On Spin Bowling in India - 'You have no idea what you're doing here'

Like other Australian spinners in India, Gavin Robertson finished his tour with a good idea of how to bowl there. Somehow the lessons keep getting lost

Daniel Brettig

March 1, 2013

	Rahul Dravid was one of Gavin Robertson's three wickets in the second innings of the Bangalore Test that Australia won on the 1998 tour © Getty Images  Enlarge

 

Sitting towards the back of a Bangalore function room in March 1998, Gavin Robertson and Steve Waugh shared a glum, quiet dinner. Australia had been overtaken by India in the first Test, in Chennai, and then obliterated in the second, at the Eden Gardens. Robertson's offspin had been toyed with, while Waugh was coming to terms with his first Test-series loss in four years. Noticing the duo away from the gathered dignitaries, the august figure of Erapalli Prasanna ventured over to join the New South Welshmen. By way of a greeting he offered the words: "You have no idea what you're doing here."

Robertson's mere presence in India had been a shock to many. Touring Pakistan in 1994, then opposing Waugh for Australia A in the World Series Cup of the following home summer, Robertson had drifted so far from international reckoning that in the summer preceding the India Tests, he had played only a solitary Sheffield Shield game for the Blues. In it, however, he had taken seven wickets at Adelaide Oval, keeping his name from sliding completely. Shane Warne's desire to be paired with a spinner in the vein of the retired Tim May, and some prodding from Waugh and Mark Taylor subsequently, had Robertson trading his day job managing grocery shelves for a six-week journey through India.

"I was only training two or three days a week, which I almost find hilarious," Robertson recalls. "I wasn't that physically fit, I would eat whatever I had to at work to do long days, and play grade cricket on Saturday. The next thing I knew, I was playing Test cricket in 84% humidity and 44C. I think I lost 8kg on the trip."

Perhaps not surprisingly, given his preparation, Robertson struggled to find the right method, though he fought admirably in Chennai, taking wickets and making stubborn lower-order runs. Despite the team's pre-eminence as the world's top-rated side, there was a lack of knowledge and understanding about India, a country most had visited once or twice at most - this was Warne's baked beans tour, after all.

"It was a rollercoaster three Tests. We didn't really know what we were doing in the first Test, and my pace was wrong, even though I took five wickets. What happened to me the Indians did to both myself and Shane Warne. Every time you'd bowl a good ball they negated it and waited for that patience to go, and then they really went after you. If you had a moment where you bowled two or three bad balls in an over, then you all of a sudden went for 12 or 16 runs. That's where the pressure builds."

So when Prasanna made his challenge about Australia's ignorance of India, Robertson found himself nodding. Waugh was a little more feisty, remonstrating with the man often considered the best of all India's offspinners, and author of the immortal slow-bowling maxim "Line is optional, length is mandatory." Perhaps throwing in a four-letter word or two for emphasis, Waugh asked Prasanna, "Well, if you know so much, how about you tell us?" What followed would change Robertson's tour.

"Prasanna talked about how you've got to understand a batsman," Robertson says. "You want to try to lock the batsman on the crease with the amount of spin you've got on the ball and your pace and dip. You've got to combine that to make sure the batsman feels like if he leaves his crease to take a risk, it's going to drop on him and he'll lose the ball.

"So he'll search quickly to defend, and that will cause him to feel nervous about leaving his crease, and that'll start to get him locked on his crease. Then you'll get him jutting out at the ball and jabbing at it with his hands. Then he'll start trying to use his pad and his bat together to negate a good ball. Finally he said, 'All you have to do is get that right pace and create that feeling, and then you have to do it for 20 or 30 overs in a row, and you'll bowl them out.'"

	"It's about finding the right pace and line that locks the batsman on the crease. If you can do it for long periods of time, you win the pressure battle, you break them down, you get wickets"Gavin Robertson

Subtlety, discipline and consistency. These were not outlandish tactics, but they mirrored what Robertson had seen from his Indian counterparts, both in 1998 and on the tours to follow. Over the next few days before the third Test, in Bangalore, Robertson worked at this method, quickening his pace slightly and seeing useful results in the nets. By the time he came on to bowl again on the first morning of the match, his confidence was restored to a decent level. Flicking the ball from hand to hand, he thought of bowling a couple of tidy maidens before lunch then settling in for the afternoon.

Nathan Lyon is familiar with the sort of thing that happened next. Those two overs went for plenty, leaving Robertson's mind to race again. "I went to lunch with 0 for 31 off two and I thought, 'I'm in real trouble here,'" he says. "When I came back on after lunch Stephen [Steve Waugh] was at mid-off and I said 'I'm going to go for it here, I'm going to try to spin a bit harder and bowl a bit quicker.'

"I added two extra steps to my run-up, which I'd never done. I told myself to bowl like a medium-pace offspinner - you bowl with a quicker arm action and actually get more on the ball. I bowled to Tendulkar and he came forward, it gripped and it spun, went past him, nearly hit Ian Healy in the head and went for four byes.

"I just kept doing it. I went from 0 for 31 off two overs to 2 for 58 off 11.2 overs, and in the second innings I took 3 for 28 off 12 and we won the Test. Those were the lessons. It sounds quite simple, but it's having the experience and the patience to keep doing it. They're not worried about you unless you bowl really well."

Robertson's awakening to what was required to bowl spin effectively in India is a tale that is true for many Australian spin bowlers who have ventured to the subcontinent. Robertson describes it as cases of "failure, failure, then some success by the time you go home". Jason Krejza was all but a lost cause on the 2008 trip until he worked with Bishan Bedi in the Delhi nets, and subsequently harvested 12 wickets - albeit expensive ones - in Nagpur. Nathan Hauritz was never able to settle in 2010 as he entered the tour after injury and then had his bowling style changed, not by the locals but by Ricky Ponting, who desired his tweaker to "bowl more like Harbhajan Singh", whatever that meant. None were granted a second chance to tour India and use the knowledge gained on the earlier visit.

"You could almost have all those learnings on a whiteboard or some sort of document that relays 'This is the plan for this, we know what we've been up against before, knock it over,'" Robertson says. "That's what I thought we were supposed to be doing when we went two and half weeks early. We probably haven't learned from those past tours."

For now, Lyon is trying to work out how best to succeed in Hyderabad, having taken four wickets in Chennai but at an enormous cost. Robertson recalled Prasanna's advice, but also the example set by R Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja in Chennai.

"Have a look at the pace the Indian bowlers bowled at in the first Test," he says. "Just over, say, an hour or 15-over period, and watch how many times they're full and they're up outside off stump and spinning back. And then watch us and see how many times in that period we get short and get worked. How many times do we get scored off short balls, and how many times the other way?

"The Indians always bowl full with the right pace, the ball is dropping at sufficient pace and there's not enough time to get down the wicket to it. In Australia, Nathan Lyon can bowl on middle stump and a little bit short. Because the wickets are so quick here, it's so much harder for a batsman to punish it. Over there it's so slow, as soon as you bowl too short and on the wrong line, it just sits up like a cherry and it goes.

"It's about finding the right pace and line that locks the batsman on the crease. If you can do it for long periods of time, you win the pressure battle, you break them down, you get wickets."

Prasanna could not have said it better himself.

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More to getting your eye in than meets the eye

The position of the eyes in the stance is the key to balance while batting, and balance, in turn, is the key to dominating

 

Martin Crowe in Cricinfo

December 3, 2012

Ricky Ponting's retirement brings to an end a dominant era of Australian cricket, from 1995 to 2010. The Aussie juggernaut that slayed all before it was born under Allan Border, started up properly under Mark Taylor, sped along swimmingly under Steve Waugh, and came to its conclusion under Ponting. That brutally dominating team was propped up by a multitude of true modern-day greats: Matthew Hayden, the Waughs, Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath and Ponting. Australia now solely relies overwhelmingly on Michael Clarke; while Ponting had massive support, Clarke is alone. The dominant era is done.

 

For me, as a pupil of the finer points of batting, the single most significant fundamental in the success of Ponting, Clarke and those before them is the balance of the head at the moment the ball is released. The position of the eyes is the absolute key to true balance. Both eyes need to be level, still, and looking directly at the bowler's hand. Any deviation from that position and the batsman's balance is affected.

 

When a batsman sets himself into his stance, it doesn't mean that that position is retained right through to when the ball is released. Often batsmen will lose a still, level, aligned position a split second before the ball is released, resulting in losing the proper balance needed at the crease. Often they never get into the right position to start with, being too "closed off" and not looking at the bowler with square and level eyes.

 

Sachin Tendulkar has the perfect head position, as does Virender Sehwag, as did Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman. Sourav Ganguly was a bit hit and miss with his. Jacques Kallis, Hashim Amla, Graeme Smith and AB de Villiers all have it, but only at the last minute, as their stances are adjusted just prior to delivery. The South Africans get into the right position at the right time; the Indians are naturally always there.

 

For Australia, Ponting, Clarke and the Waughs all had very natural positions too. The naturalness I refer to is the fact that they all start with the bat down, tapping away with a natural lift as the ball is delivered. The South Africans prefer to hold their bats off the ground.

 

Brian Lara never quite got his eyes level. His stance was slightly closed and his left eye not always level with his right, but he hardly missed a ball. Ultimately he moved beautifully, lifted the bat naturally and fluently, and had an eye like a hawk. Shivnarine Chanderpaul has an open stance to enable his eyes and head the best position. He executes this perfectly, illustrating that it's better that the stance and body position be more "open" than "closed".

 

Kevin Pietersen has an excellent starting position but he moves a lot as the bowler delivers and sometimes gets stuck early. His problem with left-arm spin is simply that he doesn't hold the balanced position long or late enough. The slower the bowler, the more disciplined the batsman needs to be to wait. At times Pietersen moves a fraction too early and gets his eyes slightly out of line. His tall body leans to the off, which causes his feet to get stuck, so from there it's all hands.

 

Alastair Cook has a fine set-up, allowing his tall frame the best head position and maintaining his balance until the ball is released. When he loses form, it's because the balance is slightly off.

Throughout New Zealand the coaching has been to stand erect and side-on. This has put almost every batsman in the wrong position. Ross Taylor and Kane Williamson are the best at keeping the head position level, but Williamson prefers to lift his bat high when facing quicks, as opposed to when he faces spin; and when he lifts, he takes his eyes slightly off the proper, level position.

 

Those who hold their bats up in their stance often get into trouble. When the bat is held up, the top hand is set into a too side-on position, and this pushes the head to look at mid-off, not the bowler. Therefore the eyes are not level and are out of line. You can best tell by the position of the nose: a right-hander whose head is not in the perfect position is only half looking at the bowler, so to say; the nose will point to mid-off - a sure indicator that the balance is not perfect.

 

From there the body falls to the off side, the front foot lands early, and the body shapes to play to the off side. The bat comes through as only half a bat. What feels like a straight push can easily end in an outside edge. A straight ball can be hard to locate with the bat as the front foot is in the way, and the potential for an lbw is created.

 

It all comes back to the proper position of the eyes. Ponting had it perfect most of the time. But when he didn't and the body "fell" early and the front foot landed early and he started to push early, especially early in his innings, he had a problem now and then. His only flaw, which was also a great strength in attack when he was flowing along, was that the higher his bat was lifted early, the more the body struggled to hold the balanced position. Still, for Ponting this was rare. In the last two years, though, his balance has let him down. His head and eyes have fallen slightly outside his proper line of sight, and he has got stuck and gone searching with his hands.

 

Tendulkar has a similar problem at present but it stems from his back foot being rooted to the spot, so when his front foot lands without movement from his back foot, he becomes closed off and the eyes are slightly out of position.

 

Balance is everything: the feet moving together, the bat held down to centre the body, the head and eyes in a level, still hold. Holding that balanced position to the point when the ball is released is the single most important fundamental to batting, and ultimately to dominating.

 

Martin Crowe, one of the leading batsmen of the late '80s, played 77 Tests for New Zealand

Indian Government's Poverty Line: Rs. 28 per day

 

The Rs 28 Diet Plan

Trying—and failing—to live on the govt’s definition of ‘not poor’

 

Anuradha Raman

Dietetics Of Poverty

• Three cups of tea, adding up to about 150 calories
• Two slices of bread (100 calories)
• Two pieces of kulcha with chhole (about 425 calories)
• Bread and tea hardly contain any nutrients. Milk may provide some calcium.
• Near-starvation diets, with hardly any vitamins or minerals, can lead to a breakdown of muscles and weight loss over a period of time.

***

It is 10 am now and the dust-haze tormenting Delhi for the last couple of days seems to have lifted to reveal a bright, sunny day. I am thinking food. I have never starved for food, but I’m trying. The extraordinary change proposed by the Planning Commission in terms of what constitutes the poverty line has prodded me into living on Rs 28.65 for a day. (Looking at it from a monthly point of view—Rs 859.60 for one individual—doesn’t really make it look any less scarier.)

How far will this take me in the urban sprawl of Delhi? Besides being hungry, I am angry. Just the day before, on March 20, the Planning Commission had startled every right-thinking person by coming up with some astounding figures on how poverty levels had actually reduced in the last five years, attributing this miracle to the economic policies of the UPA government, which has always scored high on rhetoric about concern for the aam aadmi.

I set out to fend for myself on the limits of destitution that defines the poor, according to our venerable Planning Commission. This poverty line is often a lifeline for the poor as it determines who is entitled to a house, toilet, and rice and wheat from the neighbourhood fair price shop.
I am certainly not poor. I am just trying to survive on a few rupees for one day. I live in Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, in what is called the National Capital Region. My home is 31 km from my office in Safdarjung Enclave. Someone who lives on that amount would probably live on the streets close to their place of work, perhaps a begging corner.

In the throes of a real estate boom, Indirapuram is host to a huge migrant population from the neighbouring states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar. These people, labourers mostly, have made their home on the streets, in the shadow of the glitzy malls and shiny condominiums that dot the place. I discover that labourers living in makeshift homes, cooking their food out in the open, are too rich to qualify as poor. For they earn close to Rs 100 a day, more than three times over the limit.
Angry and hungry, on the morning of March 21, I set off after having a breakfast of two slices of bread (Rs 2) with pickle paste slapped on. This is a luxury, the neighbourhood chaiwala tells me. He is always grumbling about the rising prices of milk (Rs 29 a litre) and sugar (Rs 40 per kg), and charges Rs 5 for one plastic cup of tea. The day has just begun. I decide to walk 2 km to the nearest bus-stand to save on rupees.

Those earning Rs 100 per day, such as masons, plumbers, construction workers, are too rich to be counted as poor.

 

I discover that in the suburbs, getting the right bus is nothing short of a miracle, as everyone drives cars and there’s hardly any public transport. But before I take off on generalities, back to my predicament. Some rickshawalas try to tempt me to take a Rs 5 ride for two kilometres. They say that on a good day, they may make Rs 150. I realise that they are far too rich compared to me. 

I have to take the bus, as it’s the cheapest option. I walk those kilometres to the stand. Bus No. 543 will take me close to my office. The ticket from Ghazipur to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, where I disembark, costs Rs 15. I have already spent Rs 22.

My fellow traveller, Pilana, who describes himself as a nomad and who makes Rs 70 a day selling rings, is going to Gurgaon in search of new markets and superstitious people looking for a change in fortune. He has spent Rs 60 for the bus tickets of his family of four. I realise with a tinge of sadness that this guy’s rings haven’t changed his luck.

Hunger by now is gnawing, overriding thought, emotion and sentiment. What can I eat for Rs 7? The Outlook office serves free tea. The dhabas near the office provide meals for Rs 20. At 1.30 pm, I finally decide to have chhole-kulche—a plate costs Rs 15, up from Rs 12 some six months ago. My decision is made easy by the fact that it is the cheapest option. I borrow from a photographer colleague and eat my princely meal. Still quite hungry, tired and fed up, I sit down to write this story. I barely survived half a day to tell this tale. Even the poorest among the poor cannot survive on this figure. That would leave the destitute of India permanently hungry.
In all, my total calorific consumption was 677, and nutritionist Veena Shatrugna from the National Institute of Nutrition says that a 63 kg adult female like me needs a minimum of 1,285 calories provided she doesn’t work. That’s the bare minimum required to keep the body together and survive without collapsing. I could have stayed at home and cooked lunch, but the poor hardly have the luxury of not working—even to survive.

The only thought that comes to mind is that a human being can only starve on that new “poverty line” figure. If someone has children, they will be severely malnourished, with retarded mental and physical development. I also know that beggars earn more than this amount. The migrant labourers who leave their homes and families do not qualify. So who really are India’s poor? Are there some bonded labourers in some corner who are forced to work and given this amount that then entitles them to some benefits from the government? How bad does the human condition have to be before the government condescends to help you?


 -----
Swaminathan Aiyar defends Rs 28 as the right figure for poverty in the Times of India


The government is corrupt and incompetent. People are, quite rightly, sceptical of its integrity. But it has not fudged the poverty data to exaggerate the fall in poverty, as alleged by innumerable politicians and TV anchors.

I have long criticized government statistics as too often being misleading or plain wrong. But those critics of Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman of the Planning Commission, who claim he has “rigged” the poverty line downward, are more wrong than any statistical department.

The commission is surely guilty of gross incompetence. It said in an affidavit to the Supreme Court last year that the poverty line for 2009-10 was Rs 32 per day in urban and Rs 26 in rural areas. Barely six months later, it now says those were merely back-of-the-envelope estimates, and that detailed state-wise data on inflation now show that the poverty line was actually Rs 28.65 in urban and Rs 22.40 per day in rural areas. The Commission may think it’s okay to release provisional data and later revise them, but it was truly daft to submit a figure to the Supreme Court which it knew could be wide off the mark. If it was unsure of its figures, why did it not tell the Supreme Court to wait for the hard data?

When the initial poverty line estimate of Rs 32/day in urban areas came out last year, TV anchors and politicians screamed that nobody could live on so little. Last week’s downward revision of the poverty line rural areas has produced an even greater howl of outrage. The outrage is entirely justified on the ground of Planning Commission incompetence. But it is quite unjustified on the ground of fudging. Abhijit Sen, the Planning Commission’s left-wing member-economist, would never tolerate fudging to exaggerate the fall in poverty, and he has certified the accuracy of the new poverty line.
Let’s do a reality check on what the standard dal-roti diet costs the poor. Opposition politicians, NGOs ,and TV anchors have challenged Montek to show one can live on Rs 28.65 per day, at a time when a litre of milk costs Rs 37 and six bananas may cost up to Rs 30. They have castigated Montek for sitting in an ivory tower, totally out of touch with ordinary folk and reality.

Sorry, but the facts show otherwise. Those out of touch with reality and prices are the critics, not Montek. Politicians and TV anchors are well-off, and consume tandoori chicken and fried fish plus milk and fruit. But poor folk live essentially on dal-roti.

Any housewife will tell you that wheat costs up to Rs 20 per kilo and chana dal up to Rs 45 per kilo. A standard daily calorie intake of 2,000 calories can be met by 400 gm of wheat (1,600 calories, cost Rs 8) and 100 gm of chana dal (400 calories, cost Rs 4.50). The total cost comes to just Rs 12.50.
Labourers doing hard physical work may need 3,000 calories/day, but even that implies just Rs 18.75 worth of dal-roti, well below official poverty lines.

The World Bank has a global poverty line of $1.25 terms, adjusted for low prices in poor countries through purchasing power parity (PPP). The leftist star of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Prof Himanshu, estimated last year that the PPP dollar was worth Rs 19. So, the World Bank poverty line of $1.25 translates into Rs 23.75 per day. This is slightly above the government’s rural poverty line of Rs 22.40 but far below the urban Rs 28.95, and roughly equal to the all-India average poverty line of Rs 24.25.

The World Bank poverty line has been accepted globally for decades, so it is somewhat ridiculous for Indian critics to suddenly declare—quite erroneously—that people cannot live on so little. The harsh reality is that hundreds of millions across the globe are living on half as much. That is a tragedy. But it does demonstrate that neither the World Bank nor Montek Ahluwalia is setting poverty lines below starvation level.

The Planning Commission says the proportion of poor Indians has fallen from 37.2 % in 2004-05 to 29.8% in 2009-10. Sceptics say the fall is too sharp to be true. I would argue the very opposite—that the fall in poverty is actually even sharper than indicated by the 2009-10 survey. That year was a terrible drought year, and this would have artificially inflated the poverty rate.

Another NSSO survey is being done in 2011-12, and i am willing to bet that this will show a big fall in poverty over 2009-10—because the 2011 monsoon was normal. Any takers?

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.

England fail intelligence test

Angus Fraser:


Fast bowlers have the somewhat unfair reputation of being big, thick, dopey so and sos, incapable of thinking for themselves.


The stigma is historical, arising from the fact that previous generations of batsmen tended to be privately educated chaps that had picked up a degree at some flash university. The roots of a fast bowler tend to be far more working-class, as England's northern-based bowling attack highlights.

Australia's fast bowlers made a mockery of the generalisation yesterday morning as they intelligently adapted their game to capitalise on helpful bowling conditions to dismantle England's batting line-up for a paltry 102. With the stock of fast bowlers at a high England's bowlers then let the fraternity down with a thoughtless display during the afternoon. Only when Australia had passed England's total did Andrew Strauss's attack begin to follow the example set by their opponents.

The modern game is obsessed by pace, with many selectors and pundits believing that 85mph is the minimum speed a bowler needs to reach to be effective on the International stage. It is absolute tosh, as many of cricket's greatest bowlers have and continue to prove.

Yes, pace is important, but the one proviso is that the ball is pitched on the correct spot – a length that makes life for a batsman uncomfortable and difficult for him to complete the task he is paid to do – score runs. If the ball is released at speed but comes out like the spray from an aerosol can, it only disappears to the boundary quicker. Much of the blame for the obsession can be laid at the feet of the speed gun at grounds and the egos of He-man bowlers.

James Anderson, Stephen Harmison, Graeme Onions and Stuart Broad could not blame their shortcomings on the fact they needed time to acclimatise – Australia's bowlers had already shown them how to bowl at Headingley earlier in the day. With the ball swinging Australia's bowlers largely pitched the ball up, drawing England's top order in to apprehensive prods and pushes that fed the hands of an expectant slip cordon. On watching this England's bowlers then opted to test the middle of the pitch, a transgression that kept the crowd rather than the slips busy.

The early dismissal of Simon Katich, who gloved a lifter from Stephen Harmison to leg gully, may have encouraged England's attack to bang the ball in. But with Australia's score rattling along at six runs an over it should not have taken long to work out this was not the correct tactic. The three lbws that followed highlighted the error.

Peter Siddle will grab the headlines for his second five-wicket haul in Test cricket, but it was Stuart Clark who set the tone for Australia with three pre-lunch wickets in a beautiful seven-over spell of bowling that conceded only seven runs. Clark is a bowler from the old school, a seamer who takes great pride in bowling a consistent line and length.

Clark is not fast, bowling generally between 78 and 82mph, and like many traditional seamers he struggles to comprehend the trends and attitudes of modern bowlers. Half-volleys and long hops are not part of his game plan, not at any cost. In Clark's world batsmen have to work for their runs.

In Glenn McGrath, Clark had a great tutor, possibly the best line and length bowler the game has seen. Like Clark, McGrath cannot understand why so many young bowlers continually press the gamble button as they desperately search for wickets. In many ways their attitude mirrors that of the world outside. Instant gratification rather than patient reward is what they want.

"Work on the ego of the batsman," was one of McGrath's mottos. Basically he was saying that batsmen want to be in control and score freely when they bat, and when they are not they are likely to make mistakes attempting to gain it.

It therefore makes sense for bowlers to follow the logic of McGrath and the example set by Clark, especially at a venue like Headingley. Batsmen will make mistakes so be patient, wait for the errors to come along and grasp the chance when it arises. Bowlers may have the reputation of being a bit thick but it is batsmen who are really the dopey, impatient so and sos.

Spicy pitch makes life more fun

England may have been second best yesterday but the play highlighted how much more enjoyable Test cricket is when wickets are falling regularly.

A pitch used to be described as good if it was nice to bat on. If Test cricket is to remain attractive that must change, and groundsmen need to be encouraged to produce pitches that offer bowlers assistance.

Test cricket should not be played on minefields that offer inconsistent bounce and generous lateral movement, but scores of 450-plus should be a rarity not the norm.