Why 85mph is next barrier for women’s bowlers to break

A smooth acceleration in her run-up. The trademark move wide of the crease. Then, releasing the ball at rapid pace. These three simple steps have been the foundation of Shabnim Ismail’s brilliant career.

Last month, they made her a pioneer. A ball for Mumbai Indians in the Women’s Premier League, the equivalent of the Indian Premier League, was clocked at 82.1 mph – the fastest in women’s cricket.

Watching on from the dugout in Delhi was Issy Wong, England’s 21-year-old pace bowler and one of Mumbai’s travelling squad. One Ismail delivery – a rejected lbw appeal – was repeatedly shown on the big screen. Wong was perplexed, until she realised the feat. “I was buzzing for her,” says Wong, who would compare notes with Ismail on their techniques during net sessions.

England’s Lauren Filer, clocked at 76mph in last summer’s Ashes Test, was among the other bowlers struck by Ismail’s speed. “Those sort of numbers wouldn’t have been thought possible for a woman maybe even 10 years ago,” she says.

Bowling quickly is not the same as bowling well. But, for any pace bowler, the temptation to glance at the speed gun is hard to resist. “I try not to focus too much on bowling speeds,” says Filer. “But you’re always going to be interested in how quickly you bowl.”

An essential flaw runs through the pace race, in men’s and women’s cricket alike. Pace is gauged by speed guns, yet these are far from infallible.

There are two main ways used to assess speed: video-tracking and radar guns. These methods “are not perfect and do not always give a precise measure”, explains Dr Paul Felton, a biomechanics lecturer from Nottingham Trent University who has worked with the England and Wales Cricket Board. “The differences in methods, equipment and calculation processes make their use for comparing speeds across bowlers, locations and history challenging.” Such limitations “can result in scenarios where ball speed is systematically under- or over-predicted” from match to match.

But speed guns, however imperfect, still remain the best measure of pace. “Compared to men, there probably is a bigger physical development window for women bowlers to gain further speed,” Felton believes.

One advantage for women, explains Tim Olds from the University of South Australia, is using a lighter ball: the International Cricket Council mandates that balls are 155.9-163 grams for men’s internationals and 140-151g for women’s. Another advantage might be the schedule: the lack of Test cricket should make it easier for bowlers to focus on pace. Wong believes that training could become more specialised with quicks bowling, say, two spells of two overs each in the nets to maintain their peak pace.

Ismail, who has retired from international cricket, had three months off before the WPL. Then, aged 35, she bowled her record-breaking delivery.

Breaking barriers

“The four-minute mile is a brick wall, and I shan’t attempt it again,” the sprinter John Landy declared in April 1954. Landy had run the mile in four minutes and two seconds on six occasions.

A month later in Oxford, Roger Bannister ran the mile in three minutes and 59.4 seconds. “Apres moi, le deluge,” Bannister predicted. Forty-six days later, Landy beat his brick wall, running a mile in just three minutes and 57.9 seconds. It is an example raised by Wong, who is adamant that Ismail’s feat will show other women’s pace bowlers what is possible.

“There’s always room to keep going,” says Wong, who reached 74.4mph in last year’s Hundred. “Shabs has really shown us what’s possible. She’s been fantastic for fast bowling – without characters like her, you’d have less of us coming through.”

Perhaps as significant is the growing understanding of how women can bowl fast. It is only a decade since the onset of professionalism in women’s cricket, initially in England.

“Speaking to science and med, I think they’re still learning about female fast bowlers,” Wong says. “The playbook’s still there to be written because it’s trying to work out why do some people bowl faster than others.”

Felton is among those working to provide answers. Collaborating with the ECB and Loughborough University, he is collating data on women’s bowling. The work aims to illuminate the best actions and techniques for pace.

He has an intriguing theory that women’s pace suffers when actions are too closely modelled on those considered classical in the men’s game, such as Brett Lee or Dale Steyn. “A lot of female bowlers are running in too fast,” Felton believes. “This leads to technique issues associated with reduced ball-release speeds and injury risk.” While the research is ongoing, he thinks it likely that “females would benefit from identifying the run-up speed which allows them to best complete the bowling action within their physical control, rather than trying to run-up as fast as possible”.

Felton considers Ismail’s smooth technique a potential example of what could be the most efficient form of action. While she is 5ft 5in, below the height generally considered optimal in the men’s game, her size “maybe closer to the optimal size for females to bowl quick”, Felton says. “It is likely to be shorter for females due to the differences in physiology, but how much shorter is unknown.”

An underrated impact of professionalism is that cricket will attract athletes who might otherwise have had careers in other sports.

“We will see better athletes coming through the system – better coaching, better understanding of technique and what it means to bowl fast,” says Matt Mason, the fast bowling coach of the England women’s team. “We’re seeing a real improvement in the level of athlete that we have – that’s definitely translating into the skills.”

He cites 18-year-old left-armer Freya Kemp as one example. During a year working with the England management as she recovered from a stress fracture, Kemp gained six miles per hour, and has now been clocked at 68.6mph.

“How fast can women bowl? That question will probably not be answered for some time yet. We’re still really understanding a lot more about the differences between how women and men deliver speed.”

Consistency key

Amid all the excitement, one essential question remains: is faster always better? The evidence of Ismail’s record-breaking day was a resounding “no”. While her 82mph delivery to Meg Lanning did not yield a run, Ismail’s four overs returned figures of 1-46, far below her usual standards.

“I don’t believe speed is as important as it might be in the men’s game,” adds Mason. “When you have a 90-mile-an-hour-plus fast bowler in the men’s game, that really does impact because it’s so much faster.

“In the women’s game, the faster bowlers are so rare and the jumping speed is not as significant. So rather than being 70 miles now someone might be 75 – and that jump isn’t so significant that it causes a huge amount of issues for opposition players.

“High skill, consistency, bounce – these are attributes that we’re looking for.”

But the faster bowlers can get, the more they can unlock new possibilities. For the inswing bowlers common in women’s cricket, for instance, greater pace can make the ball appear to swing later in its path – thereby sharpening the threat posed to the stumps. The greater the speed, too, the greater the threat posed by the yorker.

While no player relishes facing greater pace, tailenders are particularly vulnerable. “Against the bottom six it does make a massive difference,” Wong believes. “It just brings in a whole new element of decision-making.”

Ultimately, bowling speed is likely to fall within the classic 80-90 per cent rule observed in most major Olympic sports, with women recording figures 10-20 per cent less than men. The differences between men and women in body speed and the speed of the arm when the ball is released, which determine pace, will translate into a difference of about 15 per cent in bowling speed between the sexes, Olds believes. This implies that 85mph pace might, just about, be attainable – at least, in front of a friendly speed gun. Why 85mph is next barrier for women’s bowlers to break.

Yet, for all the mystique of the fastest delivery, consistency of speed is more valuable. “There’s no point in a fast bowler hitting speeds of 75 miles an hour at the start of a tournament and being down around 70 at the back end,” Mason says.

The race to beat Ismail is on. But there is also awareness of a broader truth. The most fearsome women’s quicks of the new generation will not just be the ones who can find the greatest pace – but those who can maintain it.