10 weirdest bowling actions

Bowling actions are building blocks for any bowler. The first thing that you come up with in your quest to become a bowler is a fixed bowling action, and then you fine-tune it along with learning the nitty gritty details of the art. The fine-tuning is done by the coaches and seniors who help in getting the best out of one's natural action.Bowling actions can be a bowler's boon and in some cases his bane as well, the recent banning of Saeed Ajmal for an illegal action all but confirminga the fact. Now we are not going to go into the legality of it all because everything and anything is up for dispute out there.Instead,we will look atthe most weird, odd and obscure looking actions that have managed to grace the international stage.So here's the list of top 10 weirdest bowling actions in cricket.

#10 Shaun Tait

The Australian speedster Shaun Tait, well known for dishing out deliveries in the 150+ km/hr bracket, has a pretty odd looking action for a big man like himself. Some suggest his consistency in delivering those quicker deliveries was due to the fact that he had this slinging action.

Tait suffered various injuries due to his taxing action which made him limit his appearances in the longer formats of the game, forcing him to take an indefinite break from Test cricket as well as retiring from one-day internationals so as to focus solely on Twenty20 cricket.

#9 Shoaib Akhtar

The controversies and oddity of Shoaib Akhtar’s action have been pretty well documented. The abnormality of his right arm due to the hyperextension involved makes it tough for him to align his arms and shoulders straight, which is the norm, thus giving it a very suspicious look.

The Rawalpindi Express from the very beginning of his career had been questioned for his action, partly due to the fact that he had enormous speed and an uncommon action to go with it. Though he was able to silence all these doubts about him “chucking”, his action remains one spectacle people still remember. A long run up that would have made Dennis Lillee, Jeff Thompson and Wes Hall proud, culminating in this momentum driven charge to the popping crease with a catapulting release – it will always remain a sight to behold!

#8 Debashish Mohanty

The first player from Orissa to represent India, Mohanty had a bright start to his international career with great performances in the Sahara Cup. The pacer had an smooth looking open chested action, accompanied by vivid tangling of arms during his delivery stride, and to top it all, a terrifying expression that could give Murali’s delivery face a run for its money.

That said, the technical adroitness of his action was unmatched, and was even acknowledged by ICC who used his follow through action as the graphic logo for the 1999 World Cup.

#7 Peter Sleep

It’s like leg spin and odd looking actions go hand in hand. Long before Shane Warne became the poster boy for leg spin in Australia, they had to make do with Peter Sleep as their leading leg spin weapon. Although he never made his name as his successor did, Sleep is remembered for his flappy handed oddly flaccid looking action wherein he somehow conjured to deliver some leg breaks and googlies from what appeared to be disjointed arms.

An action which is truly elusive to find, here is a little glimpse of the phenom that was Sleep (last 20 seconds of the video):

#6 Sunil Narine

One of the most nonchalant bowlers ever, Sunil Narine has an action that seems mundane at a cursory glance. But the kind of success and reputation he has garnered because of his no-hassle-yet-mysterious action can be seen in the IPL.

A right-arm off-break action that has multifarious ways of duping the batsmen has helped him become one of the most lethal bowlers in the shortest format of the game. The Trinidadian has various ways to grip the ball and variations to go with them, making his bowling tough to grasp. Though time and again we see a mystery bowler arising and soon getting sorted out by the batsmen (case in point – Ajantha Mendis and his carom ball), Narine has somehow managed to remain an enigma to many till now.

#5 Lasith Malinga

The slinga Malinga can never be far away when you talk of odd looking actions. While slinging actions have always been deadly in cricket right from the days of Jeff Thompson, Malinga’s slinging roundarm action has helped him dismantle quite a few batting sides. Initially though, his action was seen with some disdain, mainly due to its “slingy-ness”.

Attributed to his days playing tennis ball cricket, the action was such an issue for opposition captain Stephen Fleming that he asked the umpires to change their clothing to get a better view of the ball, alluding to the fact that Malinga gets way too close to the stumps/umpire and his roundarm release creates visibility issues, making those toe crushing yorkers become doubly lethal.

#4 Sohail Tanvir

You simply cannot leave a bowler bowling off the wrong foot out of this list. These bowlers have bowling actions that are among the strangest you will ever see on a cricket pitch.

“Bowling off the wrong foot” means that the bowler delivers the ball while landing on his right foot for a right-hander, and on the left foot for a lefty. Time and again we see bowlers like this in the game with the likes of Mike Proctor, Max Walker and Rashid Khan as some prime examples.

Sohail Tanvir, the tallest wrong footed bowler to have ever graced international cricket, is the most recent of this breed of bowlers. Tanvir was a revelation early on in his career due to this vagary as he made inroads in international cricket. He was also pivotal in his IPL stint and was much sought after in various other domestic Twenty20 leagues all over the world.

#3 Abdul Qadir

The wizard of the art of leg spin, Abdul Qadir had an action wizardly enough to live up to his reputation. His bowing action comprised of a run up starting almost diagonally from the pitch, finished off with a jump, hop and a quick release. Even Qadir acknowledged the fact that the action was part of his strategy of playing with the batsmen’s psyche and hiding the ball from them, which he suggested was pretty much pivotal for any leg spinner.

An aura still remains around his iconic bowling action as many bowlers including Mushtaq Ahmed took a leaf out of his book, to come up with very similar looking actions during their career.

#2 Chris Harris

The New Zealand all-rounder was a well known finisher of the game. What was also a part of his vast repertoire was his middle overs bowling. Known to restrict the flow of runs and break important partnerships, Harris was a different sort of bowler with a different sort of action.

It’s hard to come up with an exact term for his diverse bowling style, but it would not be wrong to call him as an unorthodox medium pace/spin bowler. What was even more different was his wobbly looking run up which was made to look even odder as he delivered the ball off his wrong foot. Harris can be described as a vestige of the breed of medium pace bowlers not seen these days. Virat Kohli, though not as proficient with his arm, has a pretty similar action to that of Harris.

#1 Paul Adams

It would be sacrilege to have a discussion about weird bowling actions and not talk about Paul Adams. A proponent of the declining art of Chinaman bowling (i.e. left arm googly bowling), Adams had an odd action to say the least. Once described as “frog in a blender” by Mike Gatting, the unorthodox action had a pretty acrobatic feel to it.

A bowling coach’s nightmare, the action saw Adams kicking up his back leg pretty high, giving a nice jerk to his neck and contorting both his arms while conjuring up a single delivery. Though he gained much repute for his action and for catching batsmen off guard, he could not make a case for himself in the Proteas squad for too long.