All about Reverse Swing

Himanshu Shekhar

Whenever one talks of reverse swing, two names, which come out immediately, are of Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis. However, for those interested in statistics it was Sarfaraz Nawaz who founded the art. Great bowlers like Dennis Lily and Jeff Thomson did use reverse swing but occasionally. It was Akram and Waqar who utilized the art to their advantage on dead subcontinent pitches in the late 80’s and 90’s.


What is reverse swing?

As the name suggests, reverse swing means getting the ball to move in the opposite direction than the normal movement. E.g. An in-swinger which normally should swing back to a batsman goes away from him. A bowler while delivering the ball keeps the usual in - swinging action to deceit the batsman while the ball goes the other way.


On the other hand a bowler who is bowling an out - swinger will bring the ball back in to a batsman on a reverse swing. All this tends to happen very late on in the delivery, making it difficult for the batsman to pick up the changes in the air.

How is it done?

Reverse swing comes into account when the ball stops swinging on its own and is used for more than 30 overs (for a Duke ball, it can be upto 15-20 overs).

As the ball becomes rougher, it will take on a different characteristic as it deteriorates.

So if you present the ball as an out swinger, the ball has deteriorated so much on the rough side that it takes on the characteristics of the shiny side.

Which means a natural out-swinger will become an in-swinger and conversely, an in-swinger into an out-swinger.

Quintessential factor

As a bowler you need to be more than gentle medium pace in order to get the reverse going. So, if you are a gentle medium pace bowler then it is better to stick to the normal swing delivery as a stock ball and keep the reverse as a disguised weapon.