Did you see… Mark Wood doing a reverse swing?

3 minutes reading

When it comes to seam bowling, speed isn’t everything – but it is something. Reverse swing is also something. Mark Wood produced the best combination of something against the West Indies yesterday.

Fast reverse swing is just such a fundamentally great thing. It’s so simple, so obvious. Its devastating impact is so easy to see.

For example, look at this.

Don’t ask the referee. Don’t hit your forearm to get a second opinion. Just get out.

Three years ago James Anderson bowled two almost identical reverse-swinging clean bowls in the same over against India. It was almost perfect bowling. The only thing that could have really improved it was another 10mph.

Mark Wood has that 10 mph.

One of the criteria for excellence that we assessed in that Anderson article was “stump cartwheeliness.” Wood hit Jayden Seales’ off stump straight back and when the top of it hit the grass, he was catapulted into the air. At that point, he completed two full rotations before landing again.

It’s an either-or situation with stump rearrangement. You’re looking for the splatter of Jasprit Bumrah’s yorker to Ollie Pope earlier this year or one stump making a long journey of pure, end-over-end, aerial domination.

This time it was the last.

It was very satisfying.

Although it is often said, it is actually quite rare to beat a batter on pace. However, throwing the ball extremely fast can certainly make a difference.

Even lower hitters can often bowl fast and often swing bowl too.

But a fast swing? Each of those qualities is enhanced by the other.

Alzarri Joseph probably would have hit this shot without the swing as well.

He could have taken the blow just as well if he hadn’t dropped it at 93 mph.

A common conclusion about Wood’s time at Edgbaston was that “his luck had turned” after repeatedly hitting speeds of up to 97.1mph in the previous Test.

We believe that luck doesn’t play a big role when hitting the stumps with a ball.

Fast reverse swing has always been glorious. Fast reverse swing will always be glorious.

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