In his latest blog entry for PakPassion.net, world renowned Pace bowling coach Ian Pont who has worked with the likes of Dale Steyn, Shoaib Akhtar and India's latest find, swing bowler Mohit Sharma, discusses the importance of a yorker as a potent weapon in the armory of any fast bowler in the ODI format.

By Ian Pont (4th November, 2013)

It is my observation that ODI 'death' bowling seems to be getting worse and I do not believe that this has anything to do with the rule changes in field placing.

Fact is that If you cannot control the length you bowl you are going to disappear into the crowd. If a bowler cannot master a yorker, then he does not have a very big career. Put simply - If you can't bowl a yorker, you are nothing! I am further amazed at the lack of ability of some quicks to get the ball deep into the batsman's crease, or have the clearest idea of how to stop a batter hitting them out of the park. It doesn't matter how many fielders you have outside the circle when this happens.

To be honest, I am 'fed up' with bowlers who are not able to go to yorkers early enough and are unable to bowl cleverly disguised slower balls, but instead rely on "hitting their lengths". It appears that Coaching only seems to be about line and length these days. But the truth is you have to be four dimensional as a bowler these days - play three forms of cricket and have a brain. If you keep hitting a length, the ball will often keep hitting the fence.

I am also concerned about the fact that teams are often 'too formulaic' in their approach and do the same things over and over again. To be effective plans must be more flexible when bowling. Rigidly following a failed plan will not work and will only bring further misery to the bowler. However, you can only implement plans dependent upon the skills of the bowler and this brings us back to being in full control of all your deliveries. It's no big secret that while the quality of batting progresses rapidly, bowling is falling behind. This is something that needs to be addressed immediately and is also partly why the Ultimate Pace Foundation is being set up which I will head up in Bangalore in January 2014. "

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