Australian Swing Bowlers

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gbatman

gbatman

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Australian Swing Bowlers

Watching both the test and ODI teams latly there is really only one thing we miss in the team now that Hilfenhaus is out injured is a genuine quality swing bowler. Shane Watson has improved his his bowling latly where he used to bowl with a gun barrel straight seam and now is able to get a little angle on it and use reverse swing as well and he has been very seccessful. Hilfenhaus' figures were fantastic until he was brought down by a knee injury. Nathan Bracken has always been the swing man in the ODI side and has been one of the best ODI bowlers in the world but now it appears he might be finished.

Doug Bollinger used to swing the ball when bowling for NSW but since coming into the Australian team his seam has been a little too straight. Makes you wonder why...

Our other Bowlers in Sidle and McKay bowl with gun barrel straight seams with no swing and Johnson bowls scrambled seam off cutters. Bowling with a straight seam is ok, the ball can still move, but with angle on the seam the ball has the oppertunity to swing through the air or cut off the pitch as a swing bowler will often move the ball off the wicket in the opposite direction to where it swing (eg an out swinger might cut back in especially if it doesn't swing).

So who are the other swing bowlers going around the country? Dirk Nannes bowler beautifully in the T20 final with perfect seam position and pace. Not sure if he's known for swinging the ball but if he's learnt to do it then he could be a real weapon. Tait swings the ball but lacks accuracy and consistancy. Andrew McDonald is a very talented all rounder who can swing the ball, is not all that quick but is a real talent, should have played in England in the Ashes, no doubt. Christian for South Australia bowls with good seam and pace and i bet in the right conditions could be dangerous.

So do we have any swing bowlers worth a game in the australian side? Is anyone coming through in domestic cricket?
 
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I'd like to see Daniel Christian play ODI or T20 for Australia in the near future.
 
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Been injured, hasnt played for NSW yet after pulling out of a T20 the other week, played a couple of grade matches though and supposed to be back again this week for the game against SA
 
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Australian conditions at test level don't often allow for swing bowling, the conditions just don't allow it. Your best chance is reverse swing, and only on some grounds. To Australia's credit, in Australian conditions they have bowlers in Siddle and Watson who are capable of getting the ball to reverse.

Johnson also has a strange action on the ball that allows him to tail the ball back into the left handers and away from the right.

The heat in Australia drains the test pitchs of any moisture very quickly, it doens't help that most of the country is in and out of drought. The hard pitches mean that any shine on the ball doesnt last for long.

State fixtures only go for 4 days, I heard the Perth groundsmen on ABC radio say that in the state games they juice the wickets up a bit to make sure they get a result, if a wicket has moisture in it then the ball will swing because this moisture will get drawn up form the surface into the atmosphere immediately above the wicket.

Overall, the ball doesn't swing conventionally in Australia, it just doens't, every now and then it will go in the air if the conditions are right but that is not the norm.
 
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Hmm let me see, Nofke can swing it, Ben Cutting can swing it, Laughlin can swing it a little. Even Rimmington can on his day. Maybe it's just the Brisbane conditions...
 
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All that being said LtD, the ball still does swing in Australia. It's just generally not outrageous swing like what is seen in South Africa and England. It's hard to pick up some times but watch hawkeye when the bowler is bowling with an upright angled seam, it is there and sometimes only moving it a fraction is good enough.

Australia has always had a very successful swing bowler in the side. Lee often swung the ball, Hilfenhaus has had great results and Damien Fleming was a very useful bowler as was Jason Gillespie who swung it. McGrath was a freak, he could chose to bowl swing or seam, not many appear to be able to do that.
 
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We get swing in Australia, but the problem is that it's highly dependent on conditions. Sure, if it's overcast or humid you can get some great results - but in an Australian summer that sort of weather is more the exception than the rule. Queensland has a fair bit of humidity and Tasmania's weather probably helps the swingers a bit, but aside from that it's pretty rare.

As a consequence you don't get many bowlers who rely on swing as their primary weapon, unlike in England where if you're starting out as an aspiring pro you can pretty much always guarantee there'll be at least some movement. Better as an Aussie bowler to concentrate on seaming it, because you can do that no matter what the conditions.

Most of our bowlers who swing it have done it as a byproduct of their express pace (e.g. Lee) or developed it as an additional string to their bow after starting out as primarily seamers (e.g. McGrath). Fleming is pretty much the only genuine Test swing bowler I can think of in the recent eras, and he ended up pretty much getting sidelined into playing ODIs like Bracken anyway.

Guys like Hilfenhaus are pretty rare. The last genuine swing bowler I can think of that had a regular place in an Australian Test side is Terry Alderman, and his average outside of England was well over 30. These days that's just not good enough to cut it if you want to be a mainstay in the Test team.
 
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The ball nearly always swings in Australia it's just that it rarely extreme swing and can be hard to see without hawkeye. It's often early swing too. The thing is here a bowler will move the ball off the wicket in the opposite direction that it is intended to swing if there is no swing as the angles back spinning ball can grip on the seam and cut.

Yeah Lee was quite a good swinger of the ball until some fool changed him and had him bowling with a dead straight seam, next thing he was out of the team and not performing. He struggled to control swing, didn't see to understand he had to allow for the swing. Lee always has striked me as having not much of a bowlers brain.

What we really need is a bowler who is skilled enough to adjust the seam for swing or seam bowling, this seems very rare. McGrath, Lillie, Akram are very very rare for their abilities to do this.
 
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Even McGrath wasn't much of a swing bowler until comparatively quite late in his career. I think it is a pretty tall order to ask pace bowlers to be Test-quality in both areas - you've got to be something special to be able to master both disciplines.
 
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McGrath himself, and the rest of his team, say that the only ball he had ever swung in his career was the first ball of his spells, then the rest were dead straight. I wouldn't really call him a swing bowler.
 
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My favourite is McGrath getting it to reverse swing in about the 8th over, yet when England got it to reverse swing after about 30 overs they must have cheating :)
 
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Against the West Indies, probably the tour around 2000, match at the GABBA, McGrath mentions it on the masterclass DVD
 
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I have that DVD as well, as well as a DVD with highlights from that series in 2000/01.

McGrath bowled someone with a reverse swining yorker late in the innings, hardly after 8 overs.
 
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Caesar;386052 said:
McGrath got some quite vicious swing on occassion, both ways, in the latter parts of his career.

Glenn McGrath Reverse Swing Video, Video clips, Featured videos: Rediff Videos
Click to expand...

I meant to include a ':p' on the end signifying I was being sarcastic, not sure if you guys are familiar with a running gag amongst the team where they all payed out McGrath for not being able to swing the ball. It mostly derived from the Mark Taylor era at the very start of his career and continued through until even today. They made jokes that McGrath would only ever swing the first ball of the innings and everything was dead straight from there on in, can't remember the reasons behind the joke though.
 
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LIONS then DAYLIGHT;386164 said:
I have that DVD as well, as well as a DVD with highlights from that series in 2000/01.

McGrath bowled someone with a reverse swining yorker late in the innings, hardly after 8 overs.
Click to expand...
Listen to McGrath talk, he said he got it reversing after about 8 overs
 
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