The Delivery That Defies Logic
In a era when batters are bigger, stronger and more aggressive than ever before, you might think the answer for bowlers lies in raw pace or precision yorkers. Sam Curran has found a rather different solution: bowl it so slowly that your opponent simply has no idea what to do with it. The left-armer's so-called 'moon ball' — an extraordinarily loopy, gentle delivery that floats through the air at barely half his usual speed — claimed another high-profile scalp in England's first ODI against Sri Lanka in January 2026, and it's fast becoming one of white-ball cricket's most talked-about weapons.
What Exactly Is a Moon Ball?
The moon ball is precisely what it sounds like: an ultra-slow, high-looping delivery designed not to beat the batter with pace or movement off the pitch, but to mess entirely with their timing and spatial awareness. Traditionally, this kind of delivery has been the preserve of spinners — former England and Leicestershire off-spinner Jeremy Snape was a notable exponent — but pace bowlers are increasingly adding it to their repertoire. What makes Curran's version particularly impressive is the sheer scale of the speed reduction involved. He can drop from a regular 83mph down to just 43mph, a difference of 40mph, while making only a subtle adjustment to his action and release point. That disguise is everything.
How Curran Pulls It Off
The technical execution is fascinating. According to former England fast bowler Steve Harmison, speaking on TNT Sports, Curran holds the ball between his first finger and thumb and releases it considerably further back in his delivery stride than he would for his standard off-cutter. Crucially, he works to maintain the same arm speed throughout, meaning the batter reads his body shape as a normal delivery before suddenly realising the ball is drifting towards them at little more than a gentle lob. Curran himself has spoken candidly about the hard work that goes into making it look natural. On the BBC's For The Love of Cricket podcast, he told former team-mate Stuart Broad: "I've worked so hard on trying to keep the arm speed the same and then I've got better at landing the ball at the right length." As with so many of cricket's most effective deliveries, it is the hours of repetition behind the scenes that makes the trick work under pressure.
Nissanka Falls Victim — And the Numbers Are Telling
In the first ODI against Sri Lanka, Sri Lankan opener Pathum Nissanka became the latest batter to be undone by the variation. He misjudged both the speed and trajectory of the delivery, clipping it straight to Liam Dawson. Perhaps the most striking illustration of just how slow this ball truly is came from a simple comparison: the delivery that dismissed Nissanka was measurably slower than each of spinner Rehan Ahmed's previous six balls in the same innings. A pace bowler bowling slower than a spinner — in an ODI, no less — is quite the feat. Curran finished with figures of 1-40 from his eight overs on the day, in a match England lost by 19 runs. Punters backing England at the start of the series will want to see that margin close in the matches ahead, as the defeat nudged Sri Lanka's series odds inward.
The Bigger Picture for Modern Bowling
Curran has already been deploying this variation to notable effect in The Hundred and the T20 Blast, so its arrival at ODI level feels like a natural progression. The broader point, though, is what this tells us about modern bowling. As batters continue to evolve and scoring rates climb ever higher, the most resourceful bowlers are finding ways to fight back that go beyond simply running in harder. Harmison, who himself once bamboozled Michael Clarke with a 65mph slow yorker during the iconic 2005 Ashes, understands the mindset well. The moon ball is Sam Curran's answer to a game increasingly stacked against bowlers — and on the evidence so far, batters are still working out how to respond.
