James Anderson first bowler to bowl ‘reverse’ reverse swing: Sachin Tendulkar

New Delhi, July 10

Indian batting legend Sachin Tendulkar believes James Anderson is the only bowler who could bowl a “reverse out-swinger” with a wrist position of a conventional in-swinger.

Tendulkar has termed the craft ‘reverse’ reverse swing.

Speaking to West Indies legend Brian Lara on his ‘100MB’ app, Tendulkar explained why Anderson could be vital for England in the ongoing Test against West Indies at the Ageas Bowl.

“With reverse swing, Jimmy Anderson was possibly the first bowler who bowled reverse swing also reverse,” Tendulkar told Lara.

In lucid terms, in case of conventional inswing to a right hander, the shiny part is on the outside and rough part on the inside. In case of reverse out-swinger, the trajectory changes (moving away from right hander) but shiny part will still remain on outward side. The wrist position is different on both occasions.

According to Tendulkar, when he checked Anderson’s wrist position, he saw him bowling the reverse out-swinger but with wrist position of conventional in-swinger, which is unheard of. 

“What I experienced, over a period of time, that he would hold the ball as if he was bowling out-swinger, but the release point, he would try and bring the ball back in,” explained Tendulakr.

“….and number of batters would look at the wrist position, and what he has actually done, he’s shown you that he’s bowling inswing, but the imbalance between both sides of the ball would take the ball away from you,” he added.

Tendulkar said by changing his wrist position quickly Anderson forces the batsman to commit to a shot.

“What he has done is, he’s got you to commit to play, for an in-swinger and the ball, after covering almost three-fourths of the length of the pitch, starts leaving you,” he said.

“But you had already committed, because you’ve seen that inswing position, and that is something which was new to me. Nobody had done that.”

Tendulkar said several bowlers, including Stuart Broad, had started using the same trick to trouble the opposition batters but it was Anderson who started the trend.

“Now number of guys, you see their shine, and what they’re trying to do – I spotted even Stuart Broad trying to do that at some stage, but Anderson started this long time ago. So I rate him very, very highly. One of the best exponents of reverse swing,” he said.

Anderson is England’s leading wicket-taker in Test cricket, with 584 wickets in 151 Tests.