Pakistan, the pioneer of innovative bowling styles and deliveries never heard of or seen of before

New Delhi: Pakistan has been in the forefront of not only producing a string of some exceptional fast, swing and spin bowlers, but more importantly, has introduced and pioneered innovations (even inventions) of bowling styles and deliveries that were never heard or seen of before.Leading examples in this respect include ‘reverse swing' and the ‘doosra.' Reverse swing is when a fast bowler is able to swing the old ball. Technically the ball should only swing when it's new, but when Pakistani fast bowlers invented the trick of revers swing with the old ball.During 1990s and good part of the 2000s, Pakistan remained the leading exponent of reverse swing. The credit for inventing the reverse swing goes to former Pakistani swing bowler, Sarfraz Nawaz.During the 1975 World Cup in England, he proved his swing-bowling prowess when he cleaned up the top order of a strong West Indian team.At first the technique did not pay much dividend in international cricket, but by 1979 he finally managed to master it when he destroyed the Australians (in Melbourne), grabbing 9 for 86 in Australia's second innings. Almost all of his wickets came with the old ball. Sarfraz soon passed on his invention to his younger bowling partner, Imran Khan.Imran Khan first showed glimpses reverse swing bowling during Pakistan's 1981 tour of Australia where Khan was occasionally able to move the old ball. Khan's speed helped him devise a quick in-dipping yorker and an equally fast in-cutter that it seemed would harmlessly pass the batman and end up in the wicketkeeper's glove, but would surprise the batsman by coming in sharply after hitting the pitch. Khan picked up 40 wickets during Pakistan's 1982-83 series against India.Just like Sarfraz, Khan passed on the skill to men like Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis and Aaqib Javed.Akram made his Test debut in 1985 under Javed Miadad, he was soon assumed by Imran under whom he developed into a lethal fast bowler. By 1987, Akram had also mastered the art of reverse swing and for the next 15 years became one of its leading exponents. Just like Imran, Akram's main strike deliveries (with the old ball) were the in-swinging yorker and the ball that came in sharply off the wicket …The arrival of Akram triggered a fast bowling revolution of sorts in Pakistan. A few years later he was followed by Saleem Jaffar, Aaqib Javed and Waqar Younis.Out of these, Younis became Imran's next best pupil of reverse swing bowling. He bowled quicker than Imran and was even faster than Akram, regularly clocking over 95 mph. Waqar developed a swinging yorker that would zip in late with a lot of pace from the off stump line and end up hitting the leg stump! For a while, this delivery of his became known as ‘banana swing.' Though Imran retired in 1992, Wasim and Waqar carried on delivering one magic spell of reverse swing bowling after another. As Aaqib and Saleem Jaffar fell away, the two Ws were soon joined by the likes of Shoaib Akhtar, Mohammed Akram and Mohammad Zahid.Akhtar, though also injury-prone, managed to enjoy a longer and more glamorous cricket career. Faster than even Waqar Younis, Akhtar learned reverse swing bowling under Akram and then Waqar. He made his Test debut in 1998 but made his first major splash in the third Test during Pakistan's 1999 tour of India. Managing to nudge out an out-of-form Waqar from the playing XI, Akhtar clean bowled India's two leading batsmen, Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar, with consecutive deliveries. Both the deliveries clocked over 95 mph, were bowled with an old ball and viciously reversed in to clean up the two stunned batsmen …Akhtar, in spite of his many eccentricities and wild life-style, found himself as the team's senior fast bowler when Wasim and Waqar retired from cricket in 2003. But with the fading away of the equally fast Mohammed Zahid and Mohammad Sami, Akhtar was missing an effective fast bowling partner until the arrival of Mohammad Asif in 2005. Asif was not even half as fast as Akhtar. He was a bigger fan of quality swing bowlers such as Australia's Glen McGrath and former Pakistani seamer, Sarfraz Nawaz. Asif first concentrated on getting swing and seam from the new ball. After he had successfully developed this, he began to concentrate on getting a grip of the art of reverse swing bowling. Since he did not have the kind of speed bowlers such as Imran, Wasim, Waqar and Wasim had, Asif was briefly coached by Sarfraz Nawaz who taught him to get reverse swing and seam off the wicket. Pakistan cricket also re-introduced leg-break-googly bowling that had fallen out of favour in international cricket.So when Imran Khan decided to add Abdul Qadir in the squad that was to play three Tests against England in 1982, he faced stiff resistance from the cricket board and the selectors.Qadir had made his Test debut in 1977 but failed to become a regular part of the team. He was lingering in oblivion when Khan picked him up for the England tour. Khan's logic was that since not many batsmen were used to playing leg-break bowling anymore, Qadir could be used as a surprise factor. He was right. Qadir not only impressed the English experts and put the England batsmen in all sorts of tangles, he even bamboozled the umpires as well who could not determine which way his ball would turn. That is why a number of decisions went against him and he wasn't able to pick up as many wickets as he should have …Qadir became one of the main strike bowlers in the team and picked up a bundle of wickets between 1982 and 1988.He also influenced a number of quality leg-break bowlers who followed him into the game and these included Shane Warne (Australia), Mushtaq Ahmed (Pakistan) and Anil Kumble (India).Though, After inventing the reverse swing and reintroducing leg-break bowling in international cricket, Pakistan cricket went on to formulate yet another unorthodox delivery: The doosra.Uunlike the reverse swing, this name was coined by its main inventor: Saqlain Mushtaq.Saqlain was inducted into the team by Wasim Akram in 1995. By 1996, he was bowling a delivery that was technically supposed to come in as an off-break (to a right handed batsman), but instead would straighten up and then go the other way. It would confuse the batsmen because it was always bowled without much change being applied to the bowling action. Between 1996 and 2002, only Saqlain was bowling it and it was simply called his ‘mystery ball.'Just before the start of the 2003 World Cup, Saqlain finally decided to give it a name: The doosra .Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan became a master of the doosra after the fading away of Saqlain and so did India's Harbahjan Singh. But perhaps the ball's most sublime, ‘scientific' and tricky exponent has been Pakistan's Saeed Ajmal. Ajmal was already in his early 30s when he was inducted into the Pakistan side in 2008. But it wasn't until his best friend, Misbah-ul-Haq, became Pakistan's captain (in 2011), that Ajmal became a regular fixture in the Pakistan team across all formats of the game. By 2012, Ajmal was bowling the doosra so well and so confidently that he even went on to claim that he had invented a ‘teesra'. There was no teesra. It was just Ajmal trying to bowl his doosra with a different action, pace and angle.

Pakistan, the pioneer of innovative bowling styles and deliveries never heard of or seen of before

New Delhi: Pakistan has been in the forefront of not only producing a string of some exceptional fast, swing and spin bowlers, but more importantly, has introduced and pioneered innovations (even inventions) of bowling styles

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