Abolish the LBW - it has no place in the modern world

by Girish Menon

The cricket world appears to be at war between technophiles who argue that technology (DRS) can be used to solve some of its most vexatious decisions while others claim that technology may solve questions about fact  but is inadequate to solve questions based on conjecture and opinion. In continuance with my earlier piece, 'Would the BCCI act like Mandela' (original draft), this article will argue that LBW is an archaic form of dismissing a batsman, it calls for repealing the LBW laws and will suggest alternative measures to prevent a batsman illegitimately impeding the progress of the cricket ball.

Imagine the following two scenarios:

1. Person X is caught on camera unsheathing his knife and plunging it into the body of person Z who is asleep in his bed. As a result Z is dead.

2. Person Y is caught on camera unsheathing his knife, however, unlike X, Y was unable to plunge his knife into the body of person Z. As a result Z is still alive today.

What do you think will be the punishment meted out to persons X and Y in a court of law? If this is a country still practising the death penalty, will person Y be awarded the highest form of punishment like person X? This writer believes that person Y will not be given the same punishment as person X since person Y has not committed the crime of murder.

This analogy to a murder trial resembles the judgement involved in an LBW decision. In an LBW appeal the bowler claims that if the ball had not been illegitimately impeded then it would have definitely hit the stumps. Hence the batsman who impeded the ball must be given the batsman's equivalent of the death penalty. The technophiles, who are in favour of using DRS to adjudicate on LBW decisions, argue that technology can definitely be used to prove that the ball would have hit the stumps if it had not been impeded. To technophiles I would ask a question that is the favourite of detectives, 'Where is the body?' Since the body, i.e. the stumps are undisturbed, is alive no murder has yet been committed and therefore there is no case for the prosecution.

Hence I would like to make a suggestion which may unite the technophiles and those opposed to using the DRS for an LBW decision. I suggest that the LBW as a method of dismissing a batsman should be struck off from the laws of cricket. Instead, a run penalty should be imposed on the batsman every time the ball comes in contact with his 'illegitimate' body parts. The DRS could be used to ascertain such decisions as well. The penalty could be similar to the one imposed on a fielding team when the ball hits its helmet parked on the field.

The LBW decision is an opinion and the law courts have increasingly realised the inadequacies of expert opinions to convicting defendants. Similarly, cricket should evolve into modernity by getting rid of decisions based on opinions and try to be governed only by facts. I look forward to this debate. 

England's Strategy for Success

All for One, One for All

Simon Hughes in Cricinfo

It was in 1997 that the chairman of the ECB, Lord MacLaurin, declared England would be the best team in the world within a decade. His aspiration was ridiculed at the time - and two years later England sank to the bottom of the unofficial Wisden world rankings. In 2011, with the 4-0 win over India, they finally realised their ambition. Four years late, perhaps, but no one was counting - even if the calculators were out again in 2012 when they lost 3-0 to Pakistan. 

There were many reasons for their elevation, not least the decline of other, once distinguished, sides. But to cite that alone would be to belittle England's feat, which was the result of considerable talent, careful planning and total dedication. To attain sporting predominance, it was ever thus.

Central contracts, introduced during Duncan Fletcher's regime, in 2000, were a major factor. They gave the players a sense of belonging at international level, empowered the coaches to work closely with their charges and, vitally, gave them time. England now have a backroom staff who at times outnumber the players. While this arouses some scepticism in the media, especially among the in-my-day fraternity, there is no doubting their worth as England transformed the art of cricket into something more scientific. In that spirit, here is a suitably ordered analysis of their route to the top.

 

1. The right stuff
 

It all began when Andrew Strauss and Andy Flower, two determined and ambitious men, joined forces in early 2009. Their first step was to identify players with the right character, and sift out anyone not completely in tune with the team's goals. Chief among these were Andrew Flintoff - emblematic as ever as he approached the end of his career, but a law unto himself - and his faintly lethargic sidekick Steve Harmison. Flower recognised the team was sprinkled with what he regarded as individual plcs and saw the importance of selling them off. He and Strauss developed a slogan, "The team is not a hire car", which encouraged the players to treat it with care and respect, rather than take advantage of it like a hatchback leased from Avis. They introduced a new level of commitment, consideration and honesty, and everyone bought into the ethos. Now, there was genuine delight at each other's successes.

 

2. Cover all bases
 

Keen to draw on ideas from other sports, Flower went to The Oval soon after taking over to watch a game of American football, strangely enough. He was struck not only by the number of coaches employed by the NFL's Green Bay Packers, but by the meticulous organisation of the pre-match training. As a result, England rehearse their roles with all manner of accessories. There are bright orange ramps off which close catches are skimmed; extra-thin bats for slicing slip catches; rubber clubs for whacking balls into orbit; springy stumps or mini-goals to shy at; and small square frames of elasticated mesh off which the ball ricochets to replicate bat-pad catches. Every possible fielding scenario is visualised and practised with total concentration. Unsurprisingly, England's out-cricket has been consistently better than anyone else's, while Jimmy Anderson - who among other key positions now stands at slip to Graeme Swann - is possibly the best all-round fielder England have ever had.

 

3. Wot no football?
 

Warm-ups with a kickabout had become an incongruous cliche´: in no other sport do players prepare by playing, well, another sport. Since the arrival as fitness coach of Welshman Huw Bevan, the former conditioning coach of the Ospreys rugby union team, England's training has been more rigorous, while the drills fit the disciplines. Fast bowlers are taken through a succession of 24 short sprints to replicate a four-over spell. Batsmen bat overs and are ordered to run the occasional three during an enervating net. Fielders are carefully filmed to pinpoint their biomechanical strengths and weaknesses. Data relating to successful catches, diving stops and run-outs is also collated by assistant coach Richard Halsall.

With an incessant schedule and frequent back-to-back Tests, stamina is vital. By keeping training varied, Bevan has raised fitness standards to almost Olympic levels. One of Flower's favourite moments of the 2010-11 Ashes win came when Jonathan Trott, after batting more than eight hours for an undefeated 168 in Melbourne, still had the energy, alertness and agility to swoop low at extra cover and run out Phil Hughes early in Australia's reply. The practice - amusing to some - of running over to a team-mate to congratulate him after a good stop not only induces a feeling of claustrophobia in the batsman but wards off lethargy in the field.

 

4. The whole world in one place
 

For some time England have led the field in cricket gadgets. Following on from Merlyn, an ingenious piece of engineering that can propel any kind of spin to precise specification, was ProBatter, a souped-up bowling machine that had the approach and delivery of opposing bowlers projected, film-like, on to its front to face the batsman. Using Hawk-Eye data, it can even reproduce actual overs from Tests.

This is as close as it gets to cricketing time travel: if you didn't handle a spell very well first time round, now is your chance to make amends. In effect, ProBatter transports the international game's bowling brethren to the nets at the ECB Academy in Loughborough. There is also a device that measures the amount of revolutions imparted by a spinner; unsurprisingly, Swann scores highly.

 

5. Pinpoint accuracy
 

England collect a wealth of data on their opponents. For any opposing batsman, the pitch is divided into coloured squares, with a statistic in each one revealing how the batsman fares when the ball lands there. In some cases, it confirms what everyone already knew: Mike Hussey, for example, is brutal against anything short and wide. But it also offers the bowlers clues about a batsman's weaknesses: in 2011, it proved a major aid in combating Sachin Tendulkar, as England plugged away outside off in the knowledge this was the best means of keeping him quiet.

Most significantly, England had the bowlers to put these plans into action. Anderson, in particular, can land the ball in the same spot time after time, though he is also extraordinarily versatile. Two deliveries from the recent past stand out: the ball to dismiss the left-handed Hussey for eight in Melbourne, tantalisingly pitched a fraction outside off stump, just short of a half-volley, inviting the drive, then nipping away a fraction to take the edge; and a near mirror-image to the right-handed Virender Sehwag in the second innings at Edgbaston. The plan had been to bowl straight as a die, but Stuart Broad said in the dressing-room beforehand: "I've just had a vision: Sehwag caught Strauss bowled Anderson zero." Anderson decided to offer the Indian opener, on a pair, the carrot of a driveable ball. Just as Broad had predicted, Sehwag had a swish and sliced it to Strauss at first slip to depart for a king pair. Despite their superb discipline, then, the bowlers were never dissuaded from going with their hunches.

 

6. Cherish the ball
 

The potency of a new ball is taken as read, and England generally make excellent use of it. With the help of bowling coach David Saker they focused on the periods when a ball is older and less effective, and worked on different strategies. Led by Anderson, they developed the wobble-seam delivery for use when the ball has lost its initial shine - after about 20 overs - but still has a proud seam. Released with the seam slightly canted, rather than bolt upright, the ball lands on the edge of the seam, then moves unpredictably. With meticulous care, they were also able to find reverse-swing earlier, sometimes by the 12th over. The key is to keep the ball scrupulously dry, so it is kept off the grass, or bounced on bare, rough parts of the square, and religiously passed back to the bowler via the sweat-free Alastair Cook.

 

7. Don't change gear
 

If bowlers are Test-match finishers, then batsmen do the spadework. But until recently England have rarely run up mammoth totals. Watching the way prolific subcontinental batsmen such as Mahela Jayawardene and Rahul Dravid assembled their scores, they realised the secret was to keep playing the same way throughout an innings, rather than seek to go through the gears and finally dominate the bowlers. Players such as Cook and Trott abided by this philosophy, picking up their runs quietly, unobtrusively, incessantly. They never sought to score in unfamiliar areas, sticking instead to their own risk-free plans. Cook's extraordinary propensity to avoid sweating - his sole pair of batting gloves were still bone dry after his marathon 294 against India at Edgbaston - has certainly helped.

Graham Gooch - England's leading run-scorer and now the batting coach - has been a major influence in this regard. He focused the players' minds with simple sayings like "play straight - be great", and encouraged them to convert "daddy" hundreds (150-plus) into "grand-daddies" (200-plus). He has also been unstinting in his support, whether feeding them thousands of balls with his ingenious Sidearm thrower, or hardening their mental approach. The result was six individual double-centuries in 12 Tests and seven team totals of over 500.

 

8. The end of the tail-end
 

One statistic put the England-India series into perspective: England's last five wickets averaged 57 runs each; India's 20. This was no accident, for the England lower order spend almost as much time in the nets as the main batsmen. Importantly, though, there is no pressure applied to them from the top and middle order: each lower-order batsman ("tailender" now feels obsolete) is encouraged to be positive and do what comes naturally, as long as it is not reckless and takes into consideration both the batting partner and the match situation.

 

9. Doing the maths
 

Flower was profoundly influenced by Moneyball, Michael Lewis's fascinating account of how the Oakland Athletics baseball team used statistics and computer analysis to improve their results. The recruitment of Nathan Leamon - cricket coach, maths boffin, and known in the team as "Numbers" - has been significant. On a daily basis, he enters individual, team, ground and other historical data into the Monte Carlo simulator, a specially designed computer program which forecasts the probability of various eventualities. These projections form the basis of England's decision-making - from team selection and what to do at the toss, to declarations, field settings and bowling strategies. Leamon played the Melbourne Test of 2010-11 through his simulator thousands of times in advance, concluding that England were 15-20% more likely to win if they bowled first. The statistics not only convinced England, but also invigorated them after their defeat at Perth: on Boxing Day, at the spiritual home of Australian sport, they put the home side in and promptly skittled them for 98. Three days later, the Ashes had been retained.

 

10. A constant quest
 

As a player, Flower had a restless desire for self-improvement. As a coach, he has imbued that urge in his team, though he admitted he fell short of his own high standards before the series against Pakistan in the UAE; if that was untypical, his honesty was not. Flower says he tries to make each individual keen to discover how good they can possibly be, which is why he and the coaching staff offer the players regular challenges to better themselves. The squad met at Cardiff Castle at the beginning of last summer to discuss how they could continue to progress. All the bowlers and three batsmen - Cook, Trott and Pietersen - were regarded as having attained world-class status after the Ashes, but others were lagging behind. By the end of last summer, during which the bowlers continued to reign supreme, England had four batsmen (now including Ian Bell) in the world top 10, two genuine allrounders (Broad and Tim Bresnan), plus Matt Prior, who had the best batting average of any England wicketkeeper. In short, they had no weak link. In the end, it was hardly surprising they crushed India.

Between the nadir of 51 all out in Jamaica in February 2009 and the end of 2011, England played 34 completed Tests, won 20 and lost only four. When asked to pinpoint one underlying reason for their success, Strauss said simply: "A team working together." While this may sound tautological, in high-level sport it is notoriously hard to achieve. Just ask Martin Johnson or Fabio Capello.

Shouldering the pain of throwing

Andrew Leipus in Cricinfo

Able to bowl but not throw because of shoulder pain? Or maybe you have lost power in your throw? Have to throw side-arm? Does your whole arm go "dead" for a few seconds after you release the ball? Or you are now experiencing a click, crunch or clunk when you lift the arm? These are just some of the many symptoms and behaviours that can be present in the cricketer's shoulder and which can help clinicians diagnose what your underlying problem might be. 

There can't be a shoulder discussion without a brief anatomy lesson. In terms of understanding the basics, the glenohumeral joint is a shallow ball-and-socket design, allowing a huge amount of mobility yet remaining as stable as possible. It also has to tolerate massive torques or rotational forces generated. Some people equate the head of the humerus (HOH) and its relation to the scapula with a golf ball sitting on a tee, i.e. easy to topple over. But it is actually more like trying to balance a soccer ball on your forehead, with both the ball and the head/body constantly moving to maintain "balance" and stop the ball from dropping off. It is this balance between the socket joint and the scapula position which we need to consider in the cricketer's shoulder as it is where a lot of problems begin and where a lot of rehab programmes fail.

As is the case with all injuries, the anatomy often lets us down by not being able to cope with the functional demands. Some injuries develop acutely, such as occurs with one hard throw when off balance, and some develop over a period of time through lots of high repetition - degenerative type injuries. The two most commonly injured structures in cricket are the infamous rotator cuff and the glenoid labrum.

The cuff is a group of small muscles acting primarily to pull and hold the HOH into its glenoid socket. The long head of biceps tendon assists the rotator cuff in this role. The labrum is a circular cartilage structure designed to "cup" or deepen this socket and provide attachment for the biceps tendon.

An injury to the labrum results in the HOH having excess translatory motion and not staying centred in the glenoid. The cuff then has to work harder to compensate for this structural instability. This translation often results in a "clunky" shoulder or one which goes "dead" when called upon to throw at pace. Anil Kumble's shoulder had a damaged labrum due to his high-arm legspin action. Years of repetitive stress had detached his labrum from the glenoid, resulting in the need for surgery. He's not alone. Muttiah Muralitharan and Shane Warne also had shoulder surgeries in their careers. And it's not just spin bowling, as many labral compression injuries occur during fielding when diving onto an outstretched arm.

Injury to the cuff, however, also results in a dynamic instability, whereby the HOH is again not held centred, and subsequently over time stresses both the labrum and cuff. Impingement is a common term used to describe a narrowing of the space in the shoulder that can result from this loss of centering. The cuff doesn't actually need to be injured for this to occur - repetitive throwing can tighten the posterior cuff muscles and effectively "squeeze" the HOH out of its normal centre of rotation in the glenoid. It really is a vicious circle and cricketers compound any underlying dysfunction by the repetitive nature of the game. They might not throw much in a match but when they do it is usually with great speed. The bulk of the throwing volume occurs during their practice sessions.

And when talking about shoulder mechanics we need to also understand critical role of the scapula. In order to ensure that the HOH remains remain centred in the glenoid, the scapula must slide and rotate appropriately around the chest wall (that soccer ball example). Any dysfunction in scapula movement is typically evidenced by a "winging" motion when the arm is elevated or by observing the posture of the upper back. Whether the winging comes before the injury or as a consequence is hotly debated. Either way it needs to function properly. And to complicate things even further, the thoracic spine also needs to be able to extend and rotate fully to allow the scapula to move. Kyphotic or slouched upper backs are terrible for allowing the arm to reach full elevation and is a big contributor to shoulder problems.

It should be clear that in order for a cricketer's shoulder to be pain-free, there needs to be a lot of dynamic strength and mobility of the upper trunk and shoulder girdle. But throwing technique is equally critical to both performance and injury prevention. Studies have shown that the shoulder itself contributes only 25% to the release speed of the ball. To impart this 25%, the angular velocity of the joint can reach 7000 degrees per second. However, what is interesting is that a whopping 50% is contributed by the hips and trunk when the player is in a good position for the throw (allowing for a coordinated weight transfer). But when off-balance and shying at the stumps, as often occurs within the 30-yard circle, the shoulder alone can be called upon to produce more than its usual load. Thus it is important to remember that throwing should be considered as a whole body skill.

	Injury to the deep joint capsule ligaments and biceps tendon are difficult to diagnose but can account for that "problem" shoulder © Getty Images Enlarge

Often a player will be able to bowl without experiencing symptoms, but will struggle to throw. In these cases, it is common to find pathology involving the long head of biceps or where it anchors superiorly onto the labrum. The latter is also commonly known as a SLAP lesion. In the transition from the cocking to acceleration phase of throwing, the shoulder is forcefully externally rotated. The biceps is significantly involved in stabilising the HOH at this point and often pulls so hard that it peels the labrum off the glenoid, giving symptoms of pain and instability. The overhead bowling action, however, does not put the shoulder into extremes of external rotation and hence symptoms do not usually occur. If pain is experienced during the release phase of throwing then there is a good chance that technique is again at fault. In order to decelerate the arm after the ball is released, the trunk and arm need to "follow through", using the big trunk muscles and weight shift towards the target. Failure to do this results in a massive eccentric load on the biceps tendon, also potentially tugging on its anchor on the glenoid. Throwing side-arm to avoid extremes of external rotation and pain is a common sign that all is not well internally.

As you can see, an injury to the shoulder is not a simple problem. And there are many other types of pathology found. It requires thorough assessment and management of a host of potential contributing factors which are mostly modifiable when identified. And whilst a lot can go wrong in a cricketer's shoulder, there is a lot that can be done to make sure it stays strong and healthy. Because prevention is always better than surgery in terms of outcomes, next week I'll discuss some shoulder training and injury prevention tips used by elite cricketers.

On off spin bowling

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

© ESPN EMEA Ltd.

Abolish The Death Penalty in Cricket; I Mean the LBW

by Giffenman

In modern times many societies have abolished the death penalty as a form of punishment even for the most heinous crimes. One reason is that the judicial process is based on convincing a jury that such a crime was committed. Therefore one could say that a jury’s verdict is an opinion about an event and not a fact. I’d like to suggest that an LBW decision in cricket is the death penalty for a batsman and like the judicial process is based on opinion and not on fact. Hence it should be abolished.

When an appeal of LBW is made the umpire has to determine ‘whether the ball would have gone to hit the stumps if its progress had not been impeded by the batsman’s leg’. This is a point of opinion and not a point of fact.

Even in modern times where the form of pre-emptive justice is proving increasingly popular, no ‘suspected terrorist’ is given the death penalty because s/he may have been plotting a crime. The reason being that a crime has not been actually committed. Thus juries are loath to condemn such individuals to the gallows.

Similarly in the case of an LBW decision, since the ball has not hit the stumps there is no way one can be sure that the ball would have hit the stumps if unimpeded. It may have hit the stumps 99% of the time but there is no way of being sure. Hence a batsman in my view should not be declared out since that is akin to awarding the death penalty for a crime not committed.

Those opposed to this idea will immediately say removal of the LBW decision will be an incentive to batsmen to use their legs to prevent the ball from hitting the stumps. My suggestion is that every time the batsmen is found LBW in the opinion of the umpire and the DRS then he should be docked 25 runs. But a death penalty, i.e. an LBW, is too harsh a punishment for an event that has not occurred.

A spinner's flight plan

 

The great spinners visualised their wickets and deceived the batsmen in the air. But why are today's bowling coaches almost always fast men?

Ashley Mallett in Cricinfo

July 24, 2011

In my first over in Test cricket, to Colin Cowdrey at The Oval in August 1968, I appealed for lbw decisions for the first four balls. The fifth ball was the decider. Cowdrey went well back and the ball cannoned into his pads halfway up middle stump. Umpire Charlie Elliott raised his index finger, and "Kipper" touched the peak of his England cap and said to me, "Well bowled, master."

In hindsight Cowdrey was a pretty good wicket, given that he had conquered the spin of Sonny Ramadhin and Alf Valentine at a time when I was trying to track down an ice-cold Paddle Pop in Perth.

Test cricket is the ultimate challenge for the spin bowler. Sadly Twenty20s and ODIs bring mug spinners to the fore. They skip through their overs and bowl "dot" balls, which their legion of hangers-on believe to be something akin to heaven. Test spinners are all about getting people out. After all, the best way to cut the run rate is to take wickets.

Before getting into big cricket I felt the need to have a coaching session with Clarrie Grimmett. I was 21, living in Perth, and Clarrie, a sprightly 76, was based in Adelaide. To my mind a spinner cannot be doing things all that brilliantly if he thinks he is a pretty good bowler but doesn't get many wickets. That was my lot, and I sought Clarrie's advice. Two days in the train from Perth to Adelaide, then a short bus ride to the suburb of Firle, found Clarrie at home. He was up the top of an ancient pepper tree.

There he had hung a ball in a stocking. He handed me a Jack Hobbs-autographed bat, and having dismissed my protestations that I wanted to learn spin bowling, not batting, he said with a broad grin: "Well, son, there was a youngster I taught to play the square cut on the voyage to England in 1930 and… Don Bradman was a fast learner."

Clarrie swung one ball towards me and I met it in the middle of his bat. We then went to the nets. Clarrie had a full-sized turf wicket in his backyard. He wandered to the batting end. He wore no protective equipment - no box, no pads or gloves. Just his Jack Hobbs bat. "Bowl up, son," he cried.

My first ball met the middle of his bat. He called me down the track. "Son," he said, "Give up bowling and become a batsman… I could play you blindfolded."

As it happened I had a handkerchief in my pocket. He put that over his horn-rimmed glasses and my second ball met the middle of his bat. When he had stopped laughing he proceeded to give me the best possible lesson on spin bowling. He talked about spinning on a trajectory just above the eye line of the batsman. 

Eighteen months later I was playing a Test match in India. The Nawab of Pataudi was facing, and while he was not smashing my bowling all over the park, he was clearly in control. I had to find a way to arrest the situation, so I thought of Grimmett and the necessity of getting the ball to dip acutely from just above the eye line.

It worked. The dipping flight fooled him to the extent that he wasn't sure exactly where the ball would bounce. Pataudi pushed forward in hope rather than conviction, and within four balls Ian Chappell had grabbed another bat-pad chance at forward short leg.

A spinner needs a plan to get wickets at the top level. Even a bad plan is better than no plan at all, but it is not about reinventing the wheel.

Grimmett had many a plan. He told me that he often saw the image of a batsman he was about to dismiss in his mind's eye. When the wicket fell, he was nonchalant, for this was the action replay. Nowadays visualisation is an official part of cricket coaching.

The key to spin bowling is how the ball arrives. If the ball is spun hard and the bowler gets lots of energy up and over his braced front leg, he will achieve a dipping flight path that starts just above the eye line and drops quickly.

Grimmett firmly believed, as does Shane Warne, that a batsman had to be deceived in the air. Warne's strategy at the start of a spell was to bowl his fiercely spun stock legbreak with subtle changes of pace. Similarly my idea was to stay in the attack. There is nothing worse for a bowler than to go for 10 or 12 runs in his first over. Psychologically you are then playing catch-up to make your figures look reasonable.

	If a spinner doesn't plan he doesn't change his pace and thus does not break the rhythm of the batsman. It is crucial to a Test spin bowler's success that he attacks with subtle changes of pace

As an offspinner I found if my off-side field was in order the rest fell into place. My basic plan against a right-hander was to have the ball arriving in a dangerous manner: spin hard and drive up and over the braced front leg. And I wanted to lure the batsman into trying to hit to the off side, against the spin, to look at the huge gap between point and my very straight short cover. When a batsman hit against the spin and was done in flight, the spin would take the ball to the on side - a potential catch to bat-pad or short midwicket. Sometimes this plan doesn't work - the batsman might be clean-bowled, or if the ball skipped on straight, caught at slip, or it would cannon into his front pad for no result.  (Also a leg spinner's plan to a left hand batter)

If a spinner doesn't plan he doesn't change his pace and thus does not break the rhythm of the batsman. It is crucial to a Test spin bowler's success that he attacks with subtle changes of pace.

I had played 10 Test matches and taken 46 wickets when Bob Simpson, the former Australia opening batsman and Test captain, sidled up to me and said: "You need a straight one."

I eyeballed Bob and said that some of my offbreaks went dead straight and "they don't pick them". He went on to say that I needed a ball that, to all intent and purpose, looked as if it would turn from the off but would skip off straight. I could "bowl" what they call a doosra today, but when I played, offspinners did not have ICC carte blanche to throw the ball. I felt it was wrong to throw, so I discarded the whole thing.

In Tests a batsman is challenged by pace and spin. My aim was to take 100 Test wickets in 20 Tests. But I got there in my 23rd - the same as Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Garth McKenzie - after which circumstances changed. Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson joined forces, and man, you tried to grab a wicket anyhow while those two were on the hunt. My next 15 Tests brought little in way of wickets, but my experience helped me in a coaching sense. I knew how unloved and untried spinners felt.

Somehow the cricket world brought forth a bunch of national coaches who didn't know the difference between an offbreak and a toothpick. Some were celebrated ones, like South Africa's Bob Woolmer. His idea of combating spin was ludicrous. He had blokes trying to hit sixes against Shane Warne's legspin. As splendid as he was against any opposition, no wonder Warne excelled against Woolmer-coached sides.

It is amazing that all national sides pick ex-fast bowlers as their bowling coaches. At least in England, Andy Flower, easily the best coach in world cricket, recognises the role of the spin coach. Mushtaq Ahmed, the former Pakistan legspinner, teams with David Saker, the fast-bowling coach, to help the England bowlers.

For years Australia have floundered in the spin department. Troy Cooley, the bowling coach, is a fast-bowling man, not one for spin. Australia has suffered; a lot of the blame can be attributed to the stupid stuff going on at the so-called Centre of Excellence in Brisbane.

Australia have had three great spinners: Grimmett, Bill O'Reilly and Warne. If Grimmett had played 145 Tests, the same as Warne, he would have taken 870 wickets. Different eras, of course, but you get the idea of how good Grimmett was. However, the best offie I ever saw - by a mile - was the little Indian Erapalli Prasanna. Now there was a bowler.

Offspinner Ashley Mallett played 38 Tests for Australia

© ESPN EMEA Ltd.

On Test Cricket

Ave Test cricket

Many premature reports of its death later, the five-day game still stands, a byword for excellence in an era that encourages, and even worships, mass mediocrity

Gideon Haigh

June 21, 2011

Say what? You start about 11am and go till around 6pm, right? Why? Oh, never mind…

You break for lunch? And for afternoon tea? You play in the open air, so that rain and darkness can ruin everything? And you play for five days and still might not get a result?

Look, no offence, fella, but it will never catch on. You have to understand: we're too time poor, we're too attention-challenged, there aren't enough sixes, there isn't enough colour, you can't squeeze it into a tweet. I think you have to face it: sports marketing isn't for you. Have you considered a career weaving baskets?

The Test match, eh? Not even Lalit Modi could sell it. Fortunately he doesn't have to. Here we stand on the brink of the 2000th, and frankly the prospect could hardly be more mouth-watering. Tendulkar at Lord's? No dancing girls required here; no cricketainment necessary.

Cricket spaced 803 Tests over its first century, meaning that 1197 have been shoehorned into the 34 years since, despite more than 3100 one-day internationals having been wedged in over the same period. But there don't seem too many Tests; arguably there are too few, even if this is probably better than a surfeit.

Not everything is rosy in the garden, of course. During their recent series in the Caribbean, West Indies and Pakistan looked like schoolboys trying to solve differential equations by counting on their fingers, so technically and temperamentally ill-suited were they to the rigours of five-day cricket. But the essence of a Test is that some must fail. Identifying inadequacy helps us recognise excellence.

In an age in which it has been deemed obsolete countless times, the Test match somehow sails on, not so much a mighty ship of state any more as a reconditioned windjammer - not the fastest thing around, but somehow the lovelier for that. Administrators busily infatuated with cricketainment have rather neglected it of late - no bad thing, really, given the damage administrators do without trying.

Players, praise be, still value it. You could feel the joy in England's cricket this last Australian summer. You could see a couple of weeks ago how much runs at Lord's mattered to Tillakaratne Dilshan. And some days just sweep you away, like the last in Cardiff, where four days of slumber preluded a fifth of nightmares. Test matches do loudquietloud better than the Pixies.

Test matches survived a nasty brush with malpractice last year, better than seemed possible at the time; India's No. 1 status has been a boon for interest and relevance; Australia's decline probably has, too, in addition to representing a stern cautionary tale, a punishment for hubris. For what a falling-off is here. England might have invented cricket, but it was Australia that more or less invented the Test match, as a literal "test" of its prowess, as an expression of rivalry and fealty. 

The origins of Test cricket lie in the primordial ooze that was early Anglo-Australian competition. There was then no structure, no schedule, no over-arching organising body - just an interest in settling who was better, and let it be said, making a few quid. The Marylebone Cricket Club would not come along with its ideas of fostering the bonds of empire until early in the 20th century; likewise there was no notion of providing for the rest of the game out of the profits on Test matches until the advent of the Australian Board of Control for International Cricket in 1905. The first 30 years of Test cricket are in the main the work of private entrepreneurs, jobbing professionals and local officials, all busily making up the rules as they went along.

The edge in competition mattered to the English, but to Australians it always mattered that little bit more. So it is that cricket owes an unacknowledged debt to the Adelaide sports journalist Clarence Moody, who wrote under the pseudonym "Point" in the South Australian Register. As a kind of five-finger exercise, Moody set out in a section of his book South Australian Cricket (1898) a list of what he regarded as the "Test matches" played to that time. Moody was hard to impress. He must have been tempted, out of national pride, to instate Australia's 1878 defeat of MCC at Lord's, honouring Spofforth's 10 wickets for 20, but on Australia's inaugural tour of England he decided that no Tests had been played; nor would he recognise the games played against "Combined XIs" by the rival English touring teams of 1887-88. Perhaps because he was so discriminate, and also in the absence of anything better, the list became canonical.

The other aid in the propagation of the Test match was, strange to say in an era that regards it as staid and unchanging, its pliability. Draw what inferences you will about the national characteristics they reflect, but the English preferred their Test matches to last three days, in order to minimise interference with the County Championship, while Australians insisted on a result, and cared not how long it took to obtain. All cricket down under was timeless, in fact: the first Test of the 1886-87 series, for example, actually began at 1.45pm after the completion earlier that day of the Victoria-New South Wales intercolonial match. When Sydney's gift to Somerset, Sammy Woods, originated his oft-quoted mot about draw(er)s being useful only for bathing, he was expressing a national, not just a personal, partiality.

The Test match resisted standardisation, furthermore, well into its evolution. Only after more than a century was the five-day format made entirely uniform; only in the last quarter-century have 90 overs in a day been the enforced minimum. And while ICC playing conditions make certain stipulations about arena dimensions, cricket in general has unconsciously preserved a pre-modern variety in the specifications of its grounds - a reminder of cricket's bucolic origins that Test cricket in its unregulated early development helped preserve.

Well established after half a century - no, nothing about this game happens in a hurry - Test cricket then took its other seminal step. Two Imperial Cricket Conferences at Lord's in 1926 agreed to England's exchange of visits with West Indies, New Zealand and India - a remarkable, seemingly unconscious expansion of the game on the stroke of a pen and a handshake or two. Had the step been contemplated twice, it may not have happened; as it was, cricket began an imperceptibly slow tilt from its Anglo-Australian axis. 

What is sometimes ignored in the modern relativist custom of embracing cricket's "three forms", in fact, is that cricket owes the Test match everything. The one-day international was born into the global estate Test cricket created, like an heir with all the advantages; Twenty20 has come along in the last five years like the proverbial third-generation thickhead with a silver spoon sense of entitlement, good for nothing but money. Its future, moreover, will depend on the degree to which cricket can be preserved as something other than a scam for sharkskin-suited spivs and third-rate politicians.

One of the several ways in which cricket has been turned topsy-turvy in recent times is that after a hundred and more years as a bastion of conservatism, the sanctum sanctorum of the establishment, the Test match is the rebel game: uncompromising, unpredictable, ineffably appealing, immutably long, difficult to understand, resistant to commodification, and apparently unfriendly to the young, or at least to the condescending conception of the young as too dumb for anything but the bleeding obvious.

Here it stands, plumb in the way of the marketers and money men who see their role as sucking up to people who don't like cricket, and quite probably never will. Here it stands, relentless in its demands on players for excellence in an era that encourages, and even worships, mass mediocrity. Here it stands, kept alive by a love of the game that can't be bought, or feigned, or mimicked, or manufactured. Want to be the man? Want to fight the power? Celebrate Test cricket.

Gideon Haigh is a cricket historian and writer

Feeds: Gideon Haigh

© ESPN EMEA Ltd.

Test cricket - a primal contest

The primal contest

The game's essential match-up, of batsman against bowler, finds its best expression in Test cricket

Peter Roebuck

Cricket is a contest between bat and ball, a struggle that reaches its highest form in the Test arena. In most games the players are attempting the same skills and the result depends on the quality of the execution. Boxers and tennis players land the same sorts of blows, play the same type of shots. In cricket, as in baseball, the teams have the same aim but the process involves a primeval battle between batsman and bowler.

It is a confrontation between prey and predator, collector and hunter, reason and fury. Both sides strive with every power at their disposal to emerge triumphant. At first the bowler presses for a quick kill, for he knows his opponent is at his most vulnerable before he has settled. If the batsman survives his period of reconnoitering, his opponent might change his strategy, play a waiting game, set a trap, seek an opening, probe for weakness, mental or technical, or else invite his rival to reach too far. Victory alone matters and it can be attained by means slow or swift, fair or foul.

For his part the batsman strives to calm his nerves and become accustomed to light and pitch and ball. He tries to take his time and to give no hint of shakiness, even as the elephants dance in his belly. Most likely he will endeavour to play a tried and trusted game honed over the years. Every innings is different, though, and no bowler is quite the same, so the willow wielder needs to have his wits about him.

The attack might include a tearaway, a crafty veteran, an innocent-looking swinger, a mean fingerspinner, and a wristy one, capable of giving both ball and bottle a fearful rip. By and large all of them will fulfill their caricature. At the lower levels the aged chap is the one to watch. Bowlers learn a thing or two as they go along. Hence the saying, "Never underestimate a grey-haired bowler."

Not that a fellow ever learns that lesson. One of the delights of cricket is that even experienced and supposedly intelligent players keep making the same mistakes and keep berating themselves with the same curses. Pitted against a touring Australian side not so long ago, I managed to survive the opening onslaught and then licked my lips as the ball was thrown to a creaking purveyor of slow curlers. Too late I realised that the accursed pensioner was not as guileless as he seemed, and that his deliveries were not so much easy meat as poisoned chalice. By then the trudge back to that place of eternal wisdom and endless regret, the dressing room, was well underway.

Ordinarily the batsman will begin to widen his range of shots once established at the crease. It is not always a conscious decision. As often as not, the change of tempo happens of its own accord. Confidence, a tiring attack and frustration can combine to hasten the flow of runs. Unless the field is pushed back, innings advance in fits and starts. Placement, too, is less common than supposed. Batsmen might manoeuvre the ball into a gap or loft into empty spaces, but piercing the field with a full-blooded shot usually depends as much on luck as skill. 

Of course batsmen and bowlers sometimes switch sides. Then the batsman becomes the predator, attacking from the outset and so changing the course of the contest. Even opening batsmen have become audacious. Previously the movement of the ball and a wider insecurity caused by Depressions and wars dampened ardour. Charlie Macartney, an incorrigible Australian (that might be repetitive), was an exception. By his reckoning an opener ought to dispatch a drive back at the bowler's head at the first opportunity, thereby informing him that he was in for a proper scrap. Nowadays the spread of briefer formats, the dryness of the pitches and the mood of the era encourage early attempts to seize the initiative.

Test cricket provides the opportunity for every player to express his talents to the utmost. Whereas the one-day game, to some degree, dictates terms to those taking part, limiting their overs, reducing their time at the crease, influencing field placements and bowling changes, a five-day match is as liberating as it is daunting.

Unsurprisingly the most compelling exchanges between bat and ball take place in the Test arena. Here the greatest players of the era are given the chance to try their luck against their equivalents, and the freedom to score 200 or a duck, take 10 wickets or concede a stack of runs without reward.

Bowlers, especially, relish the opportunity to prove their worth. At last they can set their own fields anyhow - so long as they don't copy Douglas Jardine - and bowl as many overs as captain and body allow. Inevitably the leading practitioners have produced their best work in this environment, constructing dazzling, tormenting spells that linger as long in the memory as the brilliant innings played by their temporary foes. Along the way they have reminded observers that bowling can be as rewarding as batting, and a lot more destructive.

Every cricket enthusiast will recall occasions when bowlers surpassed themselves. Michael Holding's stint at The Oval in 1976 was unforgettable. At once he was graceful and mesmerising, not so much running to the crease as gliding to it. Head upright, shoulders swaying slightly, toes barely touching the grass, he gathered himself at delivery and without apparent effort sent down thunderbolts that contained the charm of the antelope and the wrath of a vengeful god. Stumps kept toppling over like skittles and shaken batsmen came and went, knowing they had been undone by an irresistible force.

Richard Hadlee's performance in Brisbane was more surgical than stunning. Operating off a seasoned run, summoning formidable expertise, cutting the ball around off a track that helped him a little and others not at all, he worked his way through the local order. Even by his precise standards it was a tour de force. Like so many of the best spells, too, the wicket-taking deliveries were defined not so much by their deadliness as by the company they kept. Superb batsmen were harried and humiliated into error. The Kiwi did not bruise a single body but he damaged many egos.

Wasim Akram's virtuoso display at the MCG stands out because he had the ball upon a string, made it bend both ways at a scintillating pace and left accomplished batsmen gasping and groping. It's hard enough countering a bowler sending them down at 90mph and swinging it in one direction. When they start moving it both ways, it's downright unfair. Wasim streamed to the crease and with a gleam more mischievous than menacing, produced an astonishing spell. 

Malcolm Marshall's most remarkable contribution came on a slow pitch at the SCG. West Indies had already won the series, and some suspected that the track had been prepared for the home spinners. Certainly West Indies were below their best. Amongst the flingers only Marshall rose to the challenge. Shortening his run, adjusting his length, he transformed himself from fearsome fast bowler to relentless, precise, probing swinger. And he kept at it for two days, even as the Australians piled on the runs. It was a thrilling, stunning piece of controlled, resourceful, pace bowling.

Among the modern masters, Glenn McGrath and Shane Warne stand apart. McGrath looked like a hillbilly and bowled like a scientist. He was consistent and accurate, controlled and masterful, nagging away, securing extra bounce and movement, relying on skill alone to remove batsmen. He worked his way through an order as a rodent does a hunk of cheese, constantly nibbling, taking it piece by piece. If Lord's, with its inviting slope and disconcerting ridge witnessed his deadliest spells, it was because it suited him better than any other surface. But McGrath's greatness was most clearly revealed in his hat-trick taken in Perth against West Indies. His dismissals of Sherwin Campbell, Brian Lara and Jimmy Adams were notable for the precision of his analysis, the coldness of the execution, and the degree of craft required and revealed in the space of three balls. McGrath's combination included a perfectly pitched outswinger to an opening batsman inclined to hang back, a cutter landing on the sticks that drew a worried response from a gifted left-hander, and a bumper that rose at the shoulder of a tormented captain. Every delivery was inch perfect.

Warne's stature was revealed in his first and final contributions to Ashes series in England. His genius was shown by that very first delivery, to Mike Gatting, even as his character was confirmed by the fact that he dared to try his hardest-spun and least reliable offering. Twelve years later he was back in the old dart and trying to win an Ashes series off his own back. His performance in claiming 40 scalps in that ill-fated campaign stands alongside any contribution from any spinner in the history of the game. Although his powers were in decline, Warne's mind remained sharp, his determination was unwavering and his stamina superb. It was an unyielding, magnificent performance from a sportsman blessed with artistry, audacity, grit and bluff.

Of course many other great bowlers and bowling feats could be mentioned. The sight of Jeff Thomson unleashing another thunderbolt, Bishan Bedi lulling opponents to their doom, Murali spinning the ball at right angles in his early years, Waqar changing games with his sudden sandshoe crushers, Mike Procter in full flight, Derek Underwood landing it on a threepenny, and so many others pass easily into the mists of time.

That bowling has a beauty of its own is proven by these expert practitioners. They were as big a draw card as any batsman. The buzz that went around grounds as Warne marked out his run, the hush as the fast bowler stood at the top of his run, reinforces the point. Test cricket brings out the best in batsmen and bowlers alike, allows the game to reach its highest point. Confrontations between the giants - Lillee and Richards, Marshall and Gavaskar, Warne and Tendulkar - can be as exhilarating and satisfying. Then spectators and players remember what it was that that drew them to the game in the first place, and why they remain somewhat under its spell.

Peter Roebuck is a former captain of Somerset and the author, most recently, of In It to Win It

Feeds: Peter Roebuck

© ESPN EMEA Ltd.

Difference between Warne and Macgill

Terry Jenner talking to Sambit Bal

I did ask him, though, about the difference between Stuart MacGill and Warne. MacGill had benefitted from Warne’s absence and used the period profitably, claiming 43 wickets in eight Tests at 25.11, with a strike rate of 45.9. But of course he had made no impression on the touring Indians, nor was he expected to. During a meet-the-press event before the Test, MacGill, while giving fulsome praise to Warne, had questioned, only half in jest, his claims to mystery balls.

“Stuart is right,” Jenner said. “There is only so much spin you can generate, and there are only so many balls you can bowl.” Then he counted them: the legbreak, the topspinner, the backspinner, the flipper and the googly. The difference between Warne and Macgill, he said, wasn’t the number of different balls they possessed or how much they spun the ball. It was in how the ball arrived at the batsman.

Then he proceeded, oblivious to scores of other journalists and a few commentators around, to give a full demonstration. Because he was so round-arm, MacGill’s ball arrived at the right eye of the batsman and went on straight, giving the batsman 20:20 vision. “When Warnie bowls to right-handers,” Jenner said, mimicking Warne’s action, “the ball arrives at eye-level and then disappears behind the left ear, forcing the batsman to search for it.” That Warne had the ability to drift the ball wasn’t unknown, but Jenner’s way of explaining it gave it different meaning.