What makes the new ball swing in one place and not in another? Cricket has grappled with this question for well over a century, and while all that grappling has given us numerous hypotheses, we have no conclusive answers.
Bhuvneshwar Kumar may have puzzled over this question as well, if he watched the Thiruvananthapuram T20I in Bengaluru, where he is undergoing "conditioning-related work" - as per the relevant BCCI press release - at the National Cricket Academy after being rested for the series against South Africa. Having just completed a three-match series against Australia during which the new ball hardly ever swung, he may have felt a complex surge of emotions while watching Deepak Chahar and Arshdeep Singh bend it this way and that at the Greenfield International Stadium.
Bhuvneshwar bowled 42 balls in two matches against Australia and conceded 91 runs, while picking up just one wicket.
In Thiruvananthapuram, Chahar and Arshdeep reduced South Africa to 9 for 5 in the space of 15 balls. Both got the ball to swing both ways, and the pitch gave them further assistance by way of its two-paced nature. The jaffas were getting batters out - Arshdeep, for instance, dismissed a pair of left-handers back-to-back, nicking off Rilee Rossouw with an awayswinger before clean-bowling David Miller with one that swerved wickedly late in the other direction - but so were wide and seemingly cuttable balls that stuck in the surface.
If you were a swing bowler, or a fast bowler of any description, these were conditions made for you.
KL Rahul, who helped steer India to their target of 107 with a painstaking unbeaten 51 off 56 balls, described the conditions as being among the toughest he has ever batted in in a T20 game. "The balls were flying, it was nipping around, it was two-paced," he told the broadcasters after the match. "Everything that can be hard for a batsman, that was the wicket today."
Given how much help there was for swing and seam bowling, how much can India take away from their fast bowlers' displays as they finalise their plans for the T20 World Cup? In particular, where does Arshdeep currently sit in the hierarchy of quicks they have picked for that tournament?
Source: https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/ind-vs-sa-1st-t20i-arshdeep-singh-s-new-ball-exploits-excellent-signs-for-india-ahead-of-t20-world-cup-1337154
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