Former Pakistan legendary fast bowler and captain Waqar Younis said on Saturday that reverse swing could be achieved without any use of the artificial substance. Waqar who was regarded as one of the greatest exponents of conventional swing and reverse swing dismissed the thought that reverse swing is achieved through cheating.
“Of course, reverse swing can be achieved without cheating. Nowadays most of the bowlers do that and get wickets and help their teams win,” Waqar said.
His comments come days after suspended Aussie captain Steve Smith, vice-captain David Warner and opening batsman Cameron Bancroft admitted to tampering the ball during the 3rd Test against South Africa at the Newlands in Cape Town.
Smith was suspended for a year as a player and two years as a captain while Warner has been suspended for a year as a player and will never get any leadership role under Cricket Australia. Cameron Bancroft was caught on paper trying to apply sandpaper in an attempt to alter the condition of the ball. Cricket Australia has been pretty severe on them and has handed substantial suspensions.
The former speedster was in favor of usage of only one brand of the cricket ball in international cricket which will lead to fairer contests.
“Why do we use a different brand of balls in different countries?” Waqar asked. “In my opinion, the Duke ball is the best and the SG comes close to it. They are the best balls for swing so in order to have uniformity and better swing, these balls should be used everywhere. This will help bowlers and this will also produce better batsmen. We should solve the problem and not indulge in the blame game”, he added.
Meanwhile, another former Pakistan fast bowler who was regarded as the pioneer of reverse swing, Sarfaraz Nawaz refused to agree the fact that the skill of reverse swing requires ball-tampering.
“This is ridiculous to say reverse swing is cheating,” Sarfraz was quoted as saying by AFP. “You can achieve reverse swing without tampering with the ball.
“There is a conventional swing which is done with the new ball and then there is reverse swing which is achieved with an old ball and it has been proved in laboratories that reverse swing is a scientific phenomenon”, he added.
The former Pakistan bowler was part of the Pakistan Playing XI in 55 Tests and ended his career with 117 wickets. The highlight of his career was his sensational spell of 9/86 against Australia at Melbourne which included a spell of 7 wickets for a solitary run in 33 balls/
“When I passed the art to Imran Khan he developed it and then taught Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis, and in those times everyone called it cheating but when the Englishmen started to reverse swing it became an art,” said Sarfraz.
“It was and will remain an art, but resorting to tampering is cheating and that was what Australians did to beat South Africa and were deservedly punished.
“Conventional swing is simple — if the seam is angled toward the slip fielders it will swing away from the right-handed batsman, and if the seam is angled towards the leg side it will swing into the batsman,” explained Sarfraz. “Reverse swing is totally opposite.”
Imran mastered the art from Sarfaraz, but letter went on to go past his master. However, he confessed to ball tampering once by using a bottle top to roughen up one side of the ball. When he was asked in a television interview in 1994 that whether he would have got 362 Test wickets had he not tampered with the ball, Imran said:
“Yes, it’s a misconception that whoever scratches the ball can get wickets.
“The whole Sussex team knew I could reverse swing and I would swing at one end while other bowlers could not swing it,” said Imran, who was part of the English County.
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