Dear Nathan,
Mate, keep spinning hard and getting the ball above the level of the
batsman's eyes. You seem to know instinctively what I took years to
learn: that the key to spin bowling is not where the ball lands but how
it arrives. Spin hard, drive up and over your braced front leg with a
high bowling arm and you can defeat the best batsmen on any track,
anywhere, anytime.
My greatest practical lesson was bowling to the Nawab of Pataudi in
India long ago. The great old leggie Clarrie Grimmett, who got Don
Bradman plenty of times in his long career, told me to spin up and rely
heavily on my stock ball: if you bowl hard-spun offbreaks on an
attacking line and change your pace, you will get wickets. Like Shane
Warne, when first brought on to bowl I simply bowled my stock ball,
hard-spun and at slightly different paces, to ensure that I stayed in
the attack.
If you played under Bill Lawry, as I did first up in my career, and went
for a few runs in your first over, that might be your lot for the day.
Thankfully I came to play under Ian Chappell, who was terrific, as was
Mark Taylor down the track with Warne, Tim May and Mark Waugh. I think,
too, that Michael Clarke is in the Chappell-Taylor mould. He tries to
make things happen and he definitely has a rapport with your style and
skill and will back you.
I love the way you spin up on the attacking line against the
right-handers. Sometimes the right-hand batsman can snick an offbreak to
first slip simply because he has allowed for greater turn in towards
him. A ball with more over-spin on it may turn in a little, but not as
much as the batsman expects, and that gives you a better chance of
getting an outside edge. The one you got Doug Bracewell with in Brisbane
looked like the sort of delivery I'm talking about. Ian Chappell took
17 catches off me in Tests, mostly at first slip, and most of those were
the result of my getting more over-spin on those particular deliveries,
while the batsmen allowed for a greater breadth of turn.
After my first 10 Tests and 46 wickets, Bob Simpson came to me and said, "Where's your arm ball?"
I replied: "Arm ball? What's that, Simmo?"
The great Australian opening batsman showed me the way to hold the ball, running your index finger down the seam.
"That's not for me, Bob," I said. "I bowl offbreaks. I'm not a swing bowler."
Bruce Yardley used to say the best "arm ball" was the offie he bowled that carried straight on.
Jim Laker bowled an undercutter but some turned a good way and some went
like a legcutter. I put it to him: "Jim, the opposition are nine down.
One ball to go and six to win. The slogging right-hander is in and you
know he'll hit with the tide and try to win the game with a six. What
happens if the undercutter you bowl doesn't leave the right-hander, but
spins in from the off?"
He eyeballed me and in his laconic Yorkshire accent announced: "We lose!"
You have to give a bit to get a bit, and mate, you do that
instinctively. I have no hesitation in saying that you are the best
Australian offie I've seen in nearly 30 years. But you have to get your
field placement right. Against the left-handers you simply have to have a
straight midwicket. Why? Because we need to cover the straight-bat
shots with a straight midwicket and deepish mid-on. As long as you bowl
hard-spun, dipping offies on a line of middle stump, the batsman needs
to take a huge risk to hit against the spin.
When you bowl to a right-hander, your off-side field is vital;
conversely, when operating to a left-hander, your on-side field is
paramount. As offies we are trying to get the right-hand batsman to hit
against the spin to the off side, and left-handers to the on side.
Warne needed his straight midwicket to work a similar strategy. Against
the left-handers you need to bowl a straighter line, that is, middle,
middle and leg, so that if they miss you might hit off stump. That line,
because of the manner in which the ball is coming towards the batsman,
hard-spun and dipping, will make it tough for the best left-handers to
play you. It will also give you a better chance of hitting off stump.
Also, don't be afraid to bowl the odd spell over the wicket to a
left-hander. They're not used to it, and it is a good variation in
itself. Looking back at my own career, each time I got Clive Lloyd out
was when I bowled over the wicket.
I speak regularly with Graeme Swann about offspin in general, and lines.
We talk about change of pace, and about operating to attacking lines
and always spinning hard. We agree that the hard-spun, dipping ball to a
right-hander must be outside the eyeline. A hard-spun delivery curves
away a bit and that helps to create a gap between bat and pad.
| You have to give a bit to get a bit, and mate, you do that instinctively. I have no hesitation in saying that you are the best Australian offie I've seen in nearly 30 years. | |||
I showed Daniel Vettori and Swann the method of bowling a square
spinner. It is the offspinner's equivalent of the legbreak bowler's
slider, which is pushed out of the front of the hand. When you get it
right, the ball looks like an offbreak but appears to have less purchase
on it. Upon hitting the pitch, it skids on straight. Swann got Marcus
North a few times with that delivery, and he uses it a lot; he rarely
resorts to the one-finger swinger that Simmo was banging on to me about.
Vettori does bowl the one-finger arm-ball, which looks impressive but
rarely gets good players out. His square spinner gets him wickets.
The square spinner is so much better than the doosra for two reasons:
You cannot pick the square spinner, because it looks like an offbreak
but carries straight on. And for a bloke like you, who really spins and
bounces your stock offbreak, a doosra would probably be superfluous as
it might beat the bat of any right-hander by a mile. The field would
applaud, so too the captain, but the batsman would survive because moral
victories don't count in your wicket tally.
The best offie I saw was Erapalli Prasanna, the little Indian bowler.
You could hear the ball buzz when he delivered it. He said that spin
bowling was an invitation for the batsman to hit into the outfield. He
meant dropping or dipping the ball, so you do the batsman in the air and
the ball hits higher on his bat than he wants it to. When that happens,
there is a potential catch.
A word of warning: take care with whom you talk offspin, because I've
seen the nonsense going on at the Centre of Excellence, where spinners
are wired to music. There are precious few people in Australia who
really know much about offspin bowling. Keep spinning hard and follow
your instincts. You will find that subtle changes of pace, allied to
your hard-spun deliveries will help break the rhythm of the batsman and
bring you more wickets more often. Keep going as you are: your method of
bowling offbreaks is a joy to watch.
Yours in spin, and good luck
Ashley Mallett
Offspinner Ashley Mallett played 38 Tests for Australia
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