When WWW stood for Wasim Waqar and Wreckages….

Right, we are talking about the England v Pakistan 1992 series, the benchmark event for all subsequent official usage of reverse swing in international cricket.

14 years is a long time in evolution of this eternally self-enriching game and these days it is passé to link the doosra of swing with ball doctoring. Back then though, the return of swerve in the ragged red ball was greeted with an apprehension distinctly reminiscent of the medieval times when likening an unknown craft to black magic and evil powers was preferred to assigning logical explanation to it.

The cricket world outside Pakistan was as much prepared to appreciate this still-obscure bowling skill as the australopithecus would be for invention of the wheel or a 14 year old Lancashire kid going by the name of Andrew Flintoff would be for the 1993 Ashes. ‘Orangutans’, rather than ‘fast bowlers’, would be an expected answer if people were to be asked to link banana with swing.

Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis changed it forever in this crash-bang-thud festival from the summer of ‘92. The disbelievers reacted with prompt criticism and alleged malpractices with the ball. Some leading fast bowlers like Donald (who then went on to master the skill) actually joined the war-cry against ‘ball tampering’. Subsequently the scientific-minded came out with a study of the phenomenon and there was gradual, even grudging acceptance of the possibility that a skillful bowler can reverse-swing an old ball even without scruffing it up on one side with a soft drink bottle cap.

A lot of words have since been said, printed and aired on this series and its famous by-product. For a change we can cut out the words and look at some numbers that help comprehend the actual damage done to the lower order of English line-up by the Sultans of Swing at their respective peaks. A look into cricinfo’s records yielded the following info about the 2nd, 4th and 5th Tests of the series (screening out the other two Tests, which were drawn):

Match, Inngs, Indiv. Contrib.of last 5 b’men dismissed, Runs added by last 5 wkts, Details of collapse, Winner

---------------------------------------------------------------------- 2nd Test 1st, 11 42 153/1>255/10 Pak 2nd Test 2nd 22 38 108/2>175/10 Pak 4th Test 1st 2 22 271/1>320/10 Eng 4th Test 2nd (lower order did not bat) Eng 5th Test 1st 13 17 138/2>207/10 Pak 5th Test 2nd 17 82 153/5>174/10 Pak

Why am I being a fusspot and raking up issues from another era? Because Pakistani bowlers happened to be the pioneers of “tail-crushing” fast bowling, and India are now visiting them to play a series with arguably the most reliable tail in the history of Indian cricket.

Apparently the Indian lower order is improving every match, as was evident in their last Test when they reached the other extreme from the English story of that 1992 series by scoring over 500 runs in the two innings after the fall of first 5 wickets. But that was against another side and in another country – theirs.

The toughest Tests of performance under pressure are about to confront the warring sides in a day or two. May the team that is better at it win.