World Cup stage all set for slow 'sorcerers' & demon bowlers (17 May 1999)

17 May 1999

World Cup stage all set for slow 'sorcerers' & demon bowlers

Lateef Jafri

Has the cunning and confounding spin and break been more effective in the World Cup or the velocity and assault of the pacers proved more penetrating in the armoury of one team or the other?

Going through the score-sheets one finds that both in the first and second editions of the World Cup the fearsome speed and the swinging deliveries of the Caribbean brigade - Roberts, Boyce, Julian, Holding, Garner and Croft - won for West Indies the highest accolade in successive contests. Gibbs and Vivian Richards, now knighted along with some of the living cricket legends of the country - Clyde Walcott and Everton Weekes, even Sobers - had minor contributions to their squad's success in bowling despite their beautiful and skillful art, which pleased the purists at all English venues wherever they featured.

The Australian Mallet, Pakistan's Mushtaq Mohammad and India's Bedi were there to provide variety to the attack but generally the speed merchants ruled the roost.

Even four years later when the West Indian lions were surprisingly tamed by India on June 25 and Kapil Dev lifted the World Cup to the delight of his supporters the speedsters and the seamers gave more creditable performances. Roberts, Garner, Marshall and Holding, bouncing to the wicket to bowl with vitality and vigour had kept the Indian total to a moderate 183. But accuracy and control in length and line by the Indian medium-pacers did not allow the Caribbeans to take liberties. The hot favourites were sent stunningly crashing to 140, capitulating at Lord's by 43 runs.

In 1987 on the slower strips of the subcontinent the combination of lively pace and trickery of spin paid the dividends. Australia had off-breaker Tim May to back McDermott and Reid. Pakistan's googly specialist Abdul Qadir was a difficult customer and formed a unit in the attack that started with command and control of seamers, Imran Khan and Wasim Akram. India brought in Maninder Singh, wiry yet intelligent slow performer, after Kapil Dev and Prabhakar had exploited the new ball with their lifting medium-paced bowling. For the West Indies Hooper and Richards came in with their spin after the brawny efforts of Patterson and Walsh.

In the jointly organised Australia and New Zealand venture in 1992 when Pakistan perplexed the pundits by clinching the highest honour of the global one-dayers, the fast bowlers were stealing a march over the slow action sorcerers. But this does not mean that Mushtaq Ahmad did not pick up the scalps in the preliminaries and the final. In fact if Wasim Akram and Aqib Javed removed three and two English batsmen with their honest toil, Mushtaq's guile and wile gave him three victims to settle the issue in the last encounter before packed galleries at Melbourne's flood-lit ground.

In the fifth World Cup the New Zealanders had chalked out an extraordinary tactics by introducing spinner Deepak Patel at the initial stage of the duels which usually achieved an early breakthrough. To the strategists it was unbelievable yet it happened.

The South Asian sub-continent arranged the World Cup of 1996 which was a replication of the 1987 fiesta with the difference that an Asian tiger not taken into much cognizance by the bookies, (the Sri Lankans) mauled the Australians to the surprise of the cricketing world. Australia possessed the admirable leg-spin of Shane Warne while Sri Lanka had the clever off-spinner Muralitharan to harass and confuse the batsmen. The mixture of fast and slow bowling gave success to the combatants.

The global competition is back to the country of its origin. However, cricket is dogged by bad weather and rain. Pakistan had to go straight to its first competitive engagement without any warmup chance. Rain and waterlogged fields disallowed any pre-tournament practice even though Ijaz had given a heavy punishment to the bowling of Derbyshire.

In this perspective the tantalising poser that is once again facing the experts is: "will the spinners put their teams in an advantageous position or it will again be the piercing sting of the trundlers which will prove decisive? Perceptive observers and discerning students of the game are of the opinion that if after the showers the sun dries up the pitch the spinners will be very dangerous and difficult. In ordinary situations on the fast wickets of English venues the normal rhythm of the games will be worth watching. The pacers will have a major share of the harvest. However, a long run-up on a slippery surface will be difficult and this will create problems for some of the bowlers exhibiting explosive speed.

A balanced lineup with high-class new-ball bowlers and skillful and shrewd leg and off-breakers will be able to fare better than the squads packed with bowlers of speed and swing.

India's spin wizard, Anil Kumble, who has played for Northamptonshire in the English country contests, believes this time the slow bowlers, with deceitful wrist or finger action may have a dominant role to play. "My hunch is that the spinners will do well, if not better," said Kumble. He thinks Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan and Mushtaq Ahmad may play a crucial role in the matches, especially during the first half of the competition.

According to other commentators both Mushtaq, with experience in Somerset, and off-breaker Saqlian Mushtaq, having stayed with Surrey, will be able to deceive the batsmen with their nasty turn and alluring flight.

The whole planning and tactics will have to be reshaped with an uncertain weather in England. In any case the position of the slow bowlers can under no circumstance be minimised. And undeniably they are an enthralling sight, if the bolts from the strong limbs are ferocious.

Source :: The Dawn (www.dawn.com)