The oddities of a slingy action
Shaun Tait made his debut for Australia today and from all reports, it looks like he was easily the most effective bowler. The tonnes of newsreel about him since the end of the previous Test has repeated over and over again that his slingy round-arm action will cause problems for most batsmen. The same thing has been said often about Lasith Malinga of Sri Lanka. Unfortunately, neither did I get a chance to watch Tait bowling today nor have I seen Malinga bowling. Tait's action has also been compared to that of Jeff Thompson, and obviously I haven't seen him bowl too! So, it is not really clear to me what oddity in their actions everyone is referring to. From what I have gathered, it seems like both bring their arm over from behind their backs, giving the batsmen very little time to pick the ball coming apparently out of nowhere. However, it is hard for me to imagine anyone bowling like this :-)
Can anyone please offer a better description or insight on what problems these bowlers offer? Or, is there any other bowler of the 90s with a similar action, whom I would have surely seen bowling?
Update:
Here is an article in today's Guardian, in which Richard Williams (isn't that Serena and Venus' father's name too?) dismisses all the hype about Tait's action. He gives as good a description as one can give in plain text of a bowler's action. :-) Anyway, I am looking forward to watching Tait and Malinga bowling sometime soon.
Cheers,
Harsha
posted by Harsha V. Madhyastha @ 2:05 PM
5 Comments:
IMO, Malinga's action is entirely different from Tait's. Tait bowls a bit like Brett Lee in the sense that the gap between his two legs is huge which means he is not using his height at all (or in some sense he is using his height to get pace but not bounce).
I think Tait troubled the Eng players because of his brisk outswingers and not because of his action.
does this action of theirs cause the ball to skid off the wicket?
i have a lasith malinga video from a friend.I will ask him to upload at some place where you can access it.Have'nt seen Tait action though.
Karthik
Karthik: that will be great!
Nice try: I guess someone else will have to answer that question as I haven't seen anyone bowling with such an action.
Malinga's deliveries definitely skid. Not sure about Tait's.
I guess if one bowls from a lesser height (and round arm) and keeps it flat, then it's gonna skid.
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