There’s no such thing as attacking bowling.

Or defensive bowling for that matter.

So, you should stop worrying about whether you are a strike bowler or a miserly line and length bowler and get on with doing your job, whatever the game situation needs.

Still incredulous?

Let’s look at the evidence.

1. The best bowlers are good at taking wickets and preventing runs. They are not typecast. They can do anything.
2. All bowlers take wickets and stop runs in the same way; the vast majority of wickets fall and the lowest number of runs are conceded by bowling on or just outside the off stump on a good length.
3. In situations where attack is important, you still look to prevent runs.
4. In situations where you are defending and trying to bowl dots, you still look to take wickets.
5. Situations where runs or wickets don’t matter at all to the fielding side are so rare to be insignificant.

So, if all the above is correct, surely you just need to run in, bowl at off stump and forget about attacking or defending?

That’s not quite right either.

Because the game situation still matters.

You might still be bowling at off stump on a good length, but if you are opening the bowling with a new ball and there are three slips waiting to catch the nick from your away swinger, your team is on the attack.

(Just be careful as the captain will take you off if you concede too many runs.)

At the other end of the scale, with the field back at the death, your team are defending the boundaries. Yorkers are higher on your mind, the most economical line and length is full and straight. You want to keep it down to a reasonable rate.

(You also would not turn down a wicket if the batsman is caught on the boundary would you?)

So, in every case - attack or defence - it’s really not you as a bowler who is doing the attacking or defending, it’s the batsmen and the fielders.

You are just applying your skills as best you can.

Reading the game

Of course, there is still a great big question for bowlers to be answered: How do you know when to use attacking or defending tactics?

The answer is part art and part science.

The science part comes from analysis: Looking at what works and when it works to decide what to do next time. For bowling we can look at:

• Strike Rate (SR)
• Runs per Over (RpO)
• Scoring Ball Percentage (SB%)
• Control Percentage (C%)

Looking at these measurements together, you can spot when a plan is working, and when changes need to be made.

For example, say you play a game where you bat first, set a good target and then look to bowl defensively by bowling lots of dot balls. The field is set to prevent runs more than take wickets.

You bowl well with a good line and length. The opposition can’t get the ball away and fall way behind the rate. However, they also do not lose wickets. It’s clear their tactic is to bide their time to have lots of wickets in hand to go hard at the end.

How do you know this from the numbers?

Well, despite the RpO and SB% well within your comfort zone for a win, you can see danger signs: SR is too high and C% matches your own. The opposition are not in trouble, even through they are not going for it.

It’s reasonable to assume that they will try to explode at the end and win in a blaze of boundaries.

What do you do at this point?

You could continue to play with defensive focus, try and stop the RpO and SB% rising for long enough. They will have left it too late to win.

Or, you could change your tack and actively look to take wickets. Set a more attacking field and take a few overs of worse RpO and SB% to gain in C% and SR.

Whichever you choose, look at what happens and take it as a piece of evidence you can use in in other games.

Did your tactic lead to the result you wanted? If so, how can you repeat it?

Did you look to defend but RpO and SB% went up anyway? What can you do to defeat this?

Did you attack, watch the RpO and SB% go up, watch the C% go in your favour but the SR didn’t go up? Could it be that your fielding let you down?

These kinds of questions can be answered by looking at the stats.

Now, It’s unlikely you will have access to these data live during the game - that’s where your art of the tactic needs fine tuning - but you can look at it after the match, spot what went well and badly and make sure you do more of the good stuff and less of the bad stuff.

That’s an effective feedback loop based on positive growth as a bowler. Not some strange notion that you are either a wicket-taker or a run-stopper.