The top 5 exponents of the slower ball in world cricket today

#4 Lasith Malinga

Malinga in his prime was one of the deadliest bowlers in world cricket

‘Slinga-Malinga’ is well past his prime but he deserves to feature on this list as he was a revolution in deceptive slow ball bowling. Malinga had mastered the slower ball yorker, a considerably difficult ball to bowl.

And this ball remained the fear of batsmen across the world as Malinga bowled it with precision – right on the toe of the batsman.

The pace variation was even more lethal in Malinga’s case as he delivered the ball with the unusual round arm action that took batsmen by surprise each time he came on to bowl. The action coupled with the change in pace, brought about by subtle variation in arm speed, left the batsman guessing as to what pace the ball would come at them.

A perfect example of this is Warner’s wicket in the 2015 ICC World Cup match where Warner had gone through with the shot even before the ball had arrived, handing a simple catch at extra cover.

He not only induced false shots,but also got batsmen out bowled with the slow ball yorker, which beat batsmen below the bat before crashing into the stumps.

He won the Purple cap for the 2011 edition of the IPL and took Sri Lanka to the title of the ICC WT20 2014 under his captaincy.

An economy ate of 6.68 in IPL and one of the leading wicket takers in T20 cricket, Malinga remain one of the best exponents of the slow ball in the modern era.