Cricket physicist Dr Brian Wilkins, having conquered the mysteries of swing bowling; is now close to conquering new fields of cricket's science.

Along with colleagues from Wellington's Victoria University, notably Dr Colin Cook, Wilkins is about to see a machine, which measures the pace of cricket balls off the pitch and the angle of bounce, come to fruition.

Progress on the machine has been delayed due to funding constraints through the university, especially as they applied to the machine's electronics.

However, news has recently been received that the electronics work will be completed which should help get the machine operational and saleable before the new season starts.

"We have had some interesting results although there has been some instability in some areas," Wilkins said of the earlier models of the testing machine.

"But we've had several calls from the New Zealand Turf Institute which is interested in the machine," he said.

Cook has improved the initial concept of the machine by adding a laser beam to help the measurements.

The pair hopes to publish several papers on their findings.

Wilkins, a retired professor in pharmaceutical science, has also started a one-man campaign to stop the misuse of accepted cricket terms, such as "reversing" and "seaming".

Phase one was an article in the August issue of The Cricketer International, titled "The new semantics".

"Use of 'reversing' is being overdone by commentators. We are seeing 'reversing' being used for bowling that is classical swing bowling," he said.

What Wilkins would like to see is those same commentators who talk about 'reversing' the ball, asking a bowler what he is actually doing to 'reverse' the ball.

In reality, he was sure all they would come up with would be a classic demonstration of either out or in-swing.

Wilkins is convinced that the only time unnatural swing causes the ball to go the other way to that intended is when the ball has suffered human interference.

"For the first time in my experience, match referee John Reid took action against interference with the ball recently.

"The laws of the game are designed to reward skill. If you can get the ball to swing by holding the seam straight, there's no skill in that.

"Before John Reid's action there has been very little sign that the International Cricket Council has taken the issue seriously, hopefully that is about to change," Wilkins said.

There had been some criticism of Wilkins' stance that wear on the ball; especially on one side of the ball could only be achieved by artificial means.

"If the pitch is abrasive enough to cause wear on the ball, it will do it on both sides of the ball, not just one," he said.

Wilkins also said that his studies have also shown that it takes only the smallest change to the cover of the ball to get swing.

"I've done dozens of experiments and they have shown that even the smallest change can have an effect," he said.

'Seaming' is another expression he would like to see eradicated from commentating terminology.

He feels there was a misconception of what 'seaming' meant.

In its original meaning it described a bowler capable of deviating the ball by methods other than finger-spin.

But to listen to descriptions nowadays, the ball actually hits the pitch and then deviates from that point as a result of the seam coming to rest on the pitch.

In fact, what is most often seen, is the ball curving through the air just before bouncing, and continuing in that direction. The comment is then made that the ball has seamed away.

Wrong.

The potential to cut the ball was always there for swing bowlers, however.

Out-swing bowlers had the ability to get the ball to cut back in from the off side, and in-swing bowlers vice versa.

This was caused by the natural rotation of the ball through the air to create the swing which, when landing bit back off the pitch.

However, this was less common nowadays due to the harder modern pitches, Wilkins said.

© CricInfo