A seam bowler's recklessness is epitomized by his audacity to choose a career path that , quite literally, hangs by the thread. ©Getty
In this new Cricbuzz series - Name of the Game - we unravel the technical facets of the game. First up, is the art of seam bowling.
"Ask any batsman in the world, seam movement is the hardest to bat against."
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KL Rahul has just had a trainwreck of a debut in Test cricket's quintessential cauldron - MCG on Boxing Day. To make matters worse, he has ten anxious days before the final Test in Sydney. "It was New Years time and we had a ten-day break. There was so much time to kill - but the time was killing me."
Come the New Year's Test, Rahul was pushed up to the opening spot. For one thing, by his own admission, it's his comfort zone - "Given a chance, I'm always more comfortable with opening." His comfort zone, however, opened him up to one of the most dreaded phenomena in cricket - seam bowling.
An away-seaming ball from the batsman's point of view ©
"The biggest challenge with the new Kookaburra ball is that the seam is a lot harder," KL Rahul tells Cricbuzz, fondly recalling his landmark innings in the face of adversity. "The first 15 overs is the hardest phase for an opener, because there is a lot of seam movement. You're just left to your reactions." It is perhaps this revelation about the Kookaburra ball that sheds light on the magnitude of his feat at Sydney.
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The cold-blooded operator
There's no fancy curved run-up, no attempt to hide the ball - a seam bowler's agenda is simple: land the ball on the seam, and watch the anarchy unfold after it makes contact with the surface.
Even at a lower pace, the ball moves more abruptly, more unpredictably than a swinging ball, creating the illusion of beating a batsman for pace. For instance, Mohammad Asif's dismissal of Virender Sehwag in the
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