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Seam movement - Random or not?

Burgey

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Why not? If you're capable of getting the seam position just so in order that you get the type and amount of swing you want, why can't you do the same for seam movement?

That's not to say natural variation off the wicket isn't a factor, or even a big one. But I think we might be selling some of these guys short.
 

Hurricane

Hall of Fame Member
This is what I have a hard time buying. Swing is something which the bowler intends and has full control over which way it'll go because of the seam's angle at the point of delivery. But seam movement off the deck depends on the seam's angle when the ball lands on the pitch or just before. Are you saying that bowlers know what the angle of the seam will be when it LANDS, around 15 yards away? That's just extremely difficult to do imo
1) Yes. Some of those bowlers have close to perfect seam presentation. Watch some slow motion replays of the best bowlers in the world and you will see it is not a big deal for them to accomplish.

2) Some international bowlers honestly have no idea however. They just bowl seam up and get it to nibble either way at random. Ewen Chatfield subscribed to this theory.

3) This may be getting into how to suck eggs territory but the above two points I have made already have gone there - so I will add that there is a more reliable method of moving the old ball around off the deck - and that is just through cutters and rolling your fingers down the side of the ball. Imparting leg spin at pace with just two fingers is harder to master than an off cutter but is the more rewarding one to have in your control. The final trick in the bag is the top spinner bowled at pace while holding it across the seam. Invariably it hits the seam and pops and is the perfect bouncer.

4) I think the perfect example of someone deliberately seaming the ball at will was Hadlee to Greg Mathews during his 9-52. He brought one back in and nailed him in the box. The next ball he seamed it the same way and again right at his nuts and Matthews wanted no part of it and it bowled him.
 

Hurricane

Hall of Fame Member
Why not? If you're capable of getting the seam position just so in order that you get the type and amount of swing you want, why can't you do the same for seam movement?

That's not to say natural variation off the wicket isn't a factor, or even a big one. But I think we might be selling some of these guys short.
AWTA you said what I said but more crisply. Couldn't like this post for some reason.
 

smash84

The Tiger King
1) Yes. Some of those bowlers have close to perfect seam presentation. Watch some slow motion replays of the best bowlers in the world and you will see it is not a big deal for them to accomplish.

[/QUOTE

I remember that in countless Sharjah ODI tournaments they would show slow motion replays of wasim's bowling and the seam was absolutely perfectly rotating before bouncing and wasn't wobbling before hitting the pitch
 

Son Of Coco

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Seam movement or just purely angling the ball across him and pushing it wider?
Seam movement.

And it's not random. You can be naturally predisposed to seaming it one way or the other based on your action, but it's definitely not random. Unless you have no idea what you're doing of course,,,then it's random :D
 

Son Of Coco

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
That's to do with swing.

A lot of what looks like seam movement is actually just very late, minimal swing -e.g. Zaheer Khan used to be quite good at this.
I disagree with the second part. Seam and swing are very different. It should be clear when a ball has jagged off the deck and when it's moved in the air after pitching.
 

Son Of Coco

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
This is what I have a hard time buying. Swing is something which the bowler intends and has full control over which way it'll go because of the seam's angle at the point of delivery. But seam movement off the deck depends on the seam's angle when the ball lands on the pitch or just before. Are you saying that bowlers know what the angle of the seam will be when it LANDS, around 15 yards away? That's just extremely difficult to do imo
They do because they know their own natural seam angle. If you've spent a lot of time bowling with a natural seam angle that points over leg stump, then you gradually work out that's the direction the ball will go a majority of the time. It's not so much knowing how far it will go, but in which direction (most of the time - you can land 6 with the same seam position and 5 will cut in, and the other will go the opposite way). The difficulty then comes in getting it to go the other way when you want it to. But if you're hitting the right spot it doesn't really matter.

It's really not as difficult as you suggest to know what angle the seam will be at when it lands though, it should be the same angle you released it at.

The premise behind swing and seam is essentially the same. You get the seam pointing in the right direction and away you go. As TC said, with seam you're looking to hit the deck in the right spot more often than not, with a really good seam position, and then let the ball do the work.
 
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Maximas

Cricketer Of The Year
Seam movement.

And it's not random. You can be naturally predisposed to seaming it one way or the other based on your action, but it's definitely not random. Unless you have no idea what you're doing of course,,,then it's random :D
I knew what I was doing - and that was trying to randomize it
 

Maximas

Cricketer Of The Year
absolutely, never had any clue when or which way it would move, would aim on a length just outside off, sometimes got the outside edge, sometimes went through the gate, should never have started bowling spin
 

Top_Cat

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If seem movement was random, then we'd all be as good Glen McGrath
Nah you still wouldn't because you wouldn't be putting it the right areas as often as he did.

As R!ggs said, not totally random, not totally controllable either. The McGraridor has said so himself.
 

Prince EWS

Global Moderator
Yeah I'm largely with SoC, Hurricane and Top_Cat with this one.

Some (or even a lot) of predominantly seam bowlers just send most of their deliveries down attempting to get a bolt upright seam. If they bowl good areas and there's something in the wicket then when the ball lands ever so fractionally on the left or the right of the middle of the seam then it deck in or away, threatening both edges. This "random" seam movement is effective because it's easily repeatable and literally impossible for the batsman to pick out of the hand or before the ball lands. Philander is currently the best exponent of this type of bowling, but the likes of Asif, Clark and Pollock had a bit of a variation on this with a natural seam "wobble". It was the same premise essentially but with their natural actions the seam wouldn't stay entirely upright and this probably contributed to their greater movement as it gave them more exaggerated angles while still hitting the seam every delivery.

However, there is definitely a way to control the direction of your seam movement if you so desire. If you release the ball for an outswinger or an inswinger and it doesn't go in the air but the seam is in still in place when the ball pitches, then it will go that way off the deck anyway. This method gives bowlers more control over which way the ball is moving but is also much easier for the batsman to read and harder to land on a consistently good line because the ball will often go in the air first.
 
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Riggins

International Captain
However, there is definitely a way to control the direction of your seam movement if you so desire. If you release the ball for an outswinger or an inswinger and it doesn't go in the air but the seam is in still in place when the ball pitches, then it will go that way off the deck anyway. This method gives bowlers more control over which way the ball is moving but is also much easier for the batsman to read and harder to land on a consistently good line because the ball will often go in the air first.
Some guys find that it goes almost exclusively the other way, particularly when it's not swinging. i.e. Try to bowl and inswinger, doesn't swing, tends to be the one that nips away.

I guess the sort of movement you get depends on your method of trying to achieve the swing in the first place, whether it's by pointing the seam in the swing direction or more by tilting the ball on it's axis.

**** knows. Bottom line is it's a pretty inexact science at least in my experience.
 

kyear2

Cricketer Of The Year
Nah you still wouldn't because you wouldn't be putting it the right areas as often as he did.

As R!ggs said, not totally random, not totally controllable either. The McGraridor has said so himself.
Heard Holding say once that no bowler can say for sure what the ball is going to do when they let it go. Of course skill is required, but the ball sometimes does what it wants to do.

Key to success, put it in the right spots and good things will happen regardless.
 

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
I think good bowlers generally do have an idea which way the ball will seam but how much is something that they probably don't have an idea about
I think they have a general idea based on experience and knowing how the ball typically comes out of their hand but unless they are bowling a leg or off cutter then I don't think they know what a specific ball will do.
 

OverratedSanity

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Yeah I'm largely with SoC, Hurricane and Top_Cat with this one.

Some (or even a lot) of predominantly seam bowlers just send most of their deliveries down attempting to get a bolt upright seam. If they bowl good areas and there's something in the wicket then when the ball lands ever so fractionally on the left or the right of the middle of the seam then it deck in or away, threatening both edges. This "random" seam movement is effective because it's easily repeatable and literally impossible for the batsman to pick out of the hand or before the ball lands. Philander is currently the best exponent of this type of bowling, but the likes of Asif, Clark and Pollock had a bit of a variation on this with a natural seam "wobble". It was the same premise essentially but with their natural actions the seam wouldn't stay entirely upright and this probably contributed to their greater movement as it gave them more exaggerated angles while still hitting the seam every delivery.

However, there is definitely a way to control the direction of your seam movement if you so desire. If you release the ball for an outswinger or an inswinger and it doesn't go in the air but the seam is in still in place when the ball pitches, then it will go that way off the deck anyway. This method gives bowlers more control over which way the ball is moving but is also much easier for the batsman to read and harder to land on a consistently good line because the ball will often go in the air first.
The bonded part is definitely interesting. Never knew that's why so many bowlers bowled with a wobbly seam. I'm an idiot.

On point, then, if an outswinger generally seam's away, and an inswinger seams back in, does that mean that those jaffas we get which swing in and straighten away off the seam(like Anderson, Broad to Clarke in the Ashes ) are essentially flukes? I'm now convinced by the responses here that a quality bowler with proper seam presentation knows generally which way it'll move off the deck. But swinging it in and moving it out off the seam is surely something which few intend right?
 

Prince EWS

Global Moderator
The bonded part is definitely interesting. Never knew that's why so many bowlers bowled with a wobbly seam. I'm an idiot.
Yeah if you have a completely rubbish scrambled seam presentation then you won't be hitting the seam in the right place at all with a lot of your deliveries, but if you have a bit of a natural wobble where it's largely upright but tilts in each direction before pitching, then you'll still hit the seam every ball but give yourself more movement a lot of the time. That was part of what made Pollock, Asif and Clark such good seam bowlers; the main factors were accuracy and bounce though as seam bowling more than anything else is about bowling the right line.

On point, then, if an outswinger generally seam's away, and an inswinger seams back in, does that mean that those jaffas we get which swing in and straighten away off the seam(like Anderson, Broad to Clarke in the Ashes ) are essentially flukes? I'm now convinced by the responses here that a quality bowler with proper seam presentation knows generally which way it'll move off the deck. But swinging it in and moving it out off the seam is surely something which few intend right?
As Riggins pointed out, some bowlers naturally will move the ball off the deck in the opposite direction to their natural swing because they - probably unwittingly - roll their fingers down the side of the ball ever so slightly at release. They accidentally bowl little cutters sometimes when attempting to swing the thing. But yeah, I highly doubt any bowler thinks at the of his mark "I'm going to swing this one in from off off to middle but then have to straight back down the line and clip off"; there's a massive luck component in those kind of jaffas. It's a bit like the natural variation of a spinner though; you still have to present the seam correctly and hit your areas so it's still very much skill-based.
 
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Flametree

International 12th Man
I'm pretty sure Ewen Chatfield said he just tried to get it to hit the seam on a good line and length, and what happened after than was beyond his (and hopefully the batsmen's) control.

I'm equally sure that Richard Hadlee would have disagreed with this (though as an earlier poster mentioned, much of his "seam" movement was really late swing which seemed to increase after pitching)
 

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