How to bowl at 90mph
Now you see it now you don’t. Mitch Johnson’s unique bowling action briefly hides the ball from the batsman’s view
There are several distinct ways of bowling fast. In this BBC video, two are illustrated. Mitchell Johnson’s dramatic slingshot style and Steven Finn’s alternative coil and spring method. Fast bowlers all find their own way of propelling the ball down quickly but they also need ‘fast-twitch fibres’ – rapid contraction and expansion of hundreds of small muscles and tendons in the body which enable the arm to brought over quickly and the ball to be rapidly released. Johnson has the added advantage that the ball in his bowling hand is briefly obscured from the batsman’s view as he prepares to bowl makes his deliveries even harder to sight.
