CHENNAI: India pacer Mohammed Siraj had an off day against Afghanistan conceding 76 runs from his nine overs with no success to his credit. With Rohit Sharma and Co opting to field against arch-rivals Pakistan in their next World Cup match, the pressure was on the Hyderabad pacer to deliver with more than one lakh partisan crowd egging on their team in Ahmedabad.
Siraj, however, was hit for three fours in his first over by opener Imam-ul-Haq. Pakistan were going strong at 41 for no loss after 7.5 overs when Siraj bowled the cross seam delivery which landed on the smooth side, kept low and struck Abdullah Shafique square on the pad.
With mostly the flat tracks on offer at the ongoing ODI World Cup, it's not only Siraj who has been employing cross seam to the effective use as pacers like Gerald Coetzee from South Africa and Dutch Paul van Meekeren also have achieved considerable success using the delivery.
Former India pacer Tinu Yohannan says bowlers are resorting to cross and wobble seam deliveries as most of the pitches are flat except for surfaces at a few venues like Dharamsala. "In the absence of natural variations, pacers bowl cross and wobble seam. Siraj is one of the best exponents of such bowling," Yohannan, who had played three Tests and as many ODIs for India, told this daily.
Elaborating it further, he said, "Instead of gripping the ball with the seam running parallel to the fingers, the bowler holds the ball so that the seam runs horizontally across his fingers. So when the ball lands on the seam, it gets extra bounce and when it lands on the smooth side, it keeps low and skids hurrying the batter."
It was this low bounce that undid Shafique. Siraj also excels in wobble seam and Yohannan believes the advent of the T20 cricket has made the bowlers look for new ways to counter the challenges. "We used to bowl cross seam when the wickets were not offering any assistance but wobble seam was not in use that much. In wobble seam, a pacer doesn't release the ball on the seam. He rolls fingers across the seam so that the ball wobbles or goes a bit shaky down the wickets. It won't come straight down like a Mohammed Shami's delivery, so it confuses the batters on which side the ball will move."
The right-arm medium-pacer, who made his Test debut against England in 2001, strongly feels if a pacer has control over all three lengths he bowls then he is well-equipped to counter any challenge. "It's important for pacers to understand existing conditions and have skill sets to operate on such conditions. Control over all three lengths which they bowl — good length, yorker and bouncer — is a must. They also need to have control while bowling slower good length delivery, slower bouncer and slower yorker. So basically control over length and speed variation are very important."
He admits bowling is getting more challenging with each passing day as people love to see boundaries and high-scoring contests but a good bowler will always find a way to excel. "This has made bowlers to evolve. They need to have control over their skills. It's a challenge for bowlers but good bowlers will have more good days no matter what they encounter. For example (Jasprit) Bumrah, he has control over his lengths and variations so he doesn't bowl cross or wobble seam," Yohannan signed off.