Fast bowling

Fast bowling (also pace bowling) is one of the two main approaches to bowling in the sport of cricket, the other being spin bowling. Practitioners are usually known as fast or pace bowlers, quicks, or pacemen. They also often referred to as swing or seam bowlers to reflect their preferred fast bowling technique.

The aim of fast bowling is to achieve both speed and to induce the hard cricket ball to bounce off the pitch in an unpredictable fashion (by the use of seam orientation) or move sideways through the air (swing), factors that make it difficult for the batsman to address the flight of the ball accurately. A typical fast delivery has a speed in the range of 137–153 km/h (85–95 mph).

It is possible for a bowler to concentrate solely on speed, especially when young, but as fast bowlers mature they pick up new skills and tend to rely more on swing bowling or seam bowling techniques. Most fast bowlers will specialise in one of these two areas and will sometimes be categorised as swing or seam bowler. However, this classification is not satisfactory because the categories are not mutually exclusive and a skilled bowler will usually bowl a mixture of fast, swinging, seaming and also cutting balls, even if he prefers one style to the others. For simplicity, it is common to subdivide fast bowlers according to the average speed of their deliveries, as follows.

There is a degree of subjectivity in the usage of these terms; for example, Cricinfo uses the terms "fast-medium" and "medium-fast" interchangeably, and sometimes replacing medium-fast to medium. For comparison, most spin bowlers in professional cricket bowl at average speeds of 70 to 90 km/h (45 to 55 mph). Shoaib Akhtar, Brett Lee, Shaun Tait, Jeff Thomson (in an exhibition match) and Mitchell Starc have clocked over 160km/h and are categorised as "Ultra Fast" bowlers although often bowling at speeds significantly lower than this mark. Also, while Steven Finn is classified as a fast-medium bowler by Cricinfo, he can consistently bowl at around 145km/h, with his fastest clocked at 151.9 km/h, making him the 10th fastest amongst active bowlers as of 3 January 2015

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