Good article, made a good read....But there is nothing new to offer,these things are known from years............

damn good article man 4 aspiring bowlers like us

With his slinging action bowlers like Malinga would always get reverse swing with ease. But, it's very hard for other bowlers to gain this weapon. Recently, Bret Lee is most consistent of the bowlers whom i saw bowling great reverse swinging deliveries. But no one can compare Wasim and Waqar, this duo were gods of reverse swing.

The Times did a good scientific article on swing - http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/cricket/article6740828.ece

Thanks for the article - some inspiration for the bowlers!

Hi Asif...guess u havent seen Zaheer Khan bowl recently...he is undoubtedly the best reverse swing bowler in the world currently...as far as Wasim and Waqar are considered there is no comparison

It is doubtful that the condition on opposing sides of the ball has as significant an effect on swing, as overhead conditions and bowlers delivery action.
During the first over of a match, when the ball has equal amount of shine on either side, the ball often shapes around in the air before it has had a chance to be greatly roughed up on one side. Also, in terms of influencing reverse swing, players attempt to rough the ball up by throwing it in on the bounce which could not possibly focus on one side only, therefore the overall condition of the ball being rough might affect the swing.
Gyroscopic rotation of the ball (influenced by delivery action) is probably what gives the ball its movement, just in the way Shane Warne's leg-spinnners would drift in the air (nothing to do with shine).

Once I saw an interview from Javagal Srinath where he explained why the ball reverse swings. According to him with all the things, saliva or cream, being applied to the shiny side of the cricket ball that side becomes heavier than the rough side. Now there are 2 forces. The shiny side tries to go faster as it has less friction. The rough side tries to go faster as it is heavier. When the effect of weight is more than the effect of friction the ball reverse swings. The good bowlers can make the same ball to do reverse swing and normal swing which makes it more difficult for the batsmen.

I like it... simply written which makes it easier to understand. As someone else also mentioned, great info. especially for aspiring cricketers.
=)

"rough side takes on the characteristics of the shiny side" doesn't look like a convincing explanation. Rough side with more sweat will be heavier and the ball tents to move towards the heavier side seems like more logical.

But that leaves us with the question on traditional swing. When the ball is new both sides have same shine and weight but still it swings. Can someone give a logical explanation?

Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis were and will always be the Sultans of Swinging the ball in either direction. No other bowler will ever come close to their awesomeness. They are still considered as the most carnage-making new ball duo ever. Wasim Akram will always be the best swinging fast-bowler and Waqar Younis will remain the toe-crusher. They are the masters of swing n seam, line n lenth.

I have heard a lot about swing and how to keep one side shiny and the other rough in order to get more swing. But then, why does a new ball swing the most??? Aren't both sides exactly equally new at that point in time?

As a coach I often ask players what a ball will do after it pitches. Their answers are often based on assumptions and wrong ones at that. You can only know what the ball will do after it pitches - see it early, play it late is the batsman's answer to reverse swing and shooters, the best players have that ability.I get players to practice reverse swing with a ball roughed up on one side with sandpaper.

"There is no such thing as technique and I never believed in it; but batting is about reflex, split second decision and REACTION by the batsman, against any kind of bowling" said the king of batting Sir Ivan Vivian Alexander Richards. Guys throw your theories out of the window and play natural with confidence. you will always score that is what I tell my boys.

I have heard a lot of rubbish spoken about how to make a ball swing. I am a retired scientist who has made a lifetimes study of swing, and I know that, given a new ball and suitable weather conditions, how ANYONE can make a ball swing. Although the rough/smooth side of the ball is a factor, the most important factor is for the seam to act as a rudder. For this to happen, the seam must rotate around its own axis. In other words it must not be scrambled. This is why the brand new ball will swing. Every bowler's bone structure is different, so in order to stop the seam scrabling you must experiment with many different grips until you find the right one. This will probably NOT be the classic grip of orientating the seam straight between the index and middle finger. You can start with this grip, but then reorientate the seam a little in each direction in two different plains at 90 degrees until you can find the one where the seam is not scrambled. The ball will then swing.

Swing is basically an aerodynamic phenomenon. It basically depends on the ball, speed at which it is delivered and the bowlers action.
A new bowl will swing because of the positioning of the seam. The protrusion of the seam and its positioning will cause the airflow around the ball to change. Depending on the seam position the two halves of the ball will experience different pressure force. It is similar in principle to generation of lift in an aeroplane wing.
Quick bowlers( speeds> 85 mph) generally tend to achieve consistent reverse swing. At these speeds the flow around both halves of the ball is turbulent. In these conditions the shinier half of the ball experiences lower pressure than the rough side causing it to reverse. So while medium pace bowlers can swing the new ball reverse swing demands pace...
That being said, it could reverse swing the ball to hell and back but it dont make no difference if you dont know where to put it.

THe new ball swings because of the seam position. If the seam is held dead straight and is given a straight rotation at the time of delivery, then the aerodynamic forces act equally on both sides and chances are that it will land on the seam and then deviate on either side of the seam. This is called seam bowling. If the new ball is held with the seam towards 1st or 2nd slip and then released then the rough side is "Simulated" by the seam vs the smooth of the other side and hence the ball tends to swing outside. Similarly, if the seam on the new ball is held toward leg slip and the ball is delivered, then the rough side is simulated by the seam being towards the (right handed) batsman and the ball then tends to swing inside.

Why does new ball swing, when both sides are equally shiny ?
Answer : Direction of Seam

interesting article if a little repetitive
and unless everything I've ever been told by everyone is wrong then you got this:
"To move a ball in a typical fashion away from a left-handed batsman, the rougher side of the ball will be facing leftwards at point of release"
wrong.
That would be right for a right-handed batsman, or when the ball is reversing but you weren't talking about reverse at that point...

good article, but it is missing one point.
Reverse swing can only be bowled during Ashes series. If you bowl reverse swing in Subcontinent pitches and the visiting team loses it is called as ball tampering.

It is not just the "old" ball that reverse swings. On Australia's last tour of India, the Indian bowlers could reverse swing a 6 overs old ball.

To have variety in your deliveries at every stage of the game is important. Most fast bowlers can control their swing only one way -- inswing or outswing, but not both -- if they want to also control the length and accuracy. Once the batsman figures out the swing, he only needs to take care of the length at which the ball is to be pitched, and lesser-than-Sachins are are going to win that one-dimension guessing game. Wasim Akram was so great because he kept the batsman guessing on two dimensions -- the swing and the length -- and when controlled length he was unplayable. Reverse swing makes even the older ball unpredictable. It is not that difficult to bowl, but it makes the batsman guess on both swing and length. If the ball moves little, then the batsman figures out the length and punishes it. But if it swings, then the old ball is still hard to play. Zaheer swings the ball just when the batsman is judging only one dimension. What a mind game!

Sarfraz Nawaz was not a speedy bowler. He is never known for bowling any reverse swing yorker either. Therefore its credit should goes to Imran Khan. It is hard to decide how good Imran Khan's reverse swing was. My elders told that none in the current world of cricket can matched Imran Khan. He too used to do reverse swing on both direction. My father thinks Imran's reverse swing was as good as Wasim Akram. However, Waqar reverse swing to right hand was almost unplayable. Imran Khan could do the reverse swing of that kind to left hand batsman.

People who have watched both Imran, Wasim And Waqar reverse swing can comment more authoritatively.

@ Arslan baig
Wasim n waqar were certainly two of the greatest fast bowlers but labeling them with masters of line and length won't give justice to Ambrose/Walsh. Look at their stats against Australia n u will know which duo was more versatile. Wasim/Waqar record is aweful against the Kangaroos.
@ Mohammad
Zaheer khan certainly is an excellent exponent of reverse swing but just declaring him the best won't be good as there are very good reverse bowlers like Lee, Gul, Malinga

Wow, nice clinic you put on for reverse swing. But none of it is new. Back in the day, playing cricket on the gravely fields of Nazimabad Karachi, it was common and known practice in club games to apply onion to one side of the ball to keep the surface smooth. I am talking thirty-overs a side, on a gravely ground with a cement pitch. The ball, use to look terrible towards the end of the game; can only be known to people who has played in those conditions. Anyhow, the point is that we have learned about this quirk a long time ago (we didn’t know what to call it). We learned about tape tennis the same way. Take a tennis ball bereft it of its hairy skin dip it into water and you can play with five slips because the ball became a skidder and a slider. I had exchanged emails with Osman Samiuddin about it long time ago where I discussed few other things beside this topic. Both Ws were unique due to their actions. Knowledge could be passed on, skills honed but action was individual.

The rough side takes on the characteristics of the shiny side because, as the rough side deteriorates more, there becomes less surface area for air to travel over and therefore this side moves faster in the air than the shiny side. Some years ago I recall javelins being adapted to have dimples on the tail, not unlike a golf ball, giving the thrower further distance, this used the same principles as reverse swing.

Pity I can only manage 70mph dobblers :(

Well.. India has timely produced great swingers like Kapil Dev. Recently Zaheer Khan being on the top followed up by Irfan Pathan (though inconsistently). Waz and Waqar have no comparisons and so does Glenn McGrath, Allan Donald and Richard Hadlee. Such seamers have done so much for the world of bowling that they are alive forever whenever a human holds a cricket ball to hit the deck fast. Newbies will come and improvise on these talents. But, all will stay immortal.

"rough side takes on the characteristics of the shiny side" ... "Can someone give a logical explanation?" Hi Rahul, traditional theory regarding the lateral swing of a cricket ball is tied to the drag, ie shiny side = smoother = less drag = moves faster => ball in flight tends to bend away from the shiny side. For conventional swing I don't accept this (preferring the mechanics of assymettric boundary layer separation as an explanation). However for reverse swing I think it could be correct. Why would the rough side have less drag than the shiny side? Have you handled a shark, living or dead? Its skin is very rough to the touch and yet a shark has very little drag in the water. I think it is to do with the the roughness of the shark's skin being minute and *even*. This helps to catch a film (very thin layer) of water that is static with respect to the shark, ie forms a static water coating. This means that the interface where drag would occur is water-water, not sharkskin-water, so

[answer for Rahul cont...] ... so the drag coefficient is much lower. In a thinner, less viscous fluid like air the effect is much less but, given what we see when an evenly worn ball starts to reverse, still significant.

Cheers,
Ivan.

I read this article and explanations but the most wonderfull question is that if the roughness and smoothness is the whole criteria for swing then what happens in the starting overs when both sides are equally shiny.All shoud know that ball swings most in initial overs.Thanx

it is more about seam position than which side of the ball is roughed up although thi helps, as a young quick bowler i can get it to go both ways with the old ball just as easily as with the new unscuffed ball