The myth of 'bowling in the right areas'

By Arvind Kumar, Germany

Whenever a bowler is hit for a boundary these days, commentators resort to all kinds of clichés to describe the shot, followed by remark on how the bowler should be bowling 'in the right areas'. With batsmen increasingly dominating, 'bowling in the right areas' is one of the most heard phrases in contemporary commentary. It certainly gives the impression that the commentators know what these so called right areas are, but they hardly ever elaborate; the comment is rarely followed up with a sensible, implementable suggestion.

So, let us try to narrow down these 'right areas' by isolating the bad areas. Let's start with a bad line to bowl. Down the leg side is, not surprisingly, never considered good: a slight error and the delivery will be a wide, and the umpires cannot rule lbw to all balls pitching outside leg and most in the vicinity. Too much outside the off stump and the batsman has the room to play a shot or the opportunity to leave it well alone. So unless the bowler can move the ball a touch in or out, there is not much point to this line either. Next, the length of the ball. Bowling too full or too short is out, with an area something like two-thirds of the length of the pitch being ideal. Short balls without much pace only invite well executed pull shots; too full and, once more, it's rather easy to pick off if it is not combined with swing. So, that's it then, that ball at about two-thirds down around the off-stump, the so called 'corridor of uncertainty'. But all bowlers know this; this is the ball that they practice, over and over.

It is not true, however, that a ball bowled in the 'right areas' is guaranteed to get you a wicket, or even that it will trouble the batsman every time you bowl it. Evidently, balls pitched well within the 'right areas' are smacked for easy boundaries and balls pitched in the so called bad areas get you a prized wicket with some regularity. A little research using the Hawk-Eye data available on ESPNcricinfo can confirm this. So if you have played cricket at any serious level, you know that in reality there are no 'right areas'.

There is no perfect ball which can give you a wicket every time you bowl it; you may get some success on few occasions but soon the batsmen will develop a strategy to play that ball for maximum score. From the innovation of leg-glance by Ranjitsinhji all those years ago, to the switch-hit of recent times, there are clear indications that batsmen can come up with an antidote to any delivery given some time. So, in my experience, the 'right areas' are a myth created by the modern commentator who wants to sound educated in cricket.

Once a batsman senses what a bowler is going to do, he can execute any shot with some efficiency. So the biggest enemy of the bowler is predictability, the influx of monotony in his bowling, no matter how elegant it appears from the commentary area. The bowler's biggest ally is variation, a touch of surprise in his bowling. Unfortunately, this skill never makes it to the statistics; we think that Glenn McGrath was a great bowler because he consistently bowled in the corridor of the uncertainty, but I think you should watch another video clip of him. Not just McGrath, revisit videos of any successful bowler and you will find unpredictability was the main weapon in his armour. Not those fabled 'right areas'.