SF Barnes

[the big bambino]

Interesting but in relation to Hirst swerve was used to describe the movement he achieved through the air by the method we now call swing. This term was used right up to the 2nd WW as I recall seing it used to describe Bowes' bowling in the 38 ashes tests. However its not known how he (Hirst) achieved his swing (or swerve) whether by seam manipulation or other methods.

[SJS]

SJS I'm not sure if King was the inventor of swing as much as its best exponent. I recall George Hirst being feared bcos of his "swerve" especially into the bat. I've also read (Bernard Hollowood I think) describe Barnes' ability to swing the ball. There was very little he couldn't do. Well he couldn't do the googly but exclaimed he didn't need to! It does seem swing was being developed for the 1st time in and around that golden age era though. Very inventive era as it also saw the invention of the bosie, googly, wrong'un; call it what you will.

Swerve and swing were understood differently as I have mentioned earlier. Hirst spun the ball as a left hander and when bowling into the breeze some of them moved in the air, in to the batsman. The ball was spun hence it was a swerve.

Barnes too spun the ball, a leg break which swung in. King however, from all accounts seems to have bowled the swinging ball as we have come to know it now without actually spinning the ball. Thus there was a big gap between King swinging the ball and the swinging deliveries developed close to the beginning of the first world war.

By the way, Noble, one of the early exponents of the swerve and swing writes very eloquently on the subject. I will try and reproduce later.

[the big bambino]

Ok; thanks for that. Its a little different to what I've read. I think there came a time when one method of achieving movement thru the air supplanted the other and the distinctive terminologies came to describe much the same thing eventually.

[kyear2]

Such an interesting insight into what those words actually meant in the early days of cricket. It sounds to me as if swerve was essentially an old fashioned word for what we now call "drift", and therefore the likes of Noble and Barnes who we know as "swerve bowlers" and who cricinfo records as medium pacers, were actually spinning the ball in the air and moving it not through seam manipulation but by side spin!

Thats all I am saying.

[watson]

Who would be a modern era equivalent of a 'swerve/drift' bowler then?

[watson]

BTW Thanks Oasisbob for the short footage of SF Barnes in action! Quite a shock really.

[Howe_zat]

Interesting stuff

Who would be a modern era equivalent of a 'swerve/drift' bowler then?

It sounds rather as though these players used medium-pace cutters as their stock deliveries, which depending on the amount of flight you've given it could well be used to get drift.

In modern day cricket there've since been plenty of techniques for bowlers that have surpassed this in popularity for "proper" bowlers and only really exists with "useful extra" bowlers like Collingwood or Styris, but I imagine if full-time bowlers learned and experimented with this from an early age it could well become more of a weapon than we see today.

[Migara]

Who would be a modern era equivalent of a 'swerve/drift' bowler then?

Spinners, the good ones. Dire ones fail to get drift and dip.

[SJS]

Interesting stuff



It sounds rather as though these players used medium-pace cutters as their stock deliveries, which depending on the amount of flight you've given it could well be used to get drift.

No these are not cutters.

Cutters are what the term implies, the fingers cut across the seam at the time of delivery. Thus cutters do not maintain the integrity of the seam and that is why they do not move in the air. Cutters, cut back (or away) off the pitch, often quite sharply and because the ball had travelled in a straight flight path in the air, these are so much more devastating.

These are proper spinning deliveries. Finger spinners have generally found them easier to bowl for the action of the finger spinner aids him in this. For a leg spinner this is a very difficult task indeed which is why Barnes was such a genius.

I have seen Bishan Bedi swing the ball in with a brand new ball bowling at his normal speed and looking like he was bowling his normal spin. I have seen him do it in nets, for a lark and in a couple of club games. I am sure other finger spinners with a good orthodox action may have tried it too but to spin it like a leg spinner is so much more difficult even to visualise.

It is interesting to note that those who did it more often were invariably bowlers with straight bowling arms and not the round arm action that the leg spinners generally employ.

[Migara]

Swerve and swing were understood differently as I have mentioned earlier. Hirst spun the ball as a left hander and when bowling into the breeze some of them moved in the air, in to the batsman. The ball was spun hence it was a swerve.

Barnes too spun the ball, a leg break which swered (drifted) in. King however, from all accounts seems to have bowled the swinging ball as we have come to know it now without actually spinning the ball. Thus there was a big gap between King swinging the ball and the swinging deliveries developed close to the beginning of the first world war.

By the way, Noble, one of the early exponents of the swerve and swing writes very eloquently on the subject. I will try and reproduce later.

Corrected.

[Howe_zat]

Ah right, ta SJS.

[Migara]

I have seen Bishan Bedi swing the ball in with a brand new ball bowling at his normal speed and looking like he was bowling his normal spin. I have seen him do it in nets, for a lark and in a couple of club games. I am sure other finger spinners with a good orthodox action may have tried it too but to spin it like a leg spinner is so much more difficult even to visualise.

This is very noticeble with good finger spinners and even with ordinary few like Jayasuriya. In fact Jayasuriya's arm ball is a similar to a seam up, with seam pointing towards right hander and the ball swun prodigously when he darted it in. (Usual arm ball of finger spinners is an undercut off break, bowled to hit the shiny side of the ball). Jaya's seam up was so pronounce that he bowled some reverse swinging arm balls in WI series in 2001.

[SJS]

Ah right, ta SJS.

The grip is very different too. For the off cutter the grip is about the same as the out swing and for leg cutter for the in swing with the index and middle finger almost parallel to the seam. The ball is held mainly between these two fingers with the thumb underneath. It's just that unlike the cutters, for swi g one allows the ball to leave the hand with the two fingers continuing to be in contact with their tips being the last point of contact as the ball leaves the hand. This applies backward spin on the ball

For the swerve the ball is held with the fingers and thumb at right angles to the seam so that after spinning it is possible, at least in theory, to have a chance of keeping the seam straight in flight.

[Prince EWS]

Who would be a modern era equivalent of a 'swerve/drift' bowler then?

I always used to imagine something like what Chris Harris bowled (with a less ridiculous action obviously), but judging by this Peebles source that I will again quote:

Swing and swerve are often confused and for that reason I would like to explain that swerve is the result of a spinning ball moving through the air, while a swing is caused by holding the seam of the ball with varying grips. IN short, swerve is caused by spin, aided by atmospherics, and swing is the result of the seam which is why the new ball swings more than the old.

It is a matter of considerable interest watching the effect of spin on the ball when bowled in a moist atmosphere and into a slight breeze. It will be found that a leg-break will swing-in (in) the air out towards fine leg, and on hitting the pitch the spin brings the ball back towards the stumps.

In the case of the off-break bowlers, his delivery, when bowling into the breeze, will swerve or "float" out towards slips and swing back towards the stumps on pitching.

He seems to be describing what we now call a spinner's drift. So, and I know this sounds weird and I'm only extrapolating that one source, but I think the currently evolutionary stage of swerve bowlers is.. Nathan Hauritz and Graeme Swann. Look at the movement in the air towards the off side before the ball pitches and turns back the other way here:
Nathan Hauritz 5/101 v Pakistan - YouTube (I'm only talking about the first delivery)

From what Peebles is saying, that's swerve. Sweve bowlers were quicker, but the way the ball moves due to the spin imparted on the ball is the same effect rather than the seam.

I'm sure these sweve bowlers bowled much quicker than modern spinners, but my read of it is that they delivered each ball with a spinner's grip, so even though they weren't getting a spinner's drop and dipping arc that we're used to today, they got break off the pitch rather than seam movement and drift through the air rather than swing.

Barnes was of course different in that he resembled a leg spin bowler rather than an off spin bowler, so he'd run in and bowl deliveries that drifted in the air towards the leg side of a RHB and then turned away from them off the pitch, at something probably resembling slow medium pace most of the time.

[watson]

Nice post PEWS, and good demonstrative video of Nathan Hauritz. Especially the first ball.

I like to play SF Barnes as my lone spinner in my ATG ENG XI. Is this a fair call in light of what everyone has been saying?