There are, for the purpose of this, two sorts of bowlers, and it is rather more than just a matter of semantics. The first are those who can swing the ball, and the second, a rare breed, are swing bowlers. So, for the sake of argument, the first category would include Matthew Hoggard, whose swing, delivered slightly round-arm and slingy, brought him 248 Test match wickets for England. Away swing was his default, and he countered this largely with a ball that went straight on or, as an alternative, an off-cutter. Jimmy Anderson, though, is a swing bowler, a manipulator of the ball who on song can move it in or out, late and to order according to circumstance. He is the pace-bowling equivalent of a wrist spinner with a leg-break and googly. Sir Richard Hadlee once called him “a beautiful bowler”.
On Monday, at the Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, Anderson plays his 100th Test match in the course of which, given a fair Antiguan wind, he will take the four wickets against West Indies that he requires to overtake Ian Botham’s England record of 373 wickets. Already it is a remarkable record of achievement for someone who suffered serious injury and loss of form in the middle of his career.
To lend some perspective to this: by the end of this forthcoming three-match series he will, all things being equal, have played as many games as Botham, who as we know was never and remains not of this planet. Of England bowlers, only Botham hitherto has reached 100 matches. The closest paceman to this, Anderson aside, is Bob Willis, another who overcame serious injury to play 90 Tests. Below that is Andrew Flintoff, 78, and Stuart Broad 74.
It is a tribute to Anderson’s fitness in the most physically demanding of all cricket disciplines. In the course of this he has sent down 22,114 snaking waspish deliveries, more than any other England bowler, pace or spin, with only Botham and Derek Underwood even coming close to that. By the end of this arduous stretch of 17 Test matches in the next nine months, if he stays fit, he will have left even these two for dust.
Essentially Anderson is an English bowler for English conditions, as his record might suggest. Some 250 of his wickets have come at home, and 13 of his 16 five-wicket hauls. In England, he averages 26.38 runs per wicket, while abroad, where the pitches can be unforgiving and abrasive, negating his stock-in-trade orthodox swing, it soars 10 points higher. Away from his more familiar conditions he takes a wicket only every 11 and a bit overs, while at home the figure goes down to just under nine overs. He bowls challenging spells abroad but tends to bring control, imposing pressure, rather than clutches of wickets.
When David Saker, England’s erstwhile bowling coach, referred to Anderson as the most skilful pace bowler in the world, it bought some derision, particularly from those who did not quite understand the nuance. Saker was not saying that he was a better bowler than South Africa’s Dale Steyn, for example, whose credentials as one of the greatest of all fast bowlers are impeccable. But of the modern crop of pace men of the last decade or so, only Zaheer Khan and Chaminder Vaas, left-armers both, and perhaps the Australian Ryan Harris, who has the most sublime wrist, come into the same bracket of manipulator, those who can bend the ball to their will with a tilt of the wrist or adjustment to the grip.
For England, Botham, at his peak as a waspish lithe bowler in the late 70s, was supreme, Richard Ellison had his moments in the mid-80s, while Darren Gough used skiddy away swing and some inswing to great effect. It is a skill that appears not to have been handed down.
The art of swinging the ball either way to order is not a straightforward one and nor is there a single method of doing so. Actions vary, from open to closed, but all essentially involve a high arm. Anderson has his characteristic drop of the head. There are fundamentals that are common, of which flexible fingers and a loose wrist action without tension (liken it to playing with a yo-yo), helping to impart the backspin, almost gyroscopic, necessary to maintain the seam upright, are paramount.
Beyond that, though, it becomes strictly personal. Most merely adjust the angle of the seam and then take a mental picture of forcing the ball around an obstacle mid-pitch, as a golfer might work a fade or a draw around a tree. Malcolm Marshall’s method was a question of moving no more than his supporting thumb with little adjustment elsewhere to telegraph his intention; Wasim Akram similarly.
Anderson’s technique is unique, in which he caresses the ball, and changes nothing but the pressure he exerts either with his middle finger or index finger. Unless he sends down his wobble-seam, the seam is ramrod straight upright for his away swing and slightly canted for his inswing, the result of hours of experiment and fine-tuning to get it precisely right.
