karachiite
25th June 2005, 10:51
Mystery of the missing yorker is finally solved
Mike Selvey
The yorker is back in fashion. After what seems like an eternity in mothballs, cricket's weapon of mass destruction, not to mention its counter-terrorism device, is back, threatening metatarsals, stumps and batting averages. Last Sunday at Bristol, and Thursday in the north-east, represented a feast for those of us who viewed this lethal delivery as a relic from the past, like scoop-back bats and hiding the team camel at backward point - one that had been replaced by conjurors with their fancy cocktails of slower balls and sleight of hand.
Marcus Trescothick got the father of them all, a corker from Glenn McGrath that swung into him. Had he not, for once, been compelled to employ some nifty footwork, and got his feet out of the way, it might have been his toes that were removed rather than his leg-stump.
Quite why the yorker disappeared as a mainstream delivery (always excluding the phenomena that were Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram) is one of the game's mysteries to me. It began, as I recall, in the 1987 World Cup in India and Pakistan when Steve Waugh started bowling his dolly-mixtures to disrupt the rhythm of the inevitable slog towards the end of the innings.
Suddenly everyone had to have a slower ball, be it an off-spinner, back of the hand, split finger, whatever. In fairness, batsmen could be made to look foolish by masters of that art such as Franklyn Stephenson or Chris Cairns, looking for something that wasn't there.
It wasn't always thus, however. My first recollection of the yorker being used not just as an occasional variation but as a mainstream delivery was by the fearsome West Indies fast bowler Charlie Griffith, while Ted Dexter, at the very outset, was the first to realise its value in one-day cricket. Then, spectacularly, came Joel Garner, a giant who towards the end of an innings was simply unhittable.
If there has ever been anything more effective than that it came only from Waqar, whose reverse-swung delivery at a speed in the mid-90s was a source of great amusement to watchers, carrying as it did an air of inevitability for all those concerned. Until the best batsmen twigged that it could be countered only if they stayed well inside the line and kept their legs out of the way, it was as close to being unplayable as anything. But that was essentially an offensive rather than defensive weapon.
A yorker is a desperately difficult delivery to bowl. You do not just turn to run in and think, "Oh, I think I'll bowl a yorker." You do not aim a yorker, you feel it. For a pace bowler it requires a change of length of 20 feet or more, or a third of the length of the pitch and, increasingly in the realms of one-day cricket, it needs a visual and mental awareness of the batsman's movements and his intentions.
Second-guessing is part of the art. Get it wrong and it becomes a long half-volley or a low full toss. It has to be spot-on. To achieve this requires practice so that this adjustment becomes as natural as bowling a normal length. Perhaps bowlers, not having given it the diligence needed to perfect it, were apprehensive of attempting it for fear of getting it wrong. Maybe the demands of bowling were less exacting and there was just no need for this alternative.
But, as the increasingly volatile manner in which one-day cricket is being played has demonstrated, a bad slower ball is considerably more hittable than a bad yorker when batsmen no longer settle for four runs. And a good yorker is almost completely six-proof in a game where batsmen no longer settle for just four.
With imagination, it can be flicked, clipped, squeezed and teased, but not belted back over the bowler's head. I use the word "almost" advisedly. Once, in a one-day match against Kent, I bowled the last ball of an innings to the Pakistan batsman Asif Iqbal, who was on 96. It was as well directed a yorker as I could muster. Asif, hands so apart on his bat handle they might have been deadly enemies, used his bottom hand as a lever, squeezed the yorker out like a pip, over my head and over the sightscreen as well. You can't fight that.
Mike Selvey
The yorker is back in fashion. After what seems like an eternity in mothballs, cricket's weapon of mass destruction, not to mention its counter-terrorism device, is back, threatening metatarsals, stumps and batting averages. Last Sunday at Bristol, and Thursday in the north-east, represented a feast for those of us who viewed this lethal delivery as a relic from the past, like scoop-back bats and hiding the team camel at backward point - one that had been replaced by conjurors with their fancy cocktails of slower balls and sleight of hand.
Marcus Trescothick got the father of them all, a corker from Glenn McGrath that swung into him. Had he not, for once, been compelled to employ some nifty footwork, and got his feet out of the way, it might have been his toes that were removed rather than his leg-stump.
Quite why the yorker disappeared as a mainstream delivery (always excluding the phenomena that were Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram) is one of the game's mysteries to me. It began, as I recall, in the 1987 World Cup in India and Pakistan when Steve Waugh started bowling his dolly-mixtures to disrupt the rhythm of the inevitable slog towards the end of the innings.
Suddenly everyone had to have a slower ball, be it an off-spinner, back of the hand, split finger, whatever. In fairness, batsmen could be made to look foolish by masters of that art such as Franklyn Stephenson or Chris Cairns, looking for something that wasn't there.
It wasn't always thus, however. My first recollection of the yorker being used not just as an occasional variation but as a mainstream delivery was by the fearsome West Indies fast bowler Charlie Griffith, while Ted Dexter, at the very outset, was the first to realise its value in one-day cricket. Then, spectacularly, came Joel Garner, a giant who towards the end of an innings was simply unhittable.
If there has ever been anything more effective than that it came only from Waqar, whose reverse-swung delivery at a speed in the mid-90s was a source of great amusement to watchers, carrying as it did an air of inevitability for all those concerned. Until the best batsmen twigged that it could be countered only if they stayed well inside the line and kept their legs out of the way, it was as close to being unplayable as anything. But that was essentially an offensive rather than defensive weapon.
A yorker is a desperately difficult delivery to bowl. You do not just turn to run in and think, "Oh, I think I'll bowl a yorker." You do not aim a yorker, you feel it. For a pace bowler it requires a change of length of 20 feet or more, or a third of the length of the pitch and, increasingly in the realms of one-day cricket, it needs a visual and mental awareness of the batsman's movements and his intentions.
Second-guessing is part of the art. Get it wrong and it becomes a long half-volley or a low full toss. It has to be spot-on. To achieve this requires practice so that this adjustment becomes as natural as bowling a normal length. Perhaps bowlers, not having given it the diligence needed to perfect it, were apprehensive of attempting it for fear of getting it wrong. Maybe the demands of bowling were less exacting and there was just no need for this alternative.
But, as the increasingly volatile manner in which one-day cricket is being played has demonstrated, a bad slower ball is considerably more hittable than a bad yorker when batsmen no longer settle for four runs. And a good yorker is almost completely six-proof in a game where batsmen no longer settle for just four.
With imagination, it can be flicked, clipped, squeezed and teased, but not belted back over the bowler's head. I use the word "almost" advisedly. Once, in a one-day match against Kent, I bowled the last ball of an innings to the Pakistan batsman Asif Iqbal, who was on 96. It was as well directed a yorker as I could muster. Asif, hands so apart on his bat handle they might have been deadly enemies, used his bottom hand as a lever, squeezed the yorker out like a pip, over my head and over the sightscreen as well. You can't fight that.