Mohammed Shami And His Joy of Bowling Reverse Swing

When you think of reverse swing, the first thing that comes to your mind is Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis. Yes! They were probably the greatest exponents of the art but reverse swing, thanks to the overdose of cricket and more while-ball cricket, is on a decline.

But there are still a few fast bowlers who revel when it comes to the art in the modern day and one of them is Mohammed Shami. He is possibly the only Indian bowler who uses the art lethally.

"There is a different joy in bowling reverse swing. The old ball is one of my main weapons and I am comfortable bowling with the old ball. I know if I can get a hint of reverse swing, I can use it to good effect," Shami was quoted as saying by bcci.tv.

"The moment I start getting the ball to reverse, I get back to one of my bowling strong points. I love bowling reverse swing. When the ball is reversing I try to get the batsman out bowled or get him LBW. These two are the mode of dismissals that you get with reverse swing."

For those unaware, reverse swing is the opposite of conventional swing. As the cricket ball gets old, the aerodynamics change. The ball then begins to swing towards the shine.

The ball, while being delivered at pace, leans towards the shiny and heavier side and swings very late, making the ball's trajectory difficult to trace for the batsman.

Different from conventional swing

This is very different from conventional swing, and because batsmen experience it less often, they generally find it much more difficult to play.

And the same helped Shami when he got the wickets of BJ Watling and Mark Craig in the first Test, which helped in bringing about an early finish to the first Test -- resulting in a massive 197-run victory for India in Kanpur.

"When I get a feel that it is going to help reverse swing I look to hit the top of off-stump maximum number of times or else I aim at the batsman's pad. Both these factors happened against Watling and Craig," said the 26-year-old Bengal speedster.

"The ball wasn't reversing early on in the innings and we were waiting for the moment when we could reverse the ball. Then Virat Kohli gave me the ball and I bowled a couple of deliveries and expected to get some reverse swing.

"We were waiting for the moment for three days and it reversed in the fifth day. The moment we could get a bit of reverse swing, we decided to execute it."

Those two wickets came in consecutive Shami deliveries, also giving the pacer a chance of a hat-trick. Though it was obvious that spin would dominate on the Kanpur pitch, Shami made sure his reverse swing also made a difference.

But the ball does not swing on its own; every single member of the cricket has to work on the ball for hours before it can do its bit.

Reverse swing, a team effort

"There is a lot of work behind getting the ball to reverse swing. It is like team effort, every member of the team makes it a point to keep the ball dry at all times and maintain it throughout the day.

"There are times when you will get reverse swing but if it gets wet, you won't be able to execute swing perfectly because the ball will tend to get heavy," added Shami.

"While bowling, consistency and accuracy is very important for reverse swing. If you bowl too full you will go for runs or too much at the back of the length, you won't be able to get swing.

"As a bowler you have to pitch in the right area and maintain that line and length which is very important to get the reverse swing right. I constantly work hard to get my lines right to execute reverse swing well."

The Bengal bowler is keen to keep up the act in the next two matches in Kolkata and Indore.