Quote:A curious thing happened during the recent Australia-Pakistan ODI in Brisbane. In the fifth over, Mohammad Amir bowled a peach of a ball to David Warner. With the seam canted towards slip, the delivery started on the line of middle stump before swinging away, evading the left-hand batsman's attempted flick to leg by some distance, before clipping the bails. It was an exquisite, almost unplayable outswinger, behaving much as the bowler intended, and defeating a highly capable batsman in prime form.
It is the delivery that followed, however, that is more interesting, at least for the purposes of this article.
This time it was Steven Smith taking strike and facing the first ball. The ball left Amir's grip with the seam pointed in the same direction as the previous delivery, apparently intended to move in to the right-hander. It swung away instead, and Smith, walking into an off drive, edged a catch through to the wicketkeeper.
"What a delivery," remarked one Channel Nine pundit. "Totally different to what he bowled to Warner. This was going away from the right-hander, Smith… he was expecting the ball to come in." Amir had gone past Warner's bat on a few occasions with deliveries swinging away. Smith might therefore have expected the ball that got him to have behaved similarly.
In Barbados in May 2015, right-arm fast bowler Jerome Taylor was bowling the fifth over of England's second innings to Jonathan Trott. The fifth delivery was full, swung in slightly, went past the inside edge and struck the right-hander on his pads. Billy Bowden's crooked index finger shot up in response to an almighty appeal and the batsman trudged off after being dissuaded by his partner and captain, Alastair Cook, from requesting a review. Slow-motion replays clarified that though the delivery swung into the batsman, the seam was pointed in the direction of slip, hinting that the delivery ought to have swung away. Previously, Taylor had been largely swinging the ball away from Trott, so the batsman was no doubt surprised to see this one swing in.
Cricinfo
