Law 12: Bowling Styles

There are two basic approaches to bowling: fast and spin. A fast bowler bowls the ball as fast as practicable, attempting to defeat the batsman with its pace. If the ball also swings in the air, or seams (moves sideways) off the pitch because of bouncing on the seam, it can be very difficult to play. A spin bowler has a more ambling run-up and uses wrist or finger motion to impart a spin to the ball. The ball then spins to one side when it bounces on the pitch, thus also hopefully causing it to be hard to hit. Fast bowlers are generally used with a new ball, while spin bowlers get more spin with a worn ball. There is also medium pace bowling, which concentrates more on swing and seam than pace.

A swing bowler will hold the seam of the ball at a certain angle and attempt to release the ball so that it spins with the seam at a constant angle. With one side of the ball polished and the other rough, differential air pressure will cause it to swing in the air.

A seam bowler attempts to keep the seam vertical, so that the ball hits the seam when it bounces on the pitch and deflects in its path either to the right or left.

A fast bowler can also pull his fingers down one side of the ball as he lets it go, imparting a small amount of sideways spin to the ball. This can cause the ball to move sideways off the pitch. Such a delivery is called a leg-cutter if the ball moves from the leg side to the off side of a right-handed batsman, or an off-cutter if moves from the off to the leg. A specialist spin bowler can get a ot more spin that a fast bowler bowling cutters, however.

There are two types of spin bowling: off-spin, and leg-spin. Imagine holding a ball in your right hand and, for simplicity's sake, throwing it. If you twist your hand in a clockwise direction on release, then the spin on the ball will be such that when it bounces it will spin to your right. This is essentially off-spin bowling (so called because, to a right-handed batsman, the ball spins from the off side to the leg side). The off-spin delivery itself is called either an off-spinner or an off-break. An off-spin bowler will sometimes not spin the ball so much, putting more pace on the delivery. Such a delivery is called an arm-ball.

Now imagine twisting the ball anticlockwise and releasing it from the palm so that it `rolls' over the base of the little finger. This
gives the ball spin in the opposite direction, so it spins left when it bounces. This is basic leg-spin (because to a right-handed
batsman it spins from leg to off). The basic leg-spin delivery is called a leg-spinner or leg-break.

The interesting thing about leg-spin is that if you cock your wrist at various angles you can in fact, with the same basic bowling
action, produce spin in different directions. With the wrist cocked a little towards the inside of the arm, you can produce
top-spinners. Go further and you actually end up producing spin in the same direction as an off-spinner. A ball bowled in this
way by a leg-spin bowler is called a wrong 'un, or sometimes a googly. Probably trickiest of all is a ball bowled with the hand in the same position as a top-spinner, but released from under the hand, thereby gaining back-spin. This ball is called a flipper.