The joys of 130: Vernon Philander talks about being medium pace and loving it

Vernon Philander is not the most archetypal presence in South Africa's pantheon of quick bowlers, but though far from Allan Donald and Dale Steyn in methods and attributes, he was up there with those more storied practitioners as far as results went: he was the second fastest to 50 Test wickets, and finished with a little under four per match from his 64 Tests, at a phenomenal average of 22. A master of cut and movement - both early and late - he speaks here about what sets a skillful medium-pacer apart from a pace merchant.

What does it make you feel when you see a generation that is obsessed with the speed gun and fast bowlers only talking 140-plus or 150-plus?
I feel as a medium-pacer, your biggest asset is obviously control, number one, but you have to keep adding some elements to your game. So for me, I obviously have fantastic control in trying to get the ball to shape away from the right-hander, but you also need to bring in the element of doubt, you know, where you're going to nip one back and challenge batters, the way they think, the way they set up. It's finding out what is going to make you effective as a bowler and you have to implement that into your skill set.

Being a medium-pacer, it takes a great deal of training. It's playing around. Because you're a touch slower, it means that you have to sharpen your skill set in different ways, and for me, it is challenging the batters in terms of the way they're thinking.

These days we see that batters come out of their crease [against medium pace], so, you know, dragging the keeper up from time to time in order to shift those batters back. Develop a sharp bouncer. Those are little skill sets that you add, and then you're going to have to go and execute it.

I think also because you're bowling in that sort of 130-135 range, batters sometimes feel they have to be playing at deliveries, and that's where you can also pick up wickets, because they feel they have to keep prodding at it. You can drag batters wider. So it's a fantastic pace to bowl at, and if you have the skill set to go with it, it makes it so much more rewarding.

In Test matches we still see pitches where the ball will seam, or you'll have conditions where it will swing, but in white-ball cricket, do you think it's becoming increasingly more difficult for the medium-pacer to survive?
I think, yeah, we have to call a spade a spade. I think the wickets are a lot flatter in the T20 format as well as the ODI format. So again, I will say as a bowler in that sort of speed range, you have to keep adding to your game. You have the opportunity of playing around on a crease, creating different angles, not having the same release point, because that's where batters are getting so smart these days - they're lining you up because you're releasing the ball from one point.

The stock ball is so important. You need to be able to trust your stock ball. You need to be able to trust your action. I do feel a lot more has to be put in in the way that these guys are training, number one, in order to trust [their] action.

To be operating in that sort of 130-135 range, I do feel you can bring all the elements of seam bowling into play.

In Tests too, how important are surfaces for that speed range? Because when you consider this obsession with speed, it is somewhere linked with the assumption that if it's a flat surface, the quicker bowlers will be able to get something out of it.
I think the one big key is consistency. And I think if you're operating in that sort of speed, you need to be consistent. You need to string good overs together.

The big [advantage when it comes to] knocking top-order batters over is, after a while they will start playing [at the ball], because they feel it's a touch on the slower side, whereas guys operating in the 140-plus arena, batters will play them on instinct. So they'll often just leave a good-length ball [at high pace]. But operating at 130, 135, often batters feel that they have to start prodding at balls.

But again, it boils down to the consistency of landing the ball in a good area and asking the same question time and time again. Look, I think also we have to admit that bowling in that sort of speed range it's going to take a little bit of harder work in terms of knocking batters over. But I do feel once there is a bit of assistance in the surface and you can be consistent, you can be a massive threat and compete right up there with the guys bowling 140-plus.

The likelihood of finding flatter surfaces in the time you were playing Test cricket was far greater. In the last few years we've seen much more spicy pitches in Test cricket. Can you remember any instances where you found yourself on the flattest deck possible and what you thought to yourself about how you would go about operating there?
Yeah, I certainly feel that I retired a bit too early, looking at the surfaces these days! I think it's also, you know, being able to identify your particular role within a spell. I had a wonderful opportunity of operating with Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel, and it's understanding what your role within that bowling set-up is. I think when the wickets are getting a touch slower and obviously less responsive, my job then becomes to keep it really tight, to go at two an over, and really do those investment periods for a long period of time.

So again, it boils down to understanding what your role is and how you need to adapt your game to make yourself effective in various conditions around the world.

You stood out for the seam movement you used to create through your Test-playing days. At the pace you operated at, did you feel seam was more important than swing?
Yeah, I think initially when I started out, I used to have this beautiful awayswinger, but I felt that it became less and less effective because batters were so good. They could see the ball moving out of the hand and they can start leaving the ball once it swings early. So I had to go and reinvent or re-adapt my game.

And that's where the seam movement really started - to try and get batters to nick one back. That's where the element of doubt was planted. And then they start playing it, those ones leaving them right at the end.

So yeah, I [switched] more to seam bowling rather than swing bowling. And I also do feel that it was a lot more effective than to watch a new ball swing by. You basically waste a new ball, you know, by not making batters play upfront.

When the ball moves off the seam, it leaves batters with a lot less reaction time as [compared] to when the ball is swinging, because they can actually see the ball swinging out of the hand. So I do feel the seam movement is a much bigger threat than the ball swinging through the air.

What about workload? While there might be one line of thinking that it's lesser toll on the body than for an outright quick, you will probably be asked to bowl longer spells than the outright quick. So how did you weigh that up?
You still have to run in, you still have to bowl the ball just like [the faster bowlers] did. It doesn't mean you're working less hard than them. But yeah bowling and operating in and around those speeds, you know that you're going to be bowling more overs than the blokes operating at 140-plus. So yeah, you do prepare yourself to be bowling longer spells.

When I started out, our workloads used to be pretty high. We used to bowl overs and overs and overs. So it was a lot less gym back then but yeah, more overs, obviously, in the nets. So we could keep up with the workload required from us. And yeah, in a Test match, if you're going to be bowling my pace, I've got 20-plus overs behind my name at the end of the day. It's a challenge that you enjoy.

Again, I think I thoroughly enjoy the challenge of bowling with the new ball and making life hell for the batters up front, because I do feel there's a window of opportunity when a batter walks to the crease and [you're] operating at that sort of speed. If you can get it right, batters always feel that they have to play at it. And there lies the opportunity of picking up wickets.

Was there a particular brand of ball that you preferred bowling with? And how much of a difference did it make?
Yeah, I really enjoyed the Kookaburra ball, because it remained quite hard for a long period of time. I think also in South African conditions, Australian conditions, New Zealand conditions, I used to get the ball to jag quite sharply off the seam, as opposed to the Dukes ball. I think I really enjoyed the Dukes ball, but for about probably 20 overs to 25 overs it stays hard and then it loses that and it becomes really soft. So batters can then capitalise. But if you have to ask me a preference of ball, it has to be the red Kookaburra.

The thinking is that swing bowling operates at its best at a particular speed, commonly thought to be around that 130kph mark. How accurate was that, in your opinion?
Yeah, I do feel that operating in that 130-135 kilometre range, you extract all the elements of seam and swing bowling that is on offer. And again, I think I can vouch for it, having bowled that sort of speed myself.

I mean, if you're going to be bowling faster, you know, there's a lot more velocity that goes behind the ball. But it's also the position that you release the ball from. I think for me, it's always about that wrist position behind the ball. If you can get your wrist firmly behind the ball, you get the ball to move later through the air as well. So, yeah, I mean, there's quite a few elements that [are involved] in getting the ball to swing.