Handling swing bowling - A big deal in International cricket today

Handling swing bowling – A big deal in International cricket today: 60! Well this was the score of the Australian team in the first innings of the fourth test in the Ashes. Undoubtedly, the Australian batsmen suffered to grasp with the English swinging conditions. And yet, there are very few discussions regarding the fact that how good Australian’s are in playing swinging deliveries. Had it been India, Pakistan or Sri Lanka, numerous critics would have bombarded their thoughts that Asian subcontinent teams are miserable players of the swing bowling, and little effective on pitches that favor the bowlers.

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As a matter of fact, critics often decline to accept the fact that not only the sub-continental batsmen, but the entire set of batsmen find it rather difficult to cope up well with the moving ball. In fact, in present day, batsmen are far more accustomed to hard hitting and smashing the ball, are habitual to the ball coming onto the bat and hitting it on the up. And quite similarly, bowlers focus on maintaining a wicket to wicket line and don’t generally opt for swings the ball, or bowling outside the off-stump more often.

But Test cricket is considered to be the best and unadulterated form of the game. It is the platform where bowlers fight real hard and on friendly tracks, the swings and turns come to good effect. This is where the batsmen who are not prone to face such stern deliveries fall into spots of acute despair. They are never exposed to such extent of turning deliveries. And batsmen from any part of the world is likely to face such extent of difficulties. No such thing exist as the Asian batsmen are poor players of spin. An unorthodox batsman, habituated to hard hitting and shorter formats of the game is bound to struggle in such swinging conditions.

If it was not true, then we wouldn’t have witnessed such a despair from the Australian side. This was a live proof to the aforesaid fact. Also, from the Asian sub-continent, we have seen the likes of brilliant batting display from the greats of the game in the likes of Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Kumar Sangakkara and others. Also, a number of Asian batsmen, who are not that aware of playing under such circumstances face acute misery when being exposed to random swing.

Australian batmen are undoubtedly brilliant players of pace but when it comes to swing bowling, one needs considerable amount of experience to cope up with such conditions, needs to know where his off-stump is, the strategy to cut swing, the best time to defend and attack. We know how destructive batsmen David Warner, Steve Smith are. Still they also faced problems while facing genuine swing. This matter is not related to the geographical origin of the batsmen. But it is dependent upon the relative experience of the batsmen in facing such deadly swing.

Some might even argue of the fact that throughout the history of the game it was seen that the sub-continental batsmen struggled with the bat when being exposed against quality swing bowling, but this wasn’t the case for other teams. Yes, it is true. There is also an explanation to this. Batsmen from the sub-continents grow up playing on relatively flat and turning tracks. But on the other hand, batsmen from the English and Australian origin, grow up by getting significant exposure to swings and movements at the domestic level. Thus, they get an edge over their Asian counterparts.

Finally, it is a fact that has to be believed that batting is an art and the exposure, experience and accuracy make one a great batsman unlikely of the geographic considerations. The home track bullies logic can be defied by quality batsmen, who know exactly how they need to adapt their game in order to succeed under challenging circumstances.