A bit slower than slow is the way to go

By Snehal Pradhan

The phrase cricket is a batsman’s game has never been truer in, ironically, women’s cricket. Glance over the divergent rules. In ODIs, the batting powerplay still exits. Only four fielders are allowed outside the ring in both formats. Pitches are almost universally flat to encourage big-hitting – to popularise the game – negating home advantage. In reaction, the bowlers are responding slowly, quite literally.

All three teams in the current tri-series have medium and slow-medium pace bowlers in their squads who force batters to delay their downswings. For England, it is veteran Jenny Gunn. Megan Schutt and Delissa Kimmince play that role for the Australians, and Rumeli Dhar fits the bill for India.


While Dhar has had just one forgettable outing, the rest have played central roles in the bowling performances of their sides. “You’ll see really skilful bowlers who can execute when batters come hard at them; that will be a big advancement in the next couple of years,” predicted England captain Heather Knight.

One of those skills is ‘The Whiff’, a slow delivery bowled by Gunn, and named by Knight. Consider it the tortoise of the slow balls. “Often it doesn’t get clocked on the speed-o-meter on the TV because it’s so slow,” says England’s Natalie Sciver. “Jenny is not that pleased about that. But it’s effective, we love it.” The Whiff is certainly helping Gunn stay relevant – she became the first woman to earn her 100th T20I cap this series, and is T20I cricket’s fourth highest wicket taker, with 73 wickets.

Australia added two T20 specialists to their team for the series, one of whom was Kimmince. Kimmince began her career as an 18-year-old tearaway in 2008, but 10 years later she’s in the team because of the variations she can bowl with her now gentle medium pace. In Australia’s final group game against England, she picked up career-best figures of 3 for 20, foxing batters with back of the hand slow ball mixed in with yorkers and cutters.

Kimmince is joint-highest wicket-taker in the tournament, sharing the top spot with fellow Aussie medium pacer Schutt. Schutt now bowls with a shorter run up than when she first made her debut, focusing on her natural inswing and leg cutters instead of pace. “Working with consistency and change-up balls is so important when batters are coming hard,” she says. A mixture of those deliveries gave her a hat-trick against India.

Australia’s Ellyse Perry says: “When you find a lot of flat wickets you have to have other skills. I think female pace bowlers have obviously improved and taken a step forward to competing on par with batters. Megan’s done that. She is leading the way.”

Wrist spin and extreme pace have long been considered antidotes to the domination of batters on flat pitches. “Either it’s got to go very fast or very slow. To stick to one pace is going to be easy to hit,” says Sciver. But more and more female batters are prepared for pace, since they train alongside men who bowl much faster.

Slow-medium pacers also offer certain advantages. They allow captains to be more certain about keeping third man and fine leg up in the circle, and thus use more fielders in a batter’s strong zones. The keeper can also stand up to the stumps, restricting the range of shots available.

Also, many batters have different trigger movements to pace and spin, but will often use their trigger movement to pace even while facing medium-pace balls that are as slow as a spinner. The mindset often differs as well. While they may be happy to use their feet to spin, seeing a bowler come off a long run can change attitudes and they are less likely to use their feet as much. Medium pacers also have a higher variation in pace – Schutt often slips in a quicker ball, one that is considerably faster than her leg-cutter, making her very hard to read.