Apologia for the Old Ball

I don’t really care much for cricket, but my dad does. He told me once about how Pakistan produced some of the greatest fast-bowlers in the world. I looked it up and I’m pretty sure it’s apocryphal, but it’s a good story.

Fast bowlers tend to bowl right at the start of the match, because this is when the ball is newest. The new ball is unmarred by pitch and play – its prominent seam and smooth surface are the fast bowler’s advantage, allowing him to generate greater pace, bounce, and swing.

Imran Khan, the erstwhile Pakistani captain, denied his fast bowlers the right to use the new ball during training. As far as they were concerned, the old, pockmarked ball was all a cricket ball could be.

On match day, at long last, the Pakistani bowler finally got his hands on that new ball. And with it, Wasim Akram earned the epithet “the sultan of swing”. Seems to have worked out well for them.

I can’t bring myself to believe that our works will maintain perpetual superiority over AI’s. The derivative is too steep. Nor can I hold onto some ineffable quality exclusive to the human hand, on account of some more prosaic metaphysical commitments.

But I do believe that those who practice with the old ball end up bowling fastest with the new one. That seems like a sensible idea to me.