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"Reverse swing can be achieved without cheating" : Sarfraz Nawaz and Waqar Younis

Abdullah719

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Pakistan’s masters of reverse-swinging a cricket ball have unanimously defended it as an “art” which can be achieved without the tampering that ended in shameful bans for three Australian players. Steve Smith had to step down as Australia captain and David Warner as vice captain after they orchestrated ball-tampering through batsman Cameron Bancroft in the Cape Town Test against South Africa last week.

Bancroft was found to have used a piece of sandpaper in an attempt to alter the condition of the ball while on the field to create swing for Australia’s bowlers and deceive the South African batsmen. Cricket Australia came down hard, handing a one-year ban each to Smith and Warner and nine months to Bancroft for sullying the country’s sporting image.

In Pakistan, an internet meme swept social media appearing to show legendary pacemen Imran Khan, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis smiling over the incident — with a caption that accused the Australians of being “amateurs” in their efforts to create reverse swing. Former Pakistan fast bowler Sarfraz Nawaz — widely regarded as a pioneer of reverse swing — refused to accept the implication that the skill requires ball-tampering.

“This is ridiculous to say reverse swing is cheating,” Sarfraz told AFP. “You can achieve reverse swing without tampering with the ball. There is a conventional swing which is done with the new ball and then there is reverse swing which is achieved with an old ball and it has been proved in laboratories that reverse swing is a scientific phenomenon.”

Sarfraz took 177 wickets in 55 Tests, including an amazing nine for 86 against Australia at Melbourne in 1979 that included a spell of seven wickets for a mere one run in 33 balls.

“When I passed the art to Imran Khan he developed it and then taught Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, and in those times everyone called it cheating but when the Englishmen started to reverse swing it became an art,” said Sarfraz.

“It was and will remain an art, but resorting to tampering is cheating and that was what Australians did to beat South Africa and were deservedly punished. Conventional swing is simple — if the seam is angled toward the slip fielders it will swing away from the right-handed batsman, and if the seam is angled towards the leg side it will swing into the batsman,” explained Sarfraz. “Reverse swing is totally opposite.”

Sarfraz passed the art to Imran, who achieved more success than his master but also confessed to ball-tampering by using a bottle top to roughen one side of the ball.

Asked in a 1994 television interview whether he would have got 362 Test wickets had he not tampered with the ball, Imran replied: “Yes, it’s a misconception that whoever scratches the ball can get wickets. “The whole Sussex team knew I could reverse swing and I would swing at one end while other bowlers could not swing it,” said Imran, who played for the English county.

Imran passed the torch to Wasim and Waqar — regarded as one of international cricket’s most destructive new-ball pairings. The two ripped through England’s batsmen on Pakistan’s 1992 tour, but were also alleged by British media to have tampered with the ball. Wasim excelled for English county Lancashire for a decade while Waqar starred for Glamorgan and Surrey.

“Those allegations were hurtful,” recalled Waqar. “Of course, reverse swing can be achieved without cheating. Nowadays most of the bowlers do that and get wickets and help their teams win.”

While Wasim — nicknamed the “Sultan of Swing” — was never caught tampering, Waqar was slapped with a one-match suspension and fined 50 percent of his match fee in a tri-series in Sri Lanka in 2000. Waqar suggested only one brand of cricket ball should be used in international cricket, saying it would lead to a fairer contest.

“Why do we use different brand of balls in different countries?” Waqar asked. “In my opinion the Duke ball is the best and the SG comes close to it. They are the best balls for swing so in order to have uniformity and better swing these balls should be used everywhere. This will help bowlers and this will also produce better batsmen. We should solve the problem and not indulge in the blame game.”

http://www.cricketcountry.com/news/...-reverse-swing-as-art-and-not-cheating-697199
 
Basically to call reverse swing cheating implies that ALL who do that now are cheats?
 
It takes 50 overs at least to get the red ball to deteriorate enough for reverse, which is why we had inns where England were 300/3 before reverse started
 
Begs the question why waqar did indulge in tampering if reverse swing could be achieved without tampering
 
Begs the question why waqar did indulge in tampering if reverse swing could be achieved without tampering

Like Tendulkar, Waqar also said that he was cleaning the ball. However, waqar didnt have BCCI behind him.
 
Like Tendulkar, Waqar also said that he was cleaning the ball. However, waqar didnt have BCCI behind him.

If only waqar was as intelligent. He was warned once before but then continued to tamper and only then action was taken. Besides the defence that he was cleaning the seam did not even come from Waqar
 
Lets be honest, these days even if the ball is doing a little bit in the end, it gets changed asap. Its impossible to have the ball tail in like it used to back in the day. Rules have changed, and its crazy that umpires change the bowl as soon as the batsmen complain about it. Or it looks a little roughed up
 
Question is not whether reverse swing is legal or not. Rather it's about how do you get the ball in a condition that it can do reverse swing.

Pakistani players were not questioned over the skill of bowling the reverse swing, but rather the methods they used to scuff up one side of the ball.

If you can't understand the difference, then either you're just dumb or pretending to be one.
 
It’s a bit more complicated than Waqar says.
From a period of say about 1988 to 1992/3 Pakistan was getting prodigious reverse swing. Post that infamous tour of England, we very rarely saw the kind of prodigious reverse swing we were seeing till then.
I am not saying it’s a uniquely Pakistani problem: Dravid, Tendulkar, Du Plessis, Johnny Lever and a few others have been caught up in it.
But I am pretty sure that after 1992, Pakistan’s ball maintainance skills evolved for the better, it made them more reliant on the elements in the ground to get reverse swing.
 
It’s a bit more complicated than Waqar says.
From a period of say about 1988 to 1992/3 Pakistan was getting prodigious reverse swing. Post that infamous tour of England, we very rarely saw the kind of prodigious reverse swing we were seeing till then.
I am not saying it’s a uniquely Pakistani problem: Dravid, Tendulkar, Du Plessis, Johnny Lever and a few others have been caught up in it.
But I am pretty sure that after 1992, Pakistan’s ball maintainance skills evolved for the better, it made them more reliant on the elements in the ground to get reverse swing.

Sorry but when did Johnny Lever play cricket for India?
 
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This holier than thou approach is unseemly. There was a period in the early 90s when we were doing unmentionable stuff with the ball to get it to reverse, so much so that when the opposition cottoned on and tried to even things out the umpires didn't have the heart to intervene

Unless the conditions are really bone dry, you have to bend the rules a little bit to get the ball in pristine condition for reverse.
 
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It’s a bit more complicated than Waqar says.
From a period of say about 1988 to 1992/3 Pakistan was getting prodigious reverse swing. Post that infamous tour of England, we very rarely saw the kind of prodigious reverse swing we were seeing till then.
I am not saying it’s a uniquely Pakistani problem: Dravid, Tendulkar, Du Plessis, Johnny Lever and a few others have been caught up in it.
But I am pretty sure that after 1992, Pakistan’s ball maintainance skills evolved for the better, it made them more reliant on the elements in the ground to get reverse swing.

This! There's no doubt that we tampered liberally during that period. There were no cameras to the extent we have now and everyone thought the English were poor losers and whinging poms so there wasn't as much spotlight. But I've not seen that kind of prodigious reverse since from us.
 
This holier than thou approach is unseemly. There was a period in the early 90s when we were doing unmentionable stuff with the ball to get it to reverse, so much so that when the opposition cottoned on and tried to even things out the umpires didn't have the heart to intervene

Unless the conditions are really bone dry, you have to bend the rules a little bit to get the ball in pristine condition for reverse.


Out of all bowlers, Pringle became unplayable when he used bottle caps in Pakistan.
 
Till date Pakistan is the only nation which has been successful in getting reverse swing without tampering with the ball. They were the original inventors of the art and kept the *preparation of ball* a secret until a mutual girlfriend of a Pakistan team manager and a famous ex English bowler was able to pass that information to England.

But it was the ethics of that English bowler that he never shared that secret with his team mates.

Some honey trapping later on and espnstar sports paying lots of money to Wasim Akram made sure the secret was revealed on air to all but credit to Wasim for never revealing the most important secret of ball preparation.

The Aussie bowler got to learn reverse swing but they got the secret of ball preparations which is why they resorted to cheating in pure desperation.

ICC must make a multi million dollar deal with Pakistan to ensure the ball preparation secret is also revealed to public for good otherwise more heating will follow.

- Bhaijaan
 
Till date Pakistan is the only nation which has been successful in getting reverse swing without tampering with the ball. They were the original inventors of the art and kept the *preparation of ball* a secret until a mutual girlfriend of a Pakistan team manager and a famous ex English bowler was able to pass that information to England.

But it was the ethics of that English bowler that he never shared that secret with his team mates.

Some honey trapping later on and espnstar sports paying lots of money to Wasim Akram made sure the secret was revealed on air to all but credit to Wasim for never revealing the most important secret of ball preparation.

The Aussie bowler got to learn reverse swing but they got the secret of ball preparations which is why they resorted to cheating in pure desperation.

ICC must make a multi million dollar deal with Pakistan to ensure the ball preparation secret is also revealed to public for good otherwise more heating will follow.

- Bhaijaan

If PAK has the “secret Krusty Krab formula” for reverse swing, why is it that only Wahab (even than on rare occasions) gets it to reverse?
 
If PAK has the “secret Krusty Krab formula” for reverse swing, why is it that only Wahab (even than on rare occasions) gets it to reverse?

Another interesting question is, why did Imran, during his county days, get a lot of reverse with the same ball with which his teammates from either end failed to do so? Nihari magic maybe.


If it were that easy to reverse, everyone would be doing it back in the 90s if tampering was so rampant and widespread.
 
When Pak did it was called cheating. When the rest followed it became an incredible talent.
 
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