Types of bowlers in cricket
Open-knowledge reference entry
In the sport of cricket there are two broad categories of bowlers: pace and spin. Pace bowlers rely mostly on the speed of the ball to dismiss batsmen, whereas spin bowlers rely on the rotation and turn of the ball to deceive the batter.
Pace bowlers
Pace bowlers, or fast bowlers or pacemen, rely on speed to get a batter out. This type of bowler can be further classified according to the speed at which they bowl the ball on average.
Most pace bowlers are medium-fast to fast in top level cricket. In general, bowlers of this type are described as right-arm or left-arm "fast" or "medium-fast". Another technique of fast bowling is the sling action. This action generates extra speed but sacrifices control. Exponents include Jeff Thomson, Waqar Younis, Lasith Malinga, Mitchell Johnson, Fidel Edwards, Shaun Tait and Jasprit Bumrah.
Though there may have been faster balls bowled, the highest electronically measured speed (after speed guns became popular) for a ball bowled by any bowler is 161.3 km/h (100.23 mph), bowled by Pakistan's Shoaib Akhtar to England's Nick Knight on 22 February 2003 in a World Cup match at Newlands, Cape Town, South Africa; this was also the first ball ever officially measured to break the 100 mph barrier.
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