Seamer in Cricket: Difference between swing and seam in Cricket

Seamer in Cricket: Bouncy pitches coupled with a grass covering can help a seamer trouble the batters with some disciplined bowling.

That ‘it is difficult being a fast bowler’, is the one phrase that Cricket fans must have heard on multiple occasions at some point in their lives while getting to understand the basics and nuances of the sport.

While it remains quite a challenge for a fast bowler in particular, to remain injury-free for most parts of his Cricketing career, the involvement of pace, the use of the seam, the generation of swing, along with the need to hit the required line and length with respect to the batters or the conditions of play are some of the ingredients that go into the making of his successful career.

The two important facets of a pacer’s game, regardless the speed at which he/she bowls at, is the involvement of ‘seam’ and ‘swing’. While a bowler may rely completely on the use of swing as his main weapon, others might rely on their express pace to get the batter undone.

But, there have not been many bowlers, who use both the combination of swing and seam as the equally important parts of their arsenal, as the same requires decent amount of pace, skill, accuracy, and consistency to nail the art.

Seamer in Cricket

The word ‘seamer’ gets the name due to the involvement of the seam present on a Cricket ball. A seam refers to the external stitching on the ball across its circumference which acts as a grip for the bowler.

Seam bowling is basically an art to outfox or get a batter undone, due to the movement of the ball upon hitting the pitch.

A bowler can grip the ball with a seam-up, a tilted seam, a cross-seam, or even a scrambled-seam – all of which is used to provide the Cricket ball some movement off-the pitch upon the seam’s impact on it. It is the unpredictability of the movement of the ball upon landing on the surface that makes it a challenge for the batter to not only survive, but also score runs.

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Difference between swing and seam in Cricket

While seam bowling relies on the movement of the ball’s seam upon its impact on the pitch, swing bowling is based on the movement of the ball while in the air.

While breezy conditions do assist, the relatively heavy Cricket ball swings due a difference in the flow of air on either side of the seam.

A bowler can control the degree of swing  towards or away from the batter, known as inswing and outswing respectively. While this component depends on the shine of the ball, a bowler also needs to have a prefect grip on the seam in order to control the ball’s swing or to even come up with the desired direction of swing at all.

Other factors that go into performing seam and swing bowling are requirement of ideal conditions such as a green-top surface for sharper movement of the ball on impact, or the type of ball used as well. Balls with a prominent, hard seam helps the ball move for longer duration off the surface.