5 best short ball bowlers in the world right now
Assume you are a batsman. Now what would you rather face? Praveen Kumar’s gentle, medium pace swinging deliveries or Mitchell Johnson’s fast head-high bouncers?
The thing is both Praveen Kumar and Mitchell Johnson were equally capable of getting wickets in conditions that suited their bowling. But, Johnson, along with picking your wicket, could leave you with one or two broken fingers.
A good short ball is a batsman’s worst nightmare! Well, there is no such thing as a good short ball if you are a batsman. All the short balls are bad news!
The gentlemen’s game has seen lot of unfriendly, hostile spells of fast bowling. A few of them have even caused bloodshed on the pitch. As much as the fiery bouncers are frightening to see, they are also a vital part of the game.
There have been many great bowlers who were excellent exponents of short-pitch bowling, Malcolm Marshal, Dennis Lillee, Shoaib Akhtar and Mitchell Johnson to name a few. These quick bowlers would rattle the batsmen with aggression and throw them off guard. That in turn would make a normal length delivery into a wicket-taking one.
Here, in this article we shall look at the five best short bowlers in the world at present.
5. Morne Morkel
The 6 foot 4 tall South African bowler is a dangerous customer on surfaces that have good pace and carry. He operates mainly around back of length region and with his height giving him an added advantage, the quickie is very hard to get away with when he starts bowling short stuff.
Bowling good bouncers comes naturally to Morkel as he grew playing Cricket on South African pitches with good pace and bounce.
The lanky pacer has been the back bone of the Proteas bowling attack along with Dale Steyn for many years. Though he began as just a quick bowler he developed his repertoire and became a reliable player for South Africa.