Southee and Boult: New Zealand's sultans of swing bring back memories of the wonder years

By Shamya Dasgupta “He’s at the top of his trade at the moment. He ran in magnificently, he was getting through his action very well, he bowled good lines, good lengths, he’s attacking the batsman, he’s swinging the ball – he’s the complete package.” – Sir Richard Hadlee to ICC after Tim Southee’s 7 for 33 against England at the World Cup. There’s something about the swinging ball that really does it for me. Bounce, movement off the pitch – most of us might not be able to do it like the masters, but the logic is clear. But swing? You need an expert to explain it to you. And, even then, especially for kids growing up in India, it’s not the easiest spell to internalise. [caption id=“attachment_2119471” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Southee, already a star, made some big strides towards becoming one of the country’s greatest pace bowlers. Getty Images[/caption] My generation of cricket addicts grew up on Kapil Dev and his banana swing. And, on the rare occasion we got to watch them on TV, there was the swing of Ian Botham and the ‘in-dippers’ of Imran Khan, which we later discovered was reverse swing. Wasim Akram could, of course, make the ball go this way and that, wobbling in the air, as if guided by a remote control – not necessarily handled by a sane person. Waqar did the Imran thing with more lethality and venom later on. Those were the wonder years. Of late, it is only during Test cricket in England, when bowlers – especially James Anderson – get the ball to talk. Oh, how beautiful it looks. The ball released, at 135-140kph over 20 yards or so, with the batsman going forward, the front toe pointing ever so slightly off-wards, bat coming down to meet ball, and then, at the point of contact, no contact, the gleaming red ball a will o’ the wisp on speed – I actually prefer that to the ball actually kissing the bat on its way to keeper or slips. There’s more of the ‘gotcha’ in leaving the batsman feeling somewhat wormish than in actually dismissing him. That brings me back to Southee. And Trent Boult. Twenty20 cricket, of course, isn’t the place for the swingers. An arsenal of slower bouncers and wide yorkers and straight whatnots set the good bowlers apart from the not-so-good ones. So it was quite an experience in Raipur last year when, during the qualifiers of the Champions League Twenty20, Trent Boult and Tim Southee sent the Pakistanis from Lahore Lions on a swingout – 5/1, 12/2, 16/3, 17/4 and 19/5 in under six overs. That was classical well-paced swing bowling, a right-armer and a left-armer in tandem, firing out international batsmen – Nasir Jamshed, Ahmed Shehzad, Mohammad Hafeez and Umar Akmal were four of the five men dismissed – easily as shouting Avada Kedavra and pointing the old wand at the batsman’s throat. Or just outside his off stump. “Two excellent exponents of swing bowling,” was the understatement from Danny Flynn, captain of the Northern Knights team Southee and Boult represented, after that game. Boult is some months away from turning 26, while Southee celebrated his 26th birthday in December. Both are Northern Districts boys. Together, they have been a big part of why New Zealand have emerged as one of the leading cricket nations in the world in recent times. “They’ll probably go down as New Zealand’s greatest-ever opening pair, or they’ll get close anyway,” Scott Styris had told me some time ago. Southee, already a star, made some big strides towards becoming one of the country’s greatest pace bowlers the other day, sending back seven England batsmen in a breathtaking display of good old-fashioned swing bowling in Dunedin. A remarkable performance in a World Cup game, after all, sticks in the memory. All the wickets he picked on his way to 7 for 33 against England were with pitched-up deliveries. Moving in the air, sometimes preceded by a softening bouncer, often pitching on yorker length. Yorkers, as anyone will tell you, remains the most effective delivery in the game despite all the innovations. But when the yorker swings late to just go past the dig-out stroke, it becomes a deadly delivery. Then there was the most beautiful outswingers’ peach to send back Chris Woakes: bowled from slightly wide of the bowling crease, pitching offish, and then moving out enough to clip off stump despite the batsman having covered the stumps. Delightful. Still, swing bowlers are not always successful. There are factors at play that make swinging the ball, and controlling the swing, difficult. Indeed, I can’t think of too many other sports where a big facet of the discipline is as dependent on the weather. But when it all falls in place, in limited-overs cricket at that, like it did for Southee at Westpac against England, it’s worth all the swingless days of wait. Originally published on Wisden India