It did not need Shivnarine Chanderpaul to walk inside the line and flick Jimmy
Anderson and Stuart Broad from off stump to fine-leg at The Oval on Thursday
to demonstrate that when it comes to Twenty20, fortune favours the
inventive. But while the natural tendency in cricket’s most fleeting format
is to regard the 22-yard strip as little more than a mini-playground
designed for the benefit of batsmen, a glance at scorecards in the first
week of the domestic competition suggests that bowlers are starting to share
in the fun.
In the first seven days of the tournament, before the likes of Cameron White
and Graeme Hick made merry on Friday evening at invitingly small venues such
as Taunton and Kidderminster, the average first-innings score by a team
given its full allocation of 20 overs was 157.
That figure is nine down on last season’s average and six down on 2005 – not a
seismic shift, but evidence that the bowlers are learning not to be bullied
into submission by batsmen keen to give the crowds what they have come for.
It is possible that the damp conditions which forced Worcestershire away from
New Road and prompted the England and Wales Cricket Board to allow an extra
hour per match have helped new-ball practitioners who are adept at swinging
the white ball. But that does not explain why many of Twenty20’s most
effective bowlers in a wet summer have been of the slower variety.
After Friday’s matches the wicket-taking table was led by the Surrey
leg-spinner Chris Schofield, with 10, followed by Nottinghamshire’s
off-spinner Graeme Swann and Lancashire’s Sri Lankan slow left-armer Sanath
Jayasuriya, both on nine. Among those who had bowled at least 10 overs, six
of the 10 most economical were spinners, headed by Gary Keedy, another
Lancashire leftie, who was giving away only 4.66 runs per over.
Part of the explanation for the predominance of the slow men is that they tend
to bowl after the sixth over, when the fielding restrictions are lifted. But
the nature of their skill is such that they are able to keep the batsman
guessing with more subtlety than their quicker colleagues. And with the
Twenty20 Cup in its fifth year, batsmen and bowlers are discovering that
guesswork and subtlety can be the most effective weapons of the lot.
The Surrey slow left-armer Nayan Doshi recently became the first bowler to
reach 50 wickets in the competition and spoke afterwards about the
importance of not allowing the batsman to work out your next move. According
to Swann, “Doshi tries to do the opposite of what the batsman wants.
Variations in pace are the key, and a spinner can bowl anything from between
45 and 60mph. You never bowl two successive balls in the same place.”
It is a maxim that Swann has been putting into practice: he has barely
conceded more than six an over this season.
The realisation that bowlers can dictate terms as well has been a while in
coming. If the batsmen were initially hampered by their determination to hit
everything out of the ground (the average first-innings scores in 2003 was
156; in 2004 it dropped to 150) then by 2005 they had worked out that one
boundary and four or five singles an over was a far more effective approach.
The figure that year rose to 163. Last season it was 166 (although that is
still 13 short of the first-innings average in Australian domestic cricket,
where aggression is taken for granted). But the batsmen’s improvement has
forced the bowlers to do their own homework.
“When we first started, it was a running joke,” says Swann. “We expected
everyone to go for 40 or 50, especially us spinners, and if you bowled two
dot balls in a row, everyone started giggling. But as it got more serious
and everyone practised a lot more, we all began working out ways of keeping
the runs down.”
No technique has achieved cult status more quickly than the Leicestershire
one-day captain Jeremy Snape’s so-called moon ball, a delivery so slow and
looping that it puts all the onus on the batsman to make the decisions and
generate the pace. But the moon ball, which accounted for Yorkshire’s
Jacques Rudolph at Grace Road during a Snape hat-trick, works best as part
of a package.
“I have at least three different speeds,” says Snape, who runs his own sports
psychology company, Sporting Edge Solutions, and is forever on the lookout
for ways of winning the mind-games that sit beneath cricket’s surface.
“There is a very quick one, a very slow one [the moon ball] and a normal
one, ranging from 60mph to 44mph. The best ball in Twenty20 cricket is the
opposite of what the batsman’s thinking.”
Snape’s tactics represent the logical extreme of the attitude that was summed
up by the Hampshire allrounder Dimitri Mascarenhas on Friday night when he
was asked to explain England’s improved showing with the ball in the second
Twenty20 international against West Indies. “We mixed it up more and bowled
more slower balls,” he said.
As Mascarenhas – a skilled practitioner of the slower ball – suggests, the
success of the spinners is creating a ripple effect in the rest of the
attack. Suddenly county medium-pacers are not striving for extra pace to
impress the speedgun but are gravitating towards the less macho end of the
spectrum. “Gareth Clough took pace off the ball very well when we played
Nottinghamshire,” says Keedy, “and Richard Pyrah did it for Yorkshire. It
makes you wonder why some teams are only going in with one spinner.”
And while there is no limit on the number of variations available to bowlers –
flight, pace, angle of delivery and length all come into the equation –
Keedy believes that the batsmen can essentially be divided into two camps:
“One who will stop at nothing to hit you out of the ground and deals only in
boundaries; the more clever guys will work you for ones or twos every ball.
The successful players are the ones who can take eight or nine an over off
you without necessarily hitting the fence.”
Understanding your foe may be half the battle, but understanding yourself is
equally important. “After a while, you start to know your variations, balls
that will produce no runs or one run, or wicket-taking deliveries,” says
Swann. “It’s quite an art now and no longer just a case of letting go and
seeing what happens.”
During England’s five-wicket win on Friday, a startling statistic emerged. The
leading wicket-taker in Twenty20 internationals is none other than England’s
new captain, Paul Collingwood. True, no one has played more than his six
matches, but, even so, nine wickets in 15 overs – a scalp every 10 balls –
is impressive vindication for the pick-and-mix theory of Twenty20
medium-pace.
Even in the competition’s brief history, the ebb and flow of the balance of
power tells you there is every chance that the batsmen will fight back
sooner rather than later as they grow more accustomed to individual bowlers’
cues. But for the moment there has never have been a better time to be
accused of bowling licorice all-sorts. As the dressing-room war cry might
go: suck it and see.
Twenty20’s six surprise hits
Mark Ramprakash (Surrey) Class is permanent: 187 runs at 93.5, with a
strike rate of 154.5 for the 37-year-old. His highlight was a 52-ball 85
that helped Surrey to victory over Middlesex, his former county
Luke Wright (Sussex) The 22-year-old former England Under-19 allrounder
– he bowls medium pace – scored a blistering 44-ball 100 against Kent last
week. Has a strike rate of 188 after collecting 156 runs in his four games
this season
Graeme Swann (Notts) Played his only England one-day seven years ago,
but the 28-year-old is a better player now. Taking wickets with his off-spin
and scoring useful runs for the form team
Chris Schofield (Surrey) Remember him? Once England’s brightest
spinning hope, now rebuilding his career with Surrey and thriving in
Twenty20 with 10 wickets in four games, including four for 12 against Sussex
on Friday
Mal Loye (Lancashire) England don’t seem to want him any more, but the 34-year-old
opener continues to thrive in the shortened versions of the game. Has
rattled up 223 runs in four innings, including a pair of 80s
Gary Keedy (Lancashire) Another ageing Lancastrian prospering in the
supposedly young man’s game. Keedy, 32, is the most economical regular
bowler in the competition, going for only 4.7 runs per over
The moon ball
As Twenty20 cricket evolves the onus is on bowlers to come up with new
deliveries to bamboozle batsmen and the ever-innovative Jeremy Snape,
Leicestershire's one-day captain, has developed the moon ball. It may not
seen unusual to club cricketers, but it has already confused the likes of
Jacques Rudolph Snape gives his usual off-spinner more loop and less pace,
tossing it high at minimal speed to compel the batsman, under pressure to
score quickly, to put all the pace on the ball and thus risk mistiming or
skying his shot
