Swinging both ways

[zaremba]

No, I'm not talking about Mrs Hadlee, I'm wondering who has shown the greatest mastery of both inswing and outswing.

My nomination goes to Jimmy Anderson who, for all his many faults, is able to bowl huge outswingers and inswingers with both the new ball and (using reverse swing) the old ball.

Apart from him, the obvious candidates are Marshall and Wasim.

Any others?

[fredfertang]

Bob Massie

[Richard]

Anderson's certainly the best both-ways swinger - that is, conventional wise - I've seen in-depth. It's his technique I'm currently attempting to copy in learning to get the ball to go both ways myself.

Waqar Younis - and Imran Khan before him - swung the new ball out prodigiously and the old ball in every bit as prodigiously. With both of them, though, you knew which way it was going to go depending on what age the ball was. That didn't, of course, make them remotely easy to play.

Pride of place, however, goes to Wasim Akram. Along with Simon Jones, oh-so-briefly, he is the only bowler I've ever seen who could swing new ball in or out and old ball in or out, to order. Just rather a shame he so often chose to bowl short with the new ball and rough it up to old quickly.

[zaremba]

One of the great things about Jimmy Anderson is that he always tries to bowl outswing with the new ball, both to right- and left-handers. In other words, he bowls completely different stock balls depending on the handedness of the batsman. That is damn impressive. I've never seen anyone do that before.

[Richard]

I just wish he'd damn well go around-the-wicket when he's bowling outswingers to LHBs. The outswinger is so much less effective when angled accross the batsman.

If you're swinging in, angle it accross (even if that means as a right-armer going around-the-wicket to a right-hander). If you're swinging it out, angle in. Always. And the more you're swinging, the wider on the crease you want to bowl.

Anderson excels in this area too. It's astonishing how instinctively well he seems to understand bowling, yet how incredibly long it's taken him to actually get that good at it. And that still after having done so his figures are moderate.

[FBU]

Originally Posted by Richard

I just wish he'd damn well go around-the-wicket when he's bowling outswingers to LHBs. The outswinger is so much less effective when angled accross the batsman.

If you're swinging in, angle it accross (even if that means as a right-armer going around-the-wicket to a right-hander). If you're swinging it out, angle in. Always. And the more you're swinging, the wider on the crease you want to bowl.

Anderson excels in this area too. It's astonishing how instinctively well he seems to understand bowling, yet how incredibly long it's taken him to actually get that good at it. And that still after having done so his figures are moderate.

Well he had to bowl for a couple of years with an remodelled action and be a drinks waiter.

According to Holding Anderson finds it hard to bowl around the wicket to left handers because of his bowling action.

[oitoitoi]

Well there's been quite a few players who could swing it both ways, however as you mentioned mastery that really does narrow it down a lot. My nomination would be Akram, they didn't call him the King of Swing for nothing. I'll never forget that ball to Allan Lamb in the '92 WC. Waqar swung it prodigiously too though it was with the old ball that he was especially dangerous. Malcolm Marshall could do it all. Imran Khan swung it both ways beautifully. Botham and Kapil Dev were very good exponents of conventional swing too. There have been a number of decent swing bowlers, Hoggard, Sidebottom briefly and Zaheer Khan recently. Anderson can swing it both ways nicely given the conditions, but his hideous inconsistency holds him back, personally I believe it's because of his action, it's conducive to swing but difficult to repeat. I thought Jason Gillespie given the conditions could swing it both ways well. Shoaib Akhtar could be absolutely deadly with those inswinging yorkers and high speed away swingers, though again I'd say he was stronger with the old ball. I'm not sure Shane Bond swung the ball back in too much but his away swinger was awesome. I've seen few bowlers with as much control over swing as Chaminda Vaas, often forgotten but he could move it both ways pretty much on a string at times.

[oitoitoi]

Originally Posted by Richard

I just wish he'd damn well go around-the-wicket when he's bowling outswingers to LHBs. The outswinger is so much less effective when angled accross the batsman.

If you're swinging in, angle it accross (even if that means as a right-armer going around-the-wicket to a right-hander). If you're swinging it out, angle in. Always. And the more you're swinging, the wider on the crease you want to bowl.

Anderson excels in this area too. It's astonishing how instinctively well he seems to understand bowling, yet how incredibly long it's taken him to actually get that good at it. And that still after having done so his figures are moderate.

That's a lot more difficult to do than you would imagine, a lot of bowlers going round find it hard to swing the ball away when pitching it in the channel, that's why when they do go round they often give too much width looking for swing.

[Migara]

Kapil Dev has a big say.

[subshakerz]

Johnson appears be getting there...

[silentstriker]

Originally Posted by Migara

Kapil Dev has a big say.

For a while, Kapil Dev was primarily an outswing bowler, and that was his strength for most of his career though.

[martin88]

Zaheer Khan is definitely a candidate for displaying the skill among the current crop of bowlers. His spell of 3/0 in 4 balls, accounting for Haddin with a ripping inswinger, followed by making White nick behind with an outswinger and clean bowling Lee with one that seamed away the next ball, on the 5th day at Mohali last year, bears ample testimony to this.

[sudhindra9]

Bets Swing Bowlers n the World playin now

James Anderson
Zaheer Khan
Irfan Pathan
Praveen Kumar
Ryan Sidebottom
Matthew Hoggard
Md.Asif
Chaminda Vaas
Shane Bond
Dale Steyn
Jerome Taylor

[JimmyGS]

Originally Posted by oitoitoi

I'm not sure Shane Bond swung the ball back in too much but his away swinger was awesome.

Bond always bowled in swing didn't he?

[Uppercut]

Nathan Bracken hoops it big both ways in the right conditions. Probably helped by the fact that he bowls a good bit slower than Jimmy.