These days we are also shown the speed of the ball after struck by the bat. But the avg speed is about 112km/h

Question

Whereas avg speed of a pacer is about 120km/h. How surprising! I used to think that bat has more power than hand! Can you please explain why the speed off the bat is lower than the speed off the bowler's hand ?

Answer 1

1. Although someone like brett lee bowls at 140km/h, this is only the speed at which the ball leaves his hand. By the time the ball has pitched it is only doing about 120-130 when it reaches the batsmen.

Thus if a bowler is clocked to bowl at 120km/h the ball is going slower than this when the ball reaches the bat

2. The batsmen has to do work against the ball. ie. they are trying to completely change the direction of the ball and thus speed will be lost in the process of doing this. (bowlers don't do this, they just propel the ball) This is why an edge will fly so quickly compared to a drive or other shot)

An example i can think of is that when a ball is bouncing after every bounce it will lose speed and thus not bounce as high. It's kind of the same principal for the ball bouncing of the cricket bat (i've tried to explain this as simply as possible, i could go into deeper physics but uut can get complicated)

Hope this helps mate

Answer 2

if you smash the ball high in the sky obviously with abit of common sense you will realise that the ball will slow down from its initial velocity. Try measuring the speed when the batter smashes it straight at the bowler.