ISLAMABAD: Legendary English pacer James Anderson has learned bowling the wobble seam delivery after watching Pakistani seamer Mohammad Asif during the summer of 2010.
The 39-year-old has 640 wickets to his name in Test cricket and was generally known as the ‘King of Swing’. The right-arm pacer opined that he had to work on the wobble seam before the 2010/11 Ashes as Kookaburra doesn’t provide as much of the swing.
Anderson said during the Pakistan tour of England, he watched Asif bowling these deliveries which were nipping off the seam and he later tried to adopt the craft which eventually brought him success during the 2010/11 Ashes Down Under.
“It was before the 2010/11 Ashes, David Saker was our bowling coach. He said Kookaburra doesn’t swing for the huge amount of time, so something else in the locker as a bowler was crucial here in Australia for success,” Anderson said while talking to 7 Cricket as quoted by cricketpakistan.com.pk.
“In summer 2010, we played against Pakistan and Mohammad Asif was bowling this ball which just wobbled a little bit, it was not seaming nor swinging, he was just trying to nip off the seam,” he said.
“So I spent the whole summer practising that and working on it and was comfortable to bowl here (in Australia) which actually brought success for me throughout that series,” he said.
It may be mentioned here that Asif who was regarded as the best swing and seam bowler on the world scene ever bagged 103, 46 and 13 wickets in 23 Tests, 38 ODIs and 11 Twenty20s, respectively.
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