Cricket 2.0

by Tim Wigmore

  At the death in particular there was an emphasis on the bowler to second-guess the batsman’s intentions as they moved around the crease and looked to target the unprotected areas of the ground. Bravo’s vast experience made him well suited to this. ‘You try to watch a batsman as long as possible . . . try to always be ahead,’ said Bravo. ‘If you see a batsman try to go down on to his knees to try to lap you, you might have [had] intentions to bowl a yorker or faster ball, but because he moved earlier, you then can change your delivery – bowl a slower ball or vice versa.’

  Death over bowlers were in high demand on the T20 circuit. Although dominant Powerplay bowlers were statistically more valuable due to their ability to take early wickets, they were notably rare and often dependent on conditions being in their favour. Their skills were also less versatile than death bowlers who could operate in defensive roles throughout the innings while the ‘pitch it up’ swing and seam bowlers were largely ineffective outside the first six overs.

  Rising run rates around the world and in all phases of the innings also placed greater emphasis on death bowlers’ defensive skills. With batsmen attacking more and becoming better at doing so, bowlers who could limit the damage were essential.

  For death over specialists at least one good slower ball – cleverly disguised and mischievous through the air or off the pitch – was essential. Yet a slower ball alone was rarely enough. The slower ball was one indispensable weapon; the other was the yorker.

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  It must have looked inconspicuous at first. Just as Somerset’s net sessions were winding down Alfonso Thomas and Jos Buttler would wander away from the rest of the group and take a net to themselves. In this net, for around 15 minutes, Thomas would bowl yorkers to Buttler. Every two or three balls the pair would meet in the middle of the pitch and Thomas would point to where his fielders would be before returning to the top of his mark and bowling again.

  Yet it would quickly become apparent to anyone watching that this was anything but inconspicuous. This was a meeting of two astonishing talents practising the skills that defined them. Thomas was one of the world’s finest T20 fast bowlers – he would play over 200 T20 matches and take 263 wickets, a career built upon his brilliant yorker. Buttler would become one of T20’s most spectacular batsmen and among the most effective hitters of yorkers.

  Their expertise at bowling and hitting yorkers was honed in these unassuming net sessions, where Thomas elevated the delivery and Buttler learned how to destroy it. This was the coalface of T20 evolution.

  ‘I used to practise a lot,’ Thomas said of his yorker prowess. ‘I used to put myself under pressure. After normal practice I would take Buttler down to the nets and I would bowl yorkers at him and tell him I am only bowling yorkers for the next 24 balls. And this is my field. After two or three balls the two of us would have a chat and see what works.’

  No ball better encapsulated the plight of fast bowlers in T20 than the yorker. It was simultaneously the riskiest but the most effective delivery in the game and one defined by an ongoing conversation between batsman and bowler, each pushing the other to improve and evolve in their playing and bowling of it.

  A yorker was a ball that bounced in the small area around the batsman’s feet, typically on or around the crease line. Most batsmen, unable to get underneath the ball, were restricted to jamming their bat down and squeezing it out while trying to protect their toes from being crushed.

  Get it right and it was fiendishly difficult to hit, let alone score off; but get it even fractionally wrong and it was cannon fodder – too full and it was a full toss, too short and it was a half-volley. ‘The margin for error is so small,’ Dernbach bemoaned. ‘When you are trying to land that ball you are trying to land it in such a small space. When people talk about stepping and hitting if you miss your yorker that’s generally where you bowl it – that or a low full toss.’

  ‘The yorker can be a bit of a lottery,’ explained Woakes. ‘If you miss your length it is going fifteen rows back.’ Woakes’s England teammate Tom Curran agreed. ‘The margins are obviously so small; you miss it by a foot and it is the difference between getting a wicket and a six.’

  Analysis from CricViz showed that balls landing on a yorker length – between one and three metres from the batsman’s stumps – concede runs at 6.53 runs per over but balls two metres too full cost 9.94 runs per over and balls two metres too short cost 9.91 runs per over. In a game where the bowlers are constantly under attack the yorker is their greatest weapon but also their greatest enemy.

  Thomas attributed his brilliance with the delivery to his willingness to not only practise it regularly but to put himself under pressure when doing so. By bowling to Buttler, Thomas honed his method against one of the most destructive players in the world. Buttler’s ability to scoop and ramp and his rapid hand speed were perfectly suited to taking on yorkers which made Thomas’s margin for error even smaller. And it rendered bowling during matches comparatively easy.

  Despite the huge risks involved the yorker was the go-to delivery of most of the world’s fast bowlers – even those less effective than Thomas – and particularly in the death overs when the batsmen were attacking every ball.

  Woakes estimated that only about 50% of attempted yorkers were successful and ball-tracking analysis supported this with CricViz suggesting the figure to be around 52%. That was only fractionally better than a coin toss.

  ‘I banked on them missing,’ said Brad Hodge whose role was to bat at the death. ‘If you face six balls from a yorker bowler the likelihood of him nailing six balls is slim. He’s probably going to get three. So my mindset was that I am going to get three opportunities that he misses and I have to hit at least one of them out of the park and I’ll back myself to do it.’

  It was illustrative of the ongoing battle between bat and ball that while Thomas was developing his method by bowling to Buttler, Buttler was doing the very same thing against Thomas. Paradoxically Thomas’s practice made him better at landing his yorker while at the same time stimulating changes that would make the target area he had to hit smaller.

  Developments in technique, led by de Villiers and Buttler, made the margin for error against the best players shrink smaller still. These were changes accelerated by the T20 format as fast bowlers increasingly turned to the delivery under pressure and batsmen were forced to find ways to counter it. Buttler’s net sessions with Thomas were at the forefront of this change.

  ‘Today if you miss your yorker with the bats and the boundary sizes it’s going to go miles,’ said Tye. ‘Whereas you look 20 years ago and if a bloke missed his yorker you might not get punished as much. That’s the evolution of the game and how much it has progressed in the last 20 years.’

  ‘The issue with bowling yorkers is the margin of error is really small,’ observed Steffan Jones, a fast bowling consultant for Hobart Hurricanes and Rajasthan Royals. ‘Combine that with an increase in the physical and technical capacity of the batters to clear the ropes, there is now a greater scope for things to go wrong at the end of the innings.’

  Before the revolution of the bat industry in the early 21st century a big reason for the effectiveness of yorkers was that the toe-ends of bats were very thin and had almost no power. This meant even when batsmen managed to lay a bat on a yorker the best chance of actually scoring any runs was if a bottom edge flew past the wicketkeeper and away for four. But as bats became bigger and more powerful the lower part and toe-end of the bat was weaponised, turning all but the most inch-perfect yorkers into potential scoring opportunities. Some players who batted in the death overs had bats specifically made with unusually low middles to respond to yorkers more effectively. This development was enhanced by the strength of modern-day players with powerful wrists and forearms generating rapid hand speed through the ball.

  Advances in technique also reduced the effectiveness of yorkers, enabling batsmen to not only survive them but smash them. Buttler and Dhoni were at the apex of batsmen dev
eloping lower backlifts, tailored to hitting yorkers and any delivery that fractionally missed the spot. The evolution of ramp and scoop shots dissuaded bowlers from full lengths for fear of conceding runs behind square, with batsmen deflecting the ball adroitly past the close fielders. Batsmen’s dexterity moving around their crease and coming down the pitch meant bowlers were often aiming for a moving target with their lines and lengths upset by the quicksilver footwork of the increasingly confident batsmen. ‘Now even if you get it 100% right,’ said Dernbach, ‘you have got guys who are lapping it.’

  As batsmen fought back against the yorker, mastery of length was no longer enough: bowlers were forced to bowl precise lines as well. In the 2009 T20 World Cup the England bowler Stuart Broad experimented by bowling around the wicket to right-handers and bowling wide yorkers way outside off stump, as close to the tramlines that signified a wide as possible. This wider line took the ball out of the hitting arc of the batsmen who were becoming increasingly adept at punishing fractional errors in length against straighter yorkers. After the 2009 T20 World Cup, the wide yorker became increasingly common, increasing from 14% of all yorkers before the tournament to 21% after. ‘The wide yorker has now come into play,’ Dernbach explained, ‘especially guys who set up and try to stay quite still and hit you to mid-on and midwicket.’

  Even the laws of the game complicated life for bowlers. The fielding restrictions made it harder for bowlers to disguise their intentions. Having only five boundary riders meant the fielding team could never defend all boundary areas and the field setting would often telegraph their intentions. For instance, if long on and long off were on the boundary the next ball was unlikely to be short because short lengths are typically hit square rather than straight; if third man was back then a wide yorker was more likely than a straight yorker and if fine leg was back and third man was up then it was the other way around.

  ‘If I am bowling a yorker I have to set my field back on the leg side which means I have to bring my fine leg up,’ said Dernbach. ‘So almost by setting your field you are giving the batter a telltale of what you are going to do and there are so many guys who lap and are not afraid of getting down on one knee and popping you over the keeper’s head.’

  Batsmen were acutely aware of these giveaways. As the bowler was walking back to his mark the batsmen could often be seen surveying the field, counting the boundary riders, weighing up the options. This kept them a step ahead of the game and in a position to premeditate shots based on where they expected the bowler to bowl. The most audacious bowlers would have the chutzpah to bluff with their field settings, deploying a field to suggest one delivery but bowling another – even though, with the field they had set, this meant an infinitesimal margin of error.

  ‘It’s something that Alfonso Thomas at Somerset was fantastic at – bowling the wrong ball for the field he would set, trying to bluff batsmen and bring fine leg and third man up and then bowl a fast bouncer and stuff like that,’ Buttler explained of his old teammate. ‘Against someone like a de Villiers they are the things you have to try because he’s so good at picking up signs and signals from your field.’

  Strict rules regarding bouncers also enfeebled bowlers. Until 1991 bowlers were allowed to bowl an unlimited number of bouncers per over in Test cricket, meaning that the bouncer was integral to the yorker’s threat. Fast bowlers like the West Indian Joel Garner pushed batsmen back in their crease with a barrage of bouncers before deploying a surprise yorker. But in T20 bowlers were only permitted one bouncer above shoulder height per over. Not only did this reduce the potency of the yorker but, like the field settings, it had the effect of telegraphing the bowler’s intentions. If the bowler used his bouncer early in the over it provided the batsman with an advantage of being able to set themselves for fuller deliveries in the knowledge that another short ball would be unlikely because it ran the risk of being called a no-ball if it bounced over shoulder height. Bowlers typically opted to use their one short ball around the middle of the over: too early and the rest of the over was predictable, too late and the bouncer was predictable.

  It took an exceptional bowler to master an exceptional delivery. Although Thomas was superb, the undisputed king of the yorker was the Sri Lankan bowler Lasith Malinga. Malinga mastered yorkers playing tennis ball cricket on the beaches of Galle as a teenager, where the lack of bounce on the sand made full lengths a necessity. His effectiveness with the delivery was based on a unique round-arm action that saw him release the ball with his arm at a 45-degree angle, rather than nearer 90-degrees as was the case for most players, earning him the nickname ‘Slinger Malinga’. Across his career he landed an astonishing 63% of his yorkers, the highest proportion of all players. His effectiveness was heightened by bowling at speeds of around 90 mph.

  Malinga’s dominance was no coincidence. Hours and hours of practice with a set of shoes placed on the batting crease grooved his method. But more than anything else his bowling action gave him an advantage. ‘Bowlers with slingy actions bowl yorkers better due to their low arm, and there is less possibility of getting it wrong due to their flatter trajectory,’ Jones explained. Chris Jordan and Wahab Riaz – both bowlers who had lower than normal release points – also had terrific records with their yorkers.

  Malinga’s was particularly effective because his arm was so low that the ball was released with the seam almost horizontal to the pitch which meant he could swing the ball down into the pitch – a phenomenal skill which gave the appearance of the ball suddenly dropping and dipping on the batsman like a Cristiano Ronaldo free kick. This effect and the difficulties in picking up the ball from such a low angle, also made Malinga’s full toss harder to hit. This rendered his margin for error on the yorker appreciably larger and encouraged him to attempt more of them. Typically full tosses cost ten runs per over and took a wicket every 20 balls; Malinga’s full tosses had an economy rate of 7.75 runs per over and took a wicket every 13 balls.

  The effectiveness of low-arm actions such as Malinga’s was accentuated by the advantage it gave them when bowling bouncers as well. The low release generated skiddy bounce which helped bowlers reliably bowl short lengths that challenged the upper body and neck of the batsman without flouting the rule permitting only one bouncer above shoulder height per over. The skills required to bowl bouncers and yorkers enhanced one another, just like the deliveries themselves.

  Yet for most bowlers the yorker remained a source of immense frustration. In contrast, skills such as slower balls which were also popularised by T20 had far greater margin for error.

  ‘Unlike a slower ball, the yorker can only be bowled perfectly into the blockhole,’ said Ian Pont, a fast-bowling coach. ‘If the bowler misses his spot it can get hit for six – whereas the slower ball can be bowled “poorly” but still be effective.’

  So the skills needed for a yorker were more precise – and, Pont believed, it was simply more difficult to bowl well. ‘Bowlers are less skilled in yorker bowling than they are slower balls and change-ups of speed. It is far easier to slip in a cutter or roller of the fingers than to master the discipline of hitting a yorker length.’

  Yorkers were not the only skill that fast bowlers needed to practise. ‘As well as yorkers I’ve also got to practise bowling my length balls, slower balls, inswingers, outswingers, wide of the crease, tight on the crease, so I’ve got a load of things I need to concentrate on,’ observed Dernbach. ‘Whereas if a guy is specialising in coming in in the middle order or back end of the innings and all he has to do is focus on clearing the rope then it makes his job a hell of a lot easier because he just practises that one skill.’

  It was telling that both Thomas and Malinga, two of the most effective yorker bowlers, established their predominance with the delivery in unusual circumstances: Thomas’s experience training with Buttler and Malinga’s on the beach with his unique round-arm action were not easily repeatable methods. For all but the very best bowlers, the idea of the yorker remained far better than the reali
ty.

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  Fast bowling in T20 asked more of bowlers than any other role in the game. They were forced to attack and to defend, to be consistent and to be inconsistent, to swing and seam the ball and to control the ball, to bowl fast and to bowl slow, to bowl full and to bowl short. And all the while they were being asked to do this in the two toughest phases of the match with an unresponsive ball, on flat pitches and against batsmen who were relentlessly attacking with big bats and looking to clear tiny boundaries.

  It was indicative of the enormity of the challenge facing fast bowlers that so few players managed to sustain long careers at the top of the game – perhaps only Malinga and Bravo could lay claim to having done so. Dernbach, like Tye and Mustafizur, embodied how bowlers needed to constantly replenish their catalogues to keep pace with batsmen.

  ‘Batting has evolved faster than bowling because bowling can only go to a certain point,’ said Dernbach. ‘There’s only so much you can do as a bowler. I’m bowling 24 balls in a game. That’s all I can do to showcase my skills – 24 balls and generally it is to combat a situation. Whereas a batter goes out there and he has got the freedom of the whole innings to show off. He might face 50 or 60 balls so you have a greater window in order to showcase your skill set.’

  Nothing quite encapsulated the size of their task greater than the fact that at times bowlers could do exactly what their captains and coaches wanted them to do – bowl precisely to the field that had been set – and still be punished. ‘You could bowl six good balls and go for six boundaries,’ said Dernbach. ‘That’s how much it has changed.

  ‘If I run up and say I want to bowl a back of the hand slower ball, turning away from off stump to hit the top of the stumps. That’s the skill I want to produce. I run up and do that and I get carted over midwicket for six. Technically speaking I have performed my skill. That is exactly what I wanted to produce, same as if I bowl a perfect yorker and Jos Buttler gets down and laps me over the keeper. I’ve put the ball exactly where I want to but it has gone for six.