O tearaway quicks, where art thou?

Fast-bowlers who were once regarded as those who provided real game’s real edge have now all but been smoothed out

There is something about a fast-bowler. Sprinting in from 30 meters, putting the entire body through a completely unnatural motion to deliver a ball 22 yards down the pitch, at the highest speed a bowler’s wrists, arms, shoulder and entire upper body can coordinate, coupled with  immense stress on the back, knees and ankles. And then repeating this procedure at least six times all over again.

This facet of fast-bowling showcases the rawness and athleticism associated with cricket, which not only underscores the notion of intense physical labour that all popular sports need in order to be termed a major sport, but also because it effectively puts the top level outside the reach of those watching. And when it all finally comes together, like it did in many a glorious Wasim Akram and Shoaib Akhtar spell, the game starts to feel the most alive it can ever be. It should come as no surprise that fast bowlers have made for some of the most thrilling, interesting and invigorating characters throughout the game’s history.

The lack of (quality) tear-away quicks in the current era can be owed to a variety of factors, including  bigger bats, shorter boundaries and recalibrated fielding restrictions, which have all but sanitised the game of its most vibrant character — the fast-bowler — and transformed the bat into the unquestioned boss of the ball. Players constantly shift between playing the three formats of the sport during a packed cricketing calendar and as a result, fast-bowlers now rarely arrive at full tilt, and those who do, are over-coached. Even the shorter formats which should have encouraged fast-bowlers to unleash their animalistic instincts have now led to pacers adopting a rather herbivorous lifestyle — reducing them to just be mere run-savers. The searing toe-crushing Yorker, which was once the most potent weapon in many pacers’ arsenal and carved out legacies of fast-bowlers like Brett Lee, Wasim Akram, Shoaib Akhtar and Waqar Younis, is now simply just a delivery that cannot be hit to the boundary.

Before the advent of Twenty20s, the slower ball was used by bowlers as an element of surprise to take wickets, and not as a stock delivery bowled throughout the over by a certain James Faulkner, to ensure that he doesn’t concede 10 runs or more in the death overs.

Sadly though, fast-bowlers who were once regarded as those who provided real game’s real edge and made it sharp and jagged, have now all but been smoothed out.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 3^rd, 2015.