Cricket history | Don't knock Bazball yet: A short history of cricket innovations that worked

Ridiculous as it may sound, 19th-century batters would often specialize in batting on the front foot or the back, but rarely both. (Photo: Shutterstock)

Since the summer of 2022, England have adopted a high-risk approach in Test cricket that has made them turn things around after a lean phase. The cricket fraternity coined it Bazball, after their new coach, Brendon ‘Baz’ McCullum. It will take years to find out whether Bazball is successful often enough to be imitated by cricketers around the world, or whether it will revolutionize the way Test cricket is played. Meanwhile, let us look at some approaches adopted by cricketers and teams.

Scoop / Dilscoop

By the early 21st century, every part of the cricket field had been explored by the batters – except the area behind the wicketkeeper. Douglas Marillier then resurfaced the scoop, a shot often played by Australian wicketkeeper Sammy Carter (see "Squatting" below).

Tillakaratne Dilshan entered the cricket lexicon with his own variant (the Dilscoop); but these days, the shot is played by nearly everyone, particularly towards the end of a limited-overs innings.

Wobble-seam

Conventional swing bowlers hold a ball with their fingers close together. If seam of the ball holds a straight line, commentators laud them for the “perfect seam position”.

Nowadays, they bowl with their fingers parted. The seam wobbles until it lands, which makes it difficult for the bowler (let alone the batter) to figure out which way the ball would move after pitching.

It will not be an exaggeration to say that the wobble-seam has changed new-ball bowling forever.

Reverse swing

Salim Mir of the Punjab Cricket Club in Lahore is often considered the first to move a fast ball the other way, but it was really Sarfraz Nawaz and later, Imran Khan, who used it to devastating effect. Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis kept the craft going in the 1990s, but by then, the world had figured out how to do it. In contemporary cricket, world-class fast bowlers know how to do it.

Retiring out

The concept involves a batter willingly leaving the crease and being given out. This seldom happened until a recent surge in Twenty20 cricket, when a slow-scoring batter is at the crease, several big hitters are waiting, and the team is running out of overs.

Few noticed when Sonam Togbay of Bhutan and Sunzamul Islam of the Comilla Warriors retired out in 2019, but R. Ashwin opened the floodgates by doing the same in the 2022 IPL. Since Ashwin, 11 batters have followed suit in 15 months.

Straight bat (literally)

The early cricket bats resembled hockey sticks or golf clubs. But when the bowlers began to bounce the ball (instead of rolling them), straight bats came into being. John Small, the greatest 18th-century batter, can be credited for making the straight bat mainstream, in the 1760s. He also manufactured them in his own workshop.

Revolt against underarm

In the early days of cricket, a bowler could not raise their arm above the waist. In 1822, John Willes was no-balled at Lord’s when he tried to bowl roundarm (above waist but below shoulder). But the most significant moment was in 1827, when – after much lobbying – Sussex bowlers Frederick Lillywhite and Jem Broadbridge bowled roundarm. Some cricketers protested, but the idea caught on. Roundarm was allowed since in 1835. Overarm – bowling as we know it now – became legal in 1864.

Hitting across the line

Until the mid-1850s, batters were supposed to hit balls pitched on off-side through the off. Cross-batted shots were considered “not cricket” by the puritans, and bowlers were content keeping vast areas on the leg-side unprotected. George Parr was the first player to hit cross-batted on a consistent basis, but it was really the Graces – E.M. Grace and his younger brother W.G – who used it to achieve unprecedented success. Today, limited-overs cricketers are expected to play these shots.

Playing front and back

The other revolution W.G. Grace brought to cricket was playing both off the front foot and the back. Ridiculous as it may sound, 19th-century batters would often specialize in one but rarely both. W.G. combined both to dominate cricket for more than two decades. It is now one of the basics for even beginners.

Reverse sweep / switch hit

William Yardley and Tim O’Brien tried it in the 19th century, but Mushtaq Mohammed was really the one who popularized it, in the 1960s and 1970s. Few shots are as prolific to ruin the opposition’s field placements.

‘Swerving’ the ball

After overarm became legal, some figured out that they could move the new ball in air. The first outstanding ‘swerve’ bowlers were Australian Fred Spofforth and American Bart King, while George Hirst made it popular in English cricket. These days, we call it ‘swing’ bowling – a destructive weapon in the fast bowler’s armoury.

The ‘Bosey’ /Googly

It is called the googly today, but they used to call it the Bosey or the Bosie, after Bernard Bosanquet, the first to bowl with a leg-spinner’s grip but bring the ball into the right-hander in the County Championship, back in 1900. The googly remains arguably the wrist-spinner’s greatest weapon.

Squatting

Browse through old pictures, and you will see wicketkeepers standing behind the batters, bending their upper bodies forward. This proved inadequate, especially on pitches where the ball often kept very low. Over a century ago, Australian wicketkeeper Sammy Carter began to sit on his haunches as the bowler ran in. This technique is followed by everyone today.

The helmet

Back in 1933, Patsy Hendren wore a three-peaked cap to protect his head against the West Indian fast bowlers. While there were some experiments in the early 1970s, the helmet became a necessity only during Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket.

Today, helmets are mandatory at many levels of cricket, particularly in the aftermath of Phil Hughes’ unfortunate demise in 2014.

Pinch hitters

In the early days of ODIs, teams realized that they might run out of overs, leaving their big hitters unutilized. To counter this, New Zealand promoted Lance Cairns to No.3 against India in 1975/76.

Cairns reprised that role from time to time, but the idea really caught on in the 1992 World Cup. In 1996, Sri Lanka set a trend by sending not one but both Sanath Jayasuriya and Romesh Kaluwitharana to open.

Doosra

Just like reverse swing, this, too, has its root in Pakistan domestic cricket. Prince Aslam Khan of Karachi was the first known off-spinner to make a ball leave the right-hander. Saqlain Mushtaq took over, before Muttiah Muralitharan used it to great effectt.

However, even international bowlers have found it difficult to bowl a doosra with a straight arm. Over time, the popularity of the weapon faded out.

Carrom ball

As the doosra lost popularity, finger-spinners revived the lost art of flicking the ball between the thumb and a bent middle-finger, similar to flicking the striker in carrom.

Jack Iverson used it successfully in the 1950s and John Gleeson in the 1970s, but it had become a lost art – until Ajantha Mendis became an outstanding exponent circa 2008. R. Ashwin and even left-arm spinner Mitchell Santner have got wickets with the carrom ball in international cricket.