A scientific confusion is created here. For all the elementary science lessons at your memory’s disposal and without treading into ‘turbulence’ territory you would have thought that the smoother or shiny half of the ball would face lesser air resistance and try to travel FASTER through the air than the other (rough) half and thus force the ball to move away from it, which would be the opposite of Shafqat’s take in the last two lines. The resultant trajectory, when viewed from above should resemble a heated bimetallic strip. I believe most of us laymen generally regard the normal (or conventional) swing to function that way rather than ‘reverse’ (or ‘super’ or whatever) swing.
Is the turbulence effect, that obviously functions inversely as the ‘expected’ effect explained above (let’s call it that), so strong that it overcomes this expected effect and reverses it to a degree that it becomes too negligible to even deserve a mention from Shafqat? And does the cricket ball behave in exactly the same fashion as the tape ball? In case you think of dismissing the above words of Shafqat as a typo there’s further confirmation of what he intends to say:
Super swing is simpler to understand, easier to learn, more accurate, and perfectly reproducible. Delivered at speeds over 90 mph, it can be a lethal weapon, some would even say a weapon of mass destruction. It doesn't matter what your action is or how you cock your wrist. All that matters is which way the smoother surface is facing. Provided there is enough difference between the rough and shiny sides, the ball will always move towards the smoother surface. It isn't the 'reverse' of anything. That's just the way it is.
‘Towards the smoother surface’ again? Now my confusion is peaking and needs serious sorting out. Having surfed on this topic a few times earlier I repeat the exercise. All of the more simplistic explanations (links provided below) that I pick up on the net point towards my original beliefs (to use a suitable term) about swing. However I’m far from convinced that I understand the truth.
Not for nothing is aerodynamics excluded from science syllabi for fifth standard students and there should be a lot more to the mechanism of swing than simplistic explanations. Simply put, the ball behaves as it does and it is up to us to find out how it moves. There’s no use expecting it to do this or that just because our expectations soar only as far as our knowledge allow them to.
Maybe ‘turbulence’ does weird and big things to the quickly hurled cricket ball and Shafqat’s statement may be based on that. How I wish this scientific misery of cricket lovers to end once for all through extensive studies on this front by a handful of crazy cricket lovers pretending as brilliant scientists.
Oh – I must kick myself hard for forgetting to thank Shafqat profusely. Controversies have deluged cricket over the last month and it is a long time since we all discussed ball, bat and such things that are easier to relate to. At least Shafqat has started a debate that we would love to shout ourselves hoarse about. Would love to read a more detailed account by him about those words of his.
Do add your views here and help enlighten me if you have understood Saad Shafqat's point. In case you wondered, I regard myself to be an on-the-verge-of-retirement non-pro medium pacer who generally swings the ball right up. And as Shafqat mentions in his post, I agree with Imran Khan that it would swing the same (almost) all the time irrespective of the way the ball is held.
More stuff on swing bowling mechanism has been discussed here, here and here.
