New Delhi: There are few more exciting battles in cricket than that of a fast bowler running in full tilt at a batter who is looking to have a go. But flat tracks, modern bats, shorter boundaries, fielding restrictions and Powerplays have taken the edge of the most visceral of fights.

Pace is pace but in the T20 era, the faster you bowl, the faster you disappear into the stands. The equation needs something to play the balancing role and that act is being played by the change-up delivery; the slower ball that can stop the bat swing in its tracks.

And that is why almost every pacer in this generation owes a debt of gratitude to Franklyn Stephenson, who conceived the slower ball while playing for Rawtenstall in the Lancashire leagues during the early ‘80s.

If you haven’t heard of him, put it down to the Rebel Tours of South Africa by a team of West Indies cricketers in the Eighties. It meant that he missed out on Test selection but his innovation saw him achieve great success in first-class cricket (219 matches, 792 wickets at an average of 24.26).

He could bat too but it was the slower ball that saw him leave an imprint on the game that simply refuses to fade away. Like many West Indian bowlers of that era, he could be quick but it was his moonball slower delivery (the kind that Chris Cairns famously fooled Chris Read into thinking a yorker was a beamer at Lord’s in 1999) that was truly game-changing.

Stephenson, however, wasn’t initially thinking of bamboozling the batter. Rather, his focus was inwards, on his own body. An overseas professional in County cricket, he was expected to bowl a lot of overs. So, he wanted to give his body a break from the business of bowling fast all the time.

West Indian quick Andy Roberts used his two-pace bouncers in the 1970s. Australian legend Dennis Lillee would often go to his cutters. But this was different, it needed to be.

To watch Stephenson bowl the delivery, do a quick search for ‘Essex vs Nottinghamshire B&H Final Lord’s’ and watch the second over intently. Two slower balls, bowled in succession, had the Essex opener Brian Hardie ducking for cover because he thought they were beamers. The first hit him on the pads, just outside the off-stump, and the second found its mark, disturbing the timber, with the batter taking his eyes off the ball.

“I tested it in the nets and it really caused a lot of havoc,” Stephenson told ESPNCricinfo in 2015. “When I tried it in a game it was a real revelation - nobody knew what had happened! As I let it go of the ball, the batsman would duck and the ball would then drop and hit the base of the stumps. When it came out of my hand it kind of floated and a lot of batsmen thought it was a beamer. That was an amazing thing. I got stronger and stronger at it for a couple of years in the leagues before I then bowled it at county level.”

His success inspired others. Former New Zealand allrounder Chris Cairns, a flat mate of Stephenson’s, picked the Bajan’s brain to learn the trick. Wasim Akram, one of the true masters of the art, developed his in 1991 after watching Stephenson trick county batsmen.

“I said I must learn to bowl it,” Akram said. “I spoke to a lot of people, Malcolm Marshall, Richard Hadlee, and then went to the nets and worked on it.”

That was the start but now, we have hit prime time. Almost every bowler worth his name has to have the change-up in his armoury. It is fashionable, the ticket to the T20 leagues and the international scene. Without it, you are one-dimensional. With it, a gamechanger.

Of course, some do it better than others. Former West Indian pacer Dwayne Bravo had a multitude of variations, Lasith Malinga’s slower bouncers are legendary, Australian pacer Ian Harvey (bowling coach of Nepal now) had a different slower ball for each ball of the over and there is the incomparable Jasprit Bumrah, whose accuracy and execution is unmatched.

Innovation is the name of the game, it always has been. Present the world with something they haven’t seen before and it takes them a while to come to terms with it. The really skilled bowlers have no tell in their action, nothing that signals their intention to the batter. The same run-up, the same action, the same arm speed.

To be effective in this era of high bat speeds and predetermined shots, you need something to take the batters out of the fast lane and that is what the slower ball is. Stephenson, it might be said, set out to find a way to take a load off his shoulders but he ended up doing the same for so many bowlers around the world.