling, of delivering a ball, has always been simple. It\u2019s the words we\u2019ve wrapped around the act that complicate things. Bumpers, jaffas, heavy balls, moral victories; a vocabulary always chasing a craft that can\u2019t be pinned down. Maybe this is why, as Steyn observes, the best have stuck to a basic aim: \u201cUltimately, I always tried to let the ball do the talking.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every act in cricket\u2019s history has begun with a bowler delivering a ball to a batter 22 yards…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[1721,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-310166","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cricket","8":"tag-cricket","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}