Sehwag lbw anderson, blame Mehta from NASA

I wanted to write about this long ago, but somehow never got time, or was too lazy. I guess by now there must be thousands of blogs by cricket junkies on this new phenomenon.

Dr. Mehta is a NASA scientist of Indian origin. Dr. Mehta works in the fluid mechanics lab at Nasa’s Ames Research Centre in California. Dr Mehta has come up with a new kind of swing for fast bowlers and has been helping the English bowling coach Troy Cooley.

Heres how it works-

CONVENTIONAL SWING: The ball is released with the seam angled towards first slip or fine leg, spinning backwards along the seam and with the polished side facing the batsman. The ball will swing in same direction as the seam is pointing

REVERSE SWING: Same release, except with the rough side facing the batsman. The ball swings in the opposite direction to that of the seam

CONTRAST SWING: Controlled by speed. With the seam positioned vertically , the ball swings towards the rough side at lower speeds and towards the smooth side at higher speeds.

So unlike the reverse swing—the movement generated with one side polished well and the other left with the rough edge— here, the drift of the ball doesn’t depend on the seam position or the asymmetry caused by selective polishing. The seam remains upright and the ball moves towards the rough side when delivered in the range of 65-70mph. A little over 70-mph mark, and the ball swings towards the polished side from the same position. Batsmen can never expect to read this swing as it is near impossible to differentiate such minute variation of pace from 22 yards.

Troy Cooley, the current English bowling coach has his new contract with Australia so expect them too, to be in the 'swing' of things.

THE IMRAN CONNECTION- He (DR. Mehta) opened the bowling with Imran Khan for Royal Grammar School, Worcester, in the early 70s. And that’s probably when Dr Rabindra D Mehta got his first clues to what later became contrast swing.

Mehta says he opened the bowling with Imran for the school team in 1972. ‘‘It was from Imran that I first heard of what became known as ‘reverse swing’. He told us about the phenomenon, but it wasn’t until we conducted wind tunnel tests the next year at Imperial College, London, that I fully understood what Imran was talking about,’’ he recalls.

(excerpted from, The Indian Express)

Certainly very fascinating, lets hope the Indians too update themselves with this new theory.