An eclectic array of traits resided in the great fast bowlers that graced Test cricket in years gone by.
Malcolm Marshall, Dale Steyn and Dennis Lillee swung the ball at searing pace. Glenn McGrath, Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh extracted steep bounce with their towering frames. Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis developed a penchant for detonating the stumps with reverse swing.
Allan Donald and Michael Holding, poetry in motion with their rhythmic run-ups and high-arm actions, possessed a deadly mix of hostile velocity and venomous bounce. James Anderson was a masterful exponent of swing, given to moving the red cherry either way with subtle changes in wrist and seam position.
The total package
While examining their greatness, what didn’t need underlining was the immaculate control and consistency that came with the package. It may be because harping on an aspect that requires an uncompromising work ethic rather than innate talent is a tad prosaic, but separating the very best from the rest is often this ability to produce one good delivery after another.
For, wickets over a lengthy career in the longest format are largely earned through the accumulation of dot balls and maiden overs, coercing batters into making mistakes under pressure that they otherwise wouldn’t.
The unfolding of events during the recent fifth Test at The Oval is a pertinent example. England seemed to be cruising in its fourth-innings chase of 374, with Harry Brook and Joe Root marching along merrily at more than five runs per over. India looked bereft of ideas.
Then in a trice, with Brook departing to a rash stroke for 111, the match turned on its head. Suddenly a series of tight overs were strung together, and the 70-odd runs that were required at the time of Brook’s exit appeared like a whole lot more. Even the well-set Root, who brought up his 39th Test hundred, and the flamboyant Jamie Smith seemed unsure of where the next run would come from when the pressure mounted, and eventually the Englishmen crumbled.
In a series where bat dominated ball — more than 7,000 runs and 21 centuries were logged by the two teams — such phases where runs were at a premium were minimal. While Jasprit Bumrah and Mohammed Siraj for India and Ben Stokes and Chris Woakes for England were able to offer consistency, the inexperience of the younger lot — particularly Prasidh Krishna and Josh Tongue — showed up with a proclivity to stray from the ideal line and length.
Prasidh Krishna can produce deliveries that dismiss the best of batters. But he also has a tendency to stray from the ideal line and length.
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So much so that some experts have wondered whether contemporary fast bowlers have simply lost the old-school knack of repeatedly landing the red cherry on a desired spot.
Akram was of that view on the recent ‘Stick to Cricket’ podcast. “Nowadays, bowlers for some odd reason can’t just hit that length consistently in Test cricket. They try too many things,” the former Pakistan left-armer grumbled.
There is no shortage of skill with the likes of Prasidh and Tongue, but do they perhaps just operate with a different mindset? McGrath, whose modus operandi in the five-day game revolved around his unremitting accuracy, seems to think so.
“I think potentially there is a change in bowling mindset,” McGrath told The Hindu over the phone. “There’s a lot more T20 cricket and bowlers are probably looking to bowl different deliveries. And you look at the recent series, the England batters do come quite hard. They’re quite aggressive. And you know, bowlers sometimes let that impact their bowling.”
No dearth of greatness
To be clear, there is no dearth of great quicks in the modern age. In Bumrah, Kagiso Rabada, Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins, there are certainly five as good as the game has entertained. And although Starc is prone to the odd wayward spell, the others can count consistency and adherence to the fundamental tenets of the craft among their virtues.
But with the approach of batters veering more and more towards aggression owing to the influence of T20s, the broad impression seems to be that a majority of bowlers are increasingly conditioned to altering their lines and lengths as a default response to an attacking shot.
“But the thing that always amazes me, look at two of the best T20 bowlers,” McGrath pointed out. “One is Hazlewood and the other one is Bumrah. What lengths do they bowl at the start? They still bowl that good Test length, hitting the top of off-stump. So, it is still a really tough ball. I just think bowlers need to work more on their consistency and a bit more on their patience.”
Glenn McGrath says the old-fashioned good Test length, bowled expertly by the likes of Josh Hazlewood, is still really tough to counter.
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The numbers offer fascinating insight on the changing dynamics. Of the 10 pacers with the best strike-rates (minimum 200 wickets) in the game’s history, five — Rabada, Bumrah, Cummins, Starc and Mohammed Shami — actually belong to the current generation. Among them, Bumrah and Cummins also have exceptional economy rates — 2.78 and 2.88 respectively.
If we delve into decade-wise data since the phasing out of uncovered pitches in the late 1960s, it is apparent that today’s quicks are taking fewer deliveries to snare wickets. For the periods entailing 1970-79, 1980-89, 1990-99 and 2000-09, the strike-rates of the fast men ranged between 62 and 68. In the period from 2010 to 2019, it dropped to 59.1. And in the last five years, there has been a further, rather substantial, dip to 52.3. At the same time, however, the economy-rates have risen. If they conceded 3.12 runs per over from 2010 to 2019, the corresponding figure is 3.26 since 2020, nearly a 4.5% increase.
Multiple factors, of course, are at play. With World Test Championship points at stake since 2019, teams have tended to prioritise bowler-friendly, result-oriented pitches. By virtue of batters taking more risks, there are also more wicket-taking opportunities on offer.
In such circumstances, the underlying significance of accuracy in prising out breakthroughs may not be readily appreciated, but McGrath’s wisdom ought to be tapped into.
“The most important part of being a bowler is still to have that control, accuracy and consistency. It doesn’t matter which format you’re playing,” the Australian, who devotes considerable time to training youngsters at the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai, stressed.
Bowling’s essence
The 55-year-old went on to highlight that control isn’t simply about targeting the 6-8 metre band, otherwise known as the good length, on a pitch. “Having control is about bowling the ball exactly where you want to bowl it, whatever delivery that is,” he said. “If you want to bowl a slower ball, you want to deliver it as well as you can. If you want to bowl a yorker, you want to bowl it as accurately as you can. Same with the bouncer. If you have that control, you can bowl to a plan.”
It is surely important to recognise that the challenges are profound for young pacers against ultra-aggressive batters. But if they can find a way to refine their control and consistency to complement their other traits, as McGrath argues, it will stand them in good stead. Just as it has for the greats of the game.
