Umar Gul’s last spell
They say that cricket is an unpredictable game. How many times have we seen that a match where a certain team is comfortably winning and then starts losing, keeping the audience in shock and awe?
A perfect display of this type of match occurred during England’s batting in the 3rd one-day international between http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 and England at The Oval. The situation of the match changed literally in the last spell bowled by Umar Gul, who at that
point, was being considered as a very expensive bowler – he had given away many runs at the time.
But his last spell proved to be one of the great displays of quick, swing balling. Even though, he was not successful in his earlier spells. In his last spell, he was balling stump to stump, with a fuller and straighter line and length, producing magical
deliveries. By the time, he got the ball for his last spell, the ball was about 35 overs old, and had started to reverse swing. His in-swinging Yorkers proved to be too much for the British defences.
In the fourth one-day match, even though Gul was not able to take as many wickets as he did in the third match, but he still proved to be an ineffective bowler as he took timely wickets, bowling full-lengh deliveries once again and maintaining his wicket-to-wicket
bowling fashion. Even in this match he proved to take crucial wickets in his last spell.
Usually http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Shahid-Afridi-c2482 makes Gul bowl one-down, after opening the bowling with Shoaib Akhtar and Abdur Razzak. The bowler from Khyber bowls three overs in his first spell and this spell usually comes somewhere between fifteenth and twentieth over. This is
the time when Gul’s ball is swinging, he produces many in-swinging and out-swinging deliveries and it is more like a warm up spell before the real deal – his devastating last spell.
After the three overs bowled by the quick bowler, Shahid Afridi saves the best for the last, making Umar bowl his last seven overs from around the 32nd or 34th over. This spell is usually the magic spell from the in-form bowler, his
ball starts to reverse swing producing almost unplayable deliveries.
However, sometimes his economy rate is not as impressive as his wicket-taking stats, usually in the matches that Umar ends up taking wickets, he gives many runs as well, so he does prove to be costly at times. He mainly struggles with no balls and wides,
he concedes many extras and this is something that the 27-year old should focus on in the nets. When asked about his inspirations in terms of bowling, he mentions Imran Khan, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Aaqib-Javed-c41431, who have given
him many tips of how to swing the ball and how to reverse it.
One setback of the bowler is the fact that he is severely injury-prone. Once his injury cost him to stay out of international matches for a year – many thought at that time that his career might very well be over.
As this happens to many fast bowlers, who are at their peak in bowling and after a certain prolonged injury they struggle to find their rhythm once they make their comeback. Fortunately, for Gul, even though the injury did keep him out of the game for a
while, his return managed to be of great significance. Having said that, his bowling after his return sometimes seems rusty in terms of the economy rate and the extras that he delivers, but that is understandable.
Umar Gul has been brilliant in this series, especially in the one-day internationals against England, and if he manages to maintain his form in the up-coming World Cup 2011, he will make Pakistan a difficult team to defeat. Pakistan can always bank on his
last spell, which has been successful in dismissing even the best of in-form batsmen.
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