There is new hope or rather a new weapon for India's fast bowlers, thanks to a new innovation by a cricket loving physicist, who has sepcialised in aerodynamics.
Dr R Sanjeevi, a Ph.D in Physics, with sponsorship from the well known YMCA College of Physical Education in Chennai, has discovered that the reverse swing occurs in a cricket ball even when bowled at medium pace.
While teaching in a US university, Dr Sanjeevi had studied the swing of a baseball thrown by a pitcher to a batter, as does a bowler to a batsman, in the game of cricket.
Dr Sanjeevi, who announced this to sports journalists at a press conference in Chennai along with Secretary of the college, Mr Baldwin Raju, made this discovery through a number of findings by getting a medium pace bowler, playing in the local league, to bowl at the three stumps in the nets and recording the reverse swing with a ball 20 overs old, as compared to in-swing and out-swing using the new ball.
Dr Sanjeevi, who has worked on the science of swing bowling, said he has named his discovery as 'Sanjeevi Method ' and to record his finding, he had used two high speed cameras to highlight the swing bowling variations which he called 'hockey stick swing' and 'banana swing', based on the path of deviation taken by the cricket ball.
He said "this knowledge when imparted can tremendously improve the bowling performance of a bowler who bowls at medium pace like a Sourav Ganguly. In fact, it would be ideal for India's pace bowlers, most of who bowl at medium pace. It can become a very powerful part of the arsenal of an all-rounder or a top class pace bowler," he said.
The YMCA College will next take this discovery directly to cricketers of all levels especially fast bowlers through a series of clinics called 'program swing'. "We would also approach the IPL players through the owners of their respective teams," Mr Baldwin Raju announced.