Simon Hughes
Movement off the Pitch
Opening bowlers will always begin by gripping and releasing the
ball 'seam-up'. It is the conventional method to try to get deviation when the ball is in the air (known as swing) and off the pitch (referred to as seam). The ball's seam acts as a rudder when it's in the air, facilitating swing, and as a ridge when it hits the pitch, accentuating seam. Therefore, it's common policy to release the ball so that the seam stays upright in flight. There is no guarantee that it will deviate,
of course, just by landing on the seam. That will depend on pitch conditions – for example, whether the pitch is damp, green or cracked. Also, the bowler has no idea which way the ball will go. But then, the advantage is, neither does the batsman.
Seam
Courtney Walsh is regarded as a seam bowler, since he relies more on movement off the pitch than in the air. Below, you can see his normal release (below) where he is attempting to get the ball to land on the seam and hopefully 'jag' one way or the other. Although Walsh has an unusually fluid wrist action, he has no real control over which way the ball will go. But as the angle of the seam is tilted slightly, it would normally move from right to left. This (to a right-hander) is a 'leg cutter'. This term has nothing to do with possible injury (although a good leg cutter can seriously damage your average) but is derived from the fact that it cuts from leg to off.
 Seam up
Courtney Walsh has a supple wrist action – he appears to give the ball the faintest tweak from right
to left while still keeping the seam upright.
Leg cutter
This sequence (below) shows a great example of a dramatic Walsh leg cutter. The ball pitches around the line of the off-stump. At this point the batsman and bowler have no idea which way the ball is going to move, or indeed if it's going to move at all. If anything, because Walsh bowls from wide of the crease, the batsman might have expected it would be slanting towards leg stump and he could shape up to play it to mid-on. In fact, the ball hits an irregularity on the pitch and jumps so far to the batsman's right, Michael Vaughan could barely have hit it with a stable door never mind a bat. It's a delivery Walsh has produced time and time again in his career.
Leg cutter
An unplayable Walsh delivery pitches and cuts away.
Sometimes a ball like this is referred to as a 'jaffa' or a 'peach' – meaning an unplayable delivery. Nobody is quite sure how either of these terms originated, but if you get one, you've just got to pray that it's not straight. The irony is that it is the ball that moves an inch, rather than a foot, that usually takes the wicket.
Copyright material reproduced under license from Macmillan Publishers Ltd. London, England
Copyright © Simon Hughes 2001
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