There is a real skill to reverse swing.
Every bowler has their own theories about how to get the ball going, and I heard plenty of them throughout my career. For anyone who doesn’t know, reverse swing is when an older, scuffed ball starts to move late through the air, the opposite way to conventional swing.
Done properly, it’s completely legal, and it comes from natural wear and looking after the ball.
The traditional thinking was to keep one side of the ball shiny and the other rough and dry. Some believed the shiny side needed to be heavier, with plenty of saliva being worked into it. Pretty gross when you think about it, but that was one of the ways to do it.
For me, it was about understanding the conditions, the condition of the ball, and when to start working towards reverse swing. Once the ball stopped swinging conventionally, we would start looking at other ways to get it moving.
But there was a risk in trying it too early. The ball could go soft, and you need the hardness in the ball for reverse swing to be most effective.
We would bowl cross-seam, cutters or angled seam, or I’d try to bowl seam-up and miss the seam, landing it on one side of the ball anyway. None of it guaranteed anything.
Which brings me back to Port Elizabeth, now Gqeberha, in 2014.
South Africa got the ball reversing a mile in that Test, and Dale Steyn was outstanding. From the Australian dressing room, it was hard not to wonder how they were getting so much movement when we couldn’t get anything close.
There were questions at the time. We talked about it in our dressing room, and I remember AB de Villiers handling the ball in a way that caught our eye. I can’t say what that meant.
David Warner then raised concerns about the way the ball was being handled, and he got himself into trouble for it. South Africa denied any wrongdoing, and no action was taken against them.
Jacques Kallis later wrote that Warner’s six landed on a concrete slab and scuffed the ball early, and that the umpires checked the ball regularly. In the end, we couldn’t reverse the ball and they could.
Memories of reverse came back as I watched the Test in Durban, when Australia got the old ball reversing in South Africa’s second innings. It looked like good Test cricket between bat and ball.
What made that first Test so satisfying was the confidence South Africa came in with. Their captain, Temba Bavuma, had never lost a Test as skipper, and they’d beaten Australia in the World Test Championship final at Lord’s.
This time they were beaten by the old guys, a bowling attack questioned because of its age, and I include myself in that. But bowling out this side the way they did in the second innings could be a heavy blow for the series.
Which is why I’m looking forward to Gqeberha. The live band, the atmosphere, and the way the crowd got involved made it a terrific place for Test cricket, and there’s a chance of some reverse swing too.
The pitch was another matter. It was generally on the slower side, which wasn’t ideal for someone like me who wanted to bowl fast and aggressively from the start. You had to be patient, because as the surface became more abrasive, reverse swing could come into play on days four and five.
If we get similar conditions to 2014, it could become a major factor again in the fourth innings and winning the toss could be crucial. And if someone happens to find that concrete slab, don’t be surprised if the ball starts reversing a little earlier. Funny how that works.
A swinging Starc up front is hard enough, but a reverse-swinging Starc is a tough ask. With South Africa 1-0 down, and Australia’s batting having had its own questions, I wonder what pitch will be delivered.
Whatever the pitch, I’d love to see some reverse swing, done the right way. There’s something special about watching a fast bowler get an old ball reversing late in a Test. The batsman knows it’s coming, but that doesn’t make it any easier to play.
A full delivery, late movement and the stumps cartwheeling. That’s the bowler’s skill against the batsman’s, played within the laws, and it’s Test cricket at its best.
We don’t see enough of that anymore. Let’s hope Gqeberha brings a bit of it back.