Shane Warne's
star illuminated the cricket firmament, inspiring generations with the
majesty of his art. When Warne reigned supreme on the Test stage, you'd
see kids in the park and in the nets trying to emulate him. They got
the saunter right, but what they didn't see was Warne's amazing
strength, drive and energy through the crease. Watching him, it all
looked so easy. They would emulate his approach, release the ball, and
more times than not watch it disappear out of the park. There was a
general lack of understanding about energy and drive through the crease.
Warne turned up just when we all thought legspin had gone the way of the
dinosaurs, who were bounced out when Earth failed to duck a hail of
meteors. Sir Donald Bradman said Warne's legspin was the best thing to
happen to Australian cricket in more than 30 years. I, along with
thousands of television viewers, watched transfixed as Warne weaved his
magic. Poor Mike Gatting, poor, hapless Daryll Cullinan.
I was in the South African dressing room when Warne destroyed them with 6 for 34 in their second innings at the SCG in 1998. And we all remember the time he got seven wickets for 50-odd at the MCG
against West Indies, getting Richie Richardson with a flipper. Before
that grand performance, which sparked his career, the camera focused on
Warne in the field, and Bill Lawry said on air: "Now there's a young man
who won't get much bowling today." The Phantom was right: Warne bowled
23 overs; not a lot of work for a slow bowler, but that was all he had
to get seven wickets.
Warne's genius got him 708 wickets in 145 Tests. His physical skills
were matched by an incredibly strong mind. He was frequently in a lot of
controversy off the cricket field, but he managed to focus totally on
his cricket when it mattered on the field of play. As with Don Bradman
and Garry Sobers, he was a cricketing phenomenon.
The Indian offspinner Erapalli Prasanna
was a small, rotund chap, with little hands and stubby fingers. Not the
size of hand you'd think would be able to give a cricket ball
tremendous purchase.
Pras, as he was affectionately called, bounced up to the wicket and got
very side-on. He was short, so he tended to toss the ball up, and he
spun it so hard it hummed. Unlike the majority of spinners, he could
entice you forward with tantalising flight or force you back, and often
got a batsman trapped on the crease. His changes of pace weren't always
as subtle as Warne's, but Pras broke the rhythm of batsmen better than
any spinner I've seen - especially with that quicker ball, which
perplexed the best players of spin bowling in his era.
He possessed a mesmerising quality in that he seemed to have the ball on
a string. You'd play forward and find yourself way short of where you
expected the ball to pitch. In Madras once, I thought I'd take him on
and advanced down the wicket only, to my horror, find that Pras had
pulled hard on the "string" and I was miles short of where the ball
pitched. I turned, expecting to see Farokh Engineer remove the bails,
only to see the ball, having hit a pothole, climb over the keeper's head
for four byes.
Pras was one of the few spinners to worry the life out of Ian Chappell,
for he could trap him on the crease or lure him forward at will. Doug
Walters, on the other hand, played the offspinners better than most -
perhaps because his bat came down at an angle and the more you spun it,
the more likely it was to hit the middle of his bat.
In 49 Tests Prasanna took 189 wickets at an average of 30.38. For a
spinner who played a lot on the turning tracks of India, his average is
fairly tall, but Pras was a wicket-taker and he took risks, inviting the
batsman to hit him into the outfield. He always believed that if the
batsman was taking him on and trying to hit him while he was spinning
hard, dipping and curving the ball, he would have the final word.
For his tremendous performances in Australia in 1967-68, I place Prasanna if not above, at least on par with another genius offspinner, the Sri Lankan wizard Muttiah Muralitharan.
Murali's Test figures beggar belief - 133 matches for 800 wickets at
22.72, with 67 bags of five wickets or more (though, for some reason, he
didn't shine in Australia).
He operated from very wide on the crease - which would inhibit the
ordinary offie - but got so much work on the ball and a tremendous
breadth of turn that he got away with bowling from that huge angle. At
times he operated from round the wicket to get an away drift. Murali had
the doosra, which fooled most batsmen, although the smart ones knew
that his offbreak was almost certainly going to be a fair way outside
the line of off stump to a right-hander and that the doosra would come
on a much straighter line.
His changes of pace weren't always as subtle as Warne's, but Prasanna
broke the rhythm of batsmen better than any spinner I've seen
Saqlain Mushtaq lost his way over the doosra, the delivery he created,
because he ended up bowling everything on too straight a line, and thus
his offbreak became far less effective at the end of the career than it
was when he began.
As with Saqlain and Warne, Murali made good use of his front foot. When
any spinner gets his full body weight over his braced front leg at the
point of release, he achieves maximum revolutions.
As a youngster Murali attended the famous St Anthony's College in Kandy,
and every Sunday morning he trained under the tutelage of Sunil
Fernando. Ruwan Kalpage, who also trained under Fernando at the time,
and is the current Sri Lankan fielding coach, maintains that Murali
always had the same action that he took into big cricket.
As with Warne, when bowling, Murali had an extraordinary area of danger,
as big an area as your average dinner table. The likes of Ashley Giles,
say, on the other hand, who didn't spin the ball very hard, needed to
be super accurate, for their area of danger was about as a big as a
dinner plate in contrast.
The key to spin bowling is not where the ball lands but how the ball
arrives to the batsman. As with Warne and Prasanna, when Murali bowled,
the ball came with a whirring noise and after striking the pitch rose
with venom. Throughout his career and beyond there has been that nagging
doubt about the legitimacy of Murali's action, but the ICC has cleared
him and that is why I place him among the best five spinners I've seen.
My No. 4 is Derek Underwood,
the England left-arm bowler, who has to be categorised as a spinner,
although he operated at about slow-medium and cut the ball rather than
spun it in the conventional left-arm orthodox manner. On good wickets
Lock was a superior bowler to Underwood, but on underprepared or
rain-affected wickets, the man from Kent was lethal.
He had a lengthy approach, a brisk ten or so paces, with a rather
old-fashioned duck-like gait, and a hunter's attitude, along with a keen
eye for a batsman's weakness. In August 1968, Underwood demolished Bill
Lawry's Australian team on the last day of the fifth Test.
Heavy rain gave the Australians hope of escaping with a draw and so
winning the series 1-0. But Underwood swooped after tea and cut them
down, taking 7 for 50.
A week later he joined John Inverarity, Greg Chappell (who had just
completed a season with Somerset) and me on Frank Russell's Cricketers
Club of London tour of West Germany. We stayed in a British Army camp
just outside the old city of Mönchengladbach. We played a cricket match
against the army, using an artificial pitch and welded steel uprights
doubled for stumps.
A huge West Indian came to the crease and we pleaded with Deadly to
"throw one up". Having faced him over five Tests in England, where his
slower ball was about the speed of Basil D'Oliveira's medium-pacers, we
were keen to see how the batsman - any batsman - would react, when
Underwood gave the ball some air. He eventually did. As the ball left
his hand we could see a hint of a smile on the batsman's face. The ball
disappeared and was never retrieved. Underwood's face was a flush of red
as he let the next ball go, and what a clang it made as it hit those
steel uprights, while the West Indian's bat was still on the downswing!
Apart from his destructive ability on bad or rain-affected tracks,
Underwood was also a brilliant foil for the fast bowlers on hard
wickets. He kept things tight as a drum when bowing in tandem with John
Snow during Ray Illingworth's successful 1970-71 Ashes campaign Down
Under.
My fifth choice might surprise some for I've gone for Graeme Swann, the best of the modern torchbearers for spin bowling.
I first saw him with Gareth Batty and Monty Panesar, fellow spin
hopefuls, in Adelaide in the early 2000s. Swann had energy through the
crease, he spun hard, and he tried to get people out. At that time some
of the coaches leaned towards Panesar and I couldn't understand it, for
Swann wasn't just a fine offspinner, he could bat when he put his mind
to it, and he was an exceptional slip fieldsman. In comparison Panesar
did not seem to have the same resolve or the cricketing nous.
When he was finally recognised as a top-flight spinner, Swann proved
himself straightaway. He was 29 years old when he played his first Test,
against India in 2008-09, and in the four-odd years since, he has
played 41 Tests, taking 182 wickets at 27.97. Swann doesn't have the
doosra, but he does have the square-spinner, which looks like an offie
but skids on straight, and he can beat either side of the right-hander's
bat.
There's a cheerful chirpiness about him that may annoy his opponents,
but that is part of his make-up, just as the aggression of a Bill
O'Reilly, or the cold stare of Warne, helped them dominate batsmen.
Statistically Swann's record so far compares well with Jim Laker's (193
wickets at 21.24 from 46 Tests) and Tony Lock (49 Tests - 174 wickets at
25.58 with 9 five-wicket hauls).
There are lots of good spinners who I have had to omit, including Lock,
Laker, Abdul Qadir, Lance Gibbs, Richie Benaud, Daniel Vettori, Anil
Kumble, Sonny Ramadhin, Intikhab Alam, John Emburey, Pat Pocock, Ray
Illingworth, Fred Titmus and Stuart MacGill. But the five I did pick -
Warne, Prasanna, Murali, Underwood and Swann - would do well against any
batsmen in any era.
Richie Benaud, the celebrated leg spinner also
known for his legendary one-liners in the commentary box, once said, “a
bleeding ring finger at the end of every training session was not only
normal but essential for my development as a wrist spinner.”
Being one of the most influential and highly-regarded leg-break
bowlers at a time when leg-spin was both rare and misunderstood, Benaud
knew what he was talking about. He recalls spending most of his late
teenage years at the New South Wales Colts’ nets. He would practice
landing his stock delivery on the same spot for hours on end.
“Four times a week I would turn up at exactly quarter to three with
Billy Watson (who coincidentally would go on to play for Australia
himself) and practice in the same net.”
Numerous others would show up at their own leisure to replace Billy,
but Benaud would keep practicing until the last ray of light had faded
into yet another Sydney summer evening.
“It (leg-spin bowling) is perhaps the hardest and most complex facet
of cricket”, Benaud said and the “easiest thing starting out would be to
keep it simple and true to your ability.”
The end of that statement is perhaps more significant than it has
ever been, for the modern day leg-spinner has to learn not only the
complex art, but also to grow out of the shadow of the greatest spin
wizard of them all — Shane Warne.
The apparent simplicity of the genius, with his easy flowing action,
unprecedented success and captivating personality seems to offer the
perfect road map for an aspiring leg spinner.
In the years since Warne’s retirement, talented young bowlers have
devoted their energies to modelling themselves on the brilliant
Victorian, misguidedly expecting such an ordeal to be rewarding. The
truth, however, truth is far closer to the contrary. Such pursuits often
give birth to “spinners” who rarely turn the ball or for that matter,
possess any of the other bamboozling variations (flipper, top-spinner,
googly) so essential to the authentic leggie’s bag of tricks.
The explanation to this fascinating conundrum lies in both the sheer
inimitable genius of Warne and the finer aspects of the leg-spinning
trait itself.
Leg-spin, unlike any of the other bowling traits, does not require a
high-arm delivery release. The bowler, instead, is required to have the
shoulder stretch a bit to the side at the point of delivery. This is due
to the peculiar and extremely strenuous way the ball is released from
the wrist (the flick).
Abdul Qadir ripping a leggie (notice the arm to the side)
The round arm action makes it much easier for the bowler’s wrist to
make the necessary flicking movement, transitioning from facing the sky
to facing the bowler at the time of release. It also allows for the
maximum number of revolutions to be imparted on the ball, resulting in
the drift and fast turn, which are crucial to the lethal leg break.
What determines the amount of turn more than any thing else, however,
is the pivot of the legs of the spinner. This pivot has to be strong
because it needs to drag the entire body with it, the rule being that
the greater the momentum the greater the turn. The pivot is greatly
aided by a side-on action. If the bowler is completely side-on in the
delivery stride, half his work is already done for his body can then
easily be dragged with the momentum generated by the motion of delivery.
Mushtaq Ahmed and Devendra Bishoo completely side-on – making it easier to pivot
The authentic leg-spinner’s action then requires an equal amount of
work to be done by the front arm and the bowling arm, resulting in quick
shifts in momentum that appear a bit haphazard in real time. This leads
to “funny” actions being associated with leg-break bowlers.
My whole analysis goes out of the window when you look at Shane
Warne. Having the most insignificant of jumps, Warne’s action is much
more front-on compared to the traditional leg-spinner. His action
doesn’t involve the extravagant movements associated with the likes of
Qadir or Mushtaq and is in fact so fluent and easy on the eye that it
often appears deceptively lethargic.
Shane
Warne gets much more front-on and also avoids the extravagant momentum
shifts to display one of the most graceful bowling actions .
“How, then, did the magician conjure the wicked turn that mesmerised
so many?” Mike Gatting would surely ask. And the answer really can only
be attributed to the oddity of Warne’s natural ability. His shoulder and
wrist, both freakishly strong and flexible, were able to impart a
vicious spin on the ball that others will find impossible to replicate.
This freakish nature is demonstrated even more clearly when you
notice his variations. The top spinner and googly, the most common
leg-spinning variations, both require the ball to be released with a
very different wrist position compared to the stock ball, needing the
back of the hand to end up facing the batsman (top spinner) or the
ground (googly) after release. This is an extreme change that normal
bowlers cannot achieve by a simple adjustment of the wrist. A change in
the point of delivery is essential to bowling these variations. Where
initially the shoulder stuck out to the side, the arm is now closer to
the head for the variations. Compare, for instance, Qadir’s top spinner
to his normal action shown above.
Abdul Qadir’s action; much more round arm for the change ups.
Qadir was not alone in needing to make this switch. Almost all
leg-spinners who have versatility, so crucial to being a complete wrist
spinner, have to rely on this slight give-away to land their change-up
deliveries effectively.
Kaneria Legbreak Kaneria Googly (Blue:Head, Red:Line of Release)
Now compare this to Warne, and the difference is evident.
Shane Warne Legbreak Shane Warne Googly
In fact, comparing Shane Warne’s repertoire just confirms why it was
so hard to pick the great spinner, who was able to churn out his entire
array of deliveries without the slightest hint of change in his action
or release point. His strong shoulder and unusually flexible wrists bore
the brunt of the change up every time.
(Left to Right/Top to Bottom: Leggie, Wrong-un, Flipper, Slider)
Therefore, while Warne’s ability to turn the ball and perfectly
camouflage his variations is nothing short of breathtaking, one must at
the same time keep in mind the anatomy and natural gift of the great
spinner that frankly can’t be imitated. With his destructive attitude
and knack of getting under the batsman’s skin, Warne is definitely the
embodiment of an attacking spinner.
Aspiring newcomers have a lot to learn from his attitude but would be
better suited to look towards the traditional greats in Qadir and
Benaud when it comes to modelling and reconstructing bowling actions.
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
Marvan Atapattu
As an opening batsman you can't do much worse than begin your Test career with scores of 0 and 0, 0 and 1, and 0 and 0
(and, reports suggest, even that one run was actually a leg-bye). That
was the nightmare start that Sri Lanka's Atapattu endured in three Tests
from 1990 to early 1994. It was - perhaps not surprisingly - more than
three years before he got another game, when at last he got into double
figures. But he did very well after that, finishing a 90-Test career
with 5502 runs and 16 centuries, no fewer than six of them doubles.
Shane Warne
In January 1992, when Warne was rather rounder than he is today - Ian
Healy commented back then that Warnie's idea of a balanced diet was a
cheeseburger in each hand - the great legspinner made an undistinguished
Test debut in Sydney, taking one Indian wicket for 150 in 45 overs: his victim was Ravi Shastri, out to what Wisden
called "a tired shot" after having amassed 206 in 572 minutes. After no
wickets in the next Test, and 0 for 107 in the first innings of his
third one, in Colombo
in August 1992, Warne had a bowling average of 335.00 when he was
handed the ball again in the second innings as Sri Lanka closed in on a
probable victory. Suddenly things started to get better: he secured an
unlikely win, taking three wickets for no run in 11 deliveries. The
rest, as they say, is history.
Len Hutton
England tried out a new opening pair against New Zealand for the first Test against New Zealand at Lord's
in 1937. James Parks (the father of the 1960s England wicketkeeper Jim)
made 22 and 7, while a young Yorkshireman - he celebrated his 21st
birthday on the rest day - made 0 and 1. Only one of them was named for
the next Test - and, you've guessed it, it was Hutton who was retained.
He scored 100 at Old Trafford, and the following year made 364 against
Australia: in all he won 79 caps, and scored nearly 7000 runs. Poor
Parks, however, never played another Test.
Viv Richards
One of the most intimidating batsmen of all time, Richards made a less
than scintillating start in Tests, managing only 4 and 3 against India in Bangalore
in 1974-75, falling in each innings to the whirling legspin of Bhagwat
Chandrasekhar. But any thoughts of a weakness against spin were banished
in the next Test, in Delhi,
where Richards slammed six sixes in an imperious 192 not out to set up
an innings victory. That was the first of 24 Test centuries for the
"Master Blaster".
Merv Hughes
After taking just one wicket for 123 in his first Test, against India, Hughes was pasted all round the Gabba
by Ian Botham in the 1986-87 Ashes opener. After the next Test Merv had
a bowling average nudging 50, and hadn't even looked like scoring a
run. You'd have got long odds on him achieving the Test double of 1000
runs and 100 wickets, but he turned himself into a serviceable batsman
and did just that. And his bowling improved out of sight too: he
finished up with 212 Test wickets, most of them celebrated by squeezing a
few well-chosen words through that famous bushy moustache in the
general direction of the departing batsman. Probably Hughes' greatest
sledge came not long after Pakistan's Javed Miandad had labelled him "a
fat bus conductor". A few balls later Hughes dismissed him, and charged
past, yelling "Tickets please!"
Graham Gooch
On his Test debut against Australia at Edgbaston
in 1975,
Gooch had a moustache to rival Merv's - and his batting was as
productive as Hughes' in his early Tests. Gooch departed for 0 and 0,
tickling a couple of catches to the predatory Rod Marsh, and after one
more match returned to county cricket for three years to tighten things
up. He re-emerged, tightness personified, to kickstart a Test career
that ultimately brought him 8900 runs, still the England record.
Michael Holding
We remember Holding now as just about the perfect fast bowler -
athletic, graceful, and above all scarily fast. But it wasn't all plain
sailing at first: he took 0 for 127 in his debut Test, in Australia in
1975-76, and finished that chastening series - which the Aussies won 5-1
- with just 10 wickets at 61.40,
being reduced to tears at one point as things went against him. Things
began to look up later in 1976, though, when Holding blew England away
with 14 wickets on a slow pitch at The Oval. "Whispering Death" had
arrived.
Jeff Thomson
One reason the England tourists Down Under in 1974-75 didn't take much
notice of Thomson's pre-series bluster about how much he liked to hurt
batsmen was that they knew he had played just one previous Test, against Pakistan
in 1972-73, and finished with 0 for 110 in 19 expensive overs. But what
Mike Denness and Co. probably didn't know was that Thommo had been
nursing a broken foot in that match - he thought he'd better play, in
case he never got another chance. The next call duly came in Brisbane
two years later, and Thomson shook England up with 6 for 46 in the
second innings, then 5 for 93 in Perth in the next Test, both of which
Australia won comfortably. By the time he ruled himself out of the
series by injuring his shoulder playing tennis, Thommo had taken 33 wickets
in four and a half matches, and the Ashes were back in Australian
hands. He ended up with 200 Test wickets, exactly 100 of them against
England.
Gautam Gambhir
Test stardom - and multi-million IPL contracts - probably seemed a long
way off for Gambhir after his first Test for India, against Australia in Mumbai
in November 2004, produced scores of 3 and 1 on an admittedly dodgy
pitch (India won in three days, bowling Australia out for 93 in their
second innings). The selectors stuck by Gambhir, who repaid them by
making 96 in the next Test, against South Africa, and 139 against Bangladesh a few weeks later. Despite trouble with injuries, he now has more than 3500 Test runs.
Brad Hogg
Cricket's most famous ex-postman made his Test debut in Delhi
in October 1996, replacing Shane Warne, who was recovering from surgery
to his hand. Hogg, an unorthodox left-arm spinner, had an
undistinguished start: his 17 overs cost 69, although he did claim the
wicket of Sourav Ganguly. He didn't play another Test for six and a half
years, although he did have a long run in Australia's one-day side. One
story has it that Hogg had longed all his career to hear Ian Healy
growl from behind the stumps, "Well bowled, Hoggy" ... but bowled so
indifferently that it was never actually said.
Saeed Anwar
Given Pakistan's capricious selection policies, the deliciously wristy
opener Anwar might never have played again after he bagged a pair in his
first Test, against West Indies in Faisalabad
in November 1990. As it was, he didn't win another Test cap for more
than three years - but made it count when he did, with 169 against New Zealand in only his third match. Anwar ended up with 4052 runs in Tests - and more than double that (8824) in one-day internationals.
The great spinners visualised their wickets anddeceived 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
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.
Piyush Chawla, Amit Mishra and Rahul Sharma have the skills to be successful for India. But their actions still need some work
Aakash Chopra
May 30, 2011
We may have well seen the last of Shane Warne in a competitive game, but we haven't seen the last of his art yet. He may no longer roll his arm and spin magic, but he continues to make a strong case for his clan. Warne's legacy will be an effective blueprint for generations of aspiring spinners, who will now have a look at videos of him to pick up a lesson or two. Legspin is one of the toughest crafts to perfect, but once you've mastered it, like Warne clearly had, you can aim to win matches in all formats.
Warne had an almost perfect legspinner's action: side-on, bowled with a slightly round arm but with the wrist cocked. He drifted the ball in the air and got spin off the surface - usually only enough to get the edge. He also varied the pace and trajectory with consummate ease. But above all he was shrewd enough to decipher the batsman, formulate the right plan and execute it with precision.
It might be interesting to take a look at three young Indian practitioners of the same art: Piyush Chawla, part of India's World Cup-winning campaign, Amit Mishra, who replaced Chawla in the team for the West Indies, and Rahul Sharma, arguably the most impressive bowler in this IPL.
Unlike Warne, Piyush Chawla has an open bowling action. With such an action, you see the batsman from inside the non-bowling arm, while with a side-on action, you see the batsman from over or through the leading arm. Most legspinners prefer a side-on action because it not only allows them to bowl with a slightly rounder arm, which is essential to impart side spin, but also allows them to rotate the hip by pivoting on the front toe, and thus putting the weight of the body behind the ball. When you look from inside the non-bowling arm, you bowl with a high-arm action and have an insignificant pivot. It's much like with fast bowlers, where outswing bowlers prefer the closed action and inswing bowlers an open action.
Since spinning the ball across the right-hand batsman isn't his forte, Chawla bowls from the corner of the crease to make his wrong 'un more effective. His open action allows him to bowl a googly a lot more efficiently than most legspinners. A traditional spinner will have to make significant change in his action (from round-arm to high-arm) and go to the corner of the crease, so the trajectory starts from outside off stump. These changes are often a giveaway but not with Chawla. However, his high-arm action and delivery from the corner of the crease impair his ability to bowl a more orthodox legspinner's line, i.e. on middle and leg stump. Unless he gets some serious drift in the air, he has to really push the ball towards leg to change the line. And that's when he ends up slipping it down the leg side - the lack of spin doesn't allow the ball to spin back towards the off stump.
Playing Chawla As a batsman you must keep a close eye on his googly. Since it turns a lot more and is a lot quicker in the air and off the surface - a rarity - don't go back or play a horizontal shot. Even though he isn't a big turner of the ball, his point of delivery dictates that his line is mostly outside off, so you must go close to the ball while stepping out, else you run the risk of not getting close enough. Since he bowls fairly quick, you can also use that pace to pinch singles.
Sharma is the tallest of the three, and so he gets the most bounce. His high-arm open action ensures he makes the most of his height, but it also means he compromises on spin off the surface
Amit Mishra has an ideal legspinner's action, being fairly side-on, and he also bowls with a slightly round arm. He tries to get close to the stumps and imparts a lot of side spin on the ball. But he has a long bowling stride, with the front leg bent at the point of delivery, which effectively reduces his height during delivery, and hence the bounce he could potentially extract. Mishra started out as a big turner of the ball, which worked fine at the domestic level, but after a year or so of international cricket, he realised he had to stop turning it too much, lest he miss the edge. He was bowling the right lines, turning the ball, but wickets eluded him. So he learnt to cock his wrist, not only to control the spin but to get a bit more bounce. While he's fairly accurate with his line and length and banks on beating the batsman in the air, the lack of pace off the surface works against him: even when the batsman makes an error he can often adjust because of the lack of pace.
Playing Mishra You should always be wary of his spin and completely sure before going down the track; if you stay slightly away from the ball, it might mean you miss it entirely. Also it's necessary to play in the second line and cover the spin. Play with the spin and not against it, otherwise there's a good chance of edging the ball. For instance, unless you get to the pitch of the ball, don't hit straight; instead, target the gap over extra cover. Since his deliveries don't hurry on to you, it's best to stay on the back foot.
Rahul Sharma is the tallest of the three and so he gets the most bounce. He is possibly the most accurate legspinner on the Indian circuit, and his height has something to do with it. The taller the bowler, the better his chances of hitting the same spot more often and with accuracy. Sharma's high-arm open action ensures he makes the most of his height, but it also means he compromises on spin off the surface. He does not get too close to the stumps, nor does he go to the corner of the crease; he mostly stays in the middle of the box. He tries to bowl as straight as possible, with the length slightly on the shorter side to make the most of the steep bounce he generates. But while the bounce works in his favour, the lack of side spin works against him. He does impart a lot of overspin on the ball, which complements the bounce, but the position of his feet and the direction his toes are pointing in at the crease don't allow him to get much spin. His leading toes point towards third man instead of fine leg, which means he doesn't pivot a lot while delivering the ball. He must develop a googly to go with his topspinners or he runs the risk of becoming a one-trick pony.
Playing Sharma Back yourself to play him through the line and on the up, but keep your hands slightly higher up the handle than with other spinners. If you don't take the bounce into account while putting bat to ball, you'll find the ball eluding the sweet spot and hitting higher on the bat. Since he bowls quicker and flatter, avoid going down the track, for you won't have enough time for a successful advance. But that also means you can use the bounce to get under the ball while staying inside the crease.
Former India opener Aakash Chopra is the author of Beyond the Blues, an account of the 2007-08 Ranji Trophy season. His website is here and his Twitter feed here
Knowing when to attack and when to defend is crucial to the success of good spinners, and that comes only with experience. Terry Jenner talks to Nagraj Gollapudi
Nagraj Gollapudi
September 27, 2007
Terry Jenner played nine Tests for Australia in the 1970s but it is as a coach, and specifically as Shane Warne's mentor and the man Warne turned to in a crisis, that he is better known. Jenner said that his CV wouldn't be complete without a trip to India, the spiritual home of spin bowling, and this September he finally made it when he was invited by the MAC Spin Foundation to train youngsters in Chennai. Jenner spoke at length to Cricinfo on the art and craft of spin bowling in general and legspin in particular. What follows is the first in a two-part interview.
"Most of the time the art of the spin bowler is to get the batsman to look to drive you. That's where your wickets come"
How has the role of spin changed over the decades you've watched cricket?
The limited-overs game has made the major change to spin bowling. When I started playing, for example, you used to break partnerships in the first couple of the days of the match and then on the last couple of days you were expected to play more of a major role. But in recent years, with the entry of Shane Warne, who came on on the first day of the Test and completely dominated on good pitches, it has sort of changed the specs that way.
But the difficulty I'm reading at the moment is that captains and coaches seem to be of the opinion that spin bowlers are there either to rest the pace bowlers or to just keep it tight; they are not allowed to risk runs to gain rewards. That's the biggest change.
In the 1960s, when I first started, you were allowed to get hit around the park a bit, as long as you managed to get wickets - it was based more on your strike-rate than how many runs you went for. So limited-overs cricket has influenced bowlers to bowl a negative line and not the attacking line, and I don't know with the advent of Twenty20 how we'll advance. We will never go back, unfortunately, to the likes of Warne and the wrist-spinners before him who went for runs but the quality was more.
What are the challenges of being a spinner in modern cricket?
The huge challenge is just getting to bowl at club level through to first-class level. When you get to the first-class level they tend to you allow you to bowl, but once you get to bowl, instead of allowing you to be a free spirit, you are restricted to men around the bat - push it through, don't let the batsman play the stroke, don't free their arms up ... all those modern thoughts on how the spinner should bowl.
Do spinners spin the ball less these days?
The capacity to spin is still there, but to spin it you actually have to flight it up, and if you flight it up there's always that risk of over-pitching and the batsman getting you on the full, and therefore the risk of runs being scored. So if you consider the general mentality of a spinner trying to bowl dot balls and bowl defensive lines, then you can't spin it.
I'll give you an example of an offspin bowler bowling at middle and leg. How far does he want to spin it? If he needs to spin it, he needs to bowl a foot outside the off stump and spin it back, but if he has to bowl a defensive line then he sacrifices the spin, otherwise he'll be just bowling down the leg side.
It's impossible for you to try and take a wicket every ball, but when you're really young that's what you do - you just try and spin it as hard as you can and take the consequences, and that usually means you don't get to bowl many overs. The art of improving is when you learn how to get into your overs, get out of your overs, and use the middle deliveries to attack
Legspinners bowling at leg stump or just outside - there's been so few over the years capable of spinning the ball from just outside leg past off, yet that's the line they tend to bowl. So I don't think they spin it any less; the capacity to spin is still wonderful. I still see little kids spinning the ball a long way. I take the little kids over to watch the big kids bowl and I say, "Have a look: the big kids are all running in off big, long runs, jumping high in the air and firing it down there, and more importantly going straight." And I say to the little kids, "They once were like you. And one of you who hangs on to the spin all the way through is the one that's gonna go forward."
Great spinners have always bowled at the batsman and not to the batsman. But the trend these days is that spinners are becoming increasingly defensive.
First of all they play him [the young spinner] out of his age group. Earlier the idea of finding a good, young talent, when people identified one, was that they didn't move him up and play him in the higher grade or in the higher age group. There was no different age-group cricket around back then, and if you were a youngster you went into the seniors and you played in the bottom grade and then you played there for a few years while you learned the craft and then they moved you to the next grade. So you kept going till you came out the other end and that could've been anywhere around age 19, 20, 21 or whatever. Now the expectation is that by the time you are 16 or 17 you are supposed to be mastering this craft.
It's a long apprenticeship. If you find a good 10- or 11-year-old, he needs to have a ten-year apprenticeship at least. There's a rule of thumb here that says that if the best there's ever been, which is Shane Warne - and there is every reason to believe he is - sort of started to strike his best at 23-24, what makes you think we can find 18- or 19-year-olds to do it today? I mean, he [Warne] has only been out of the game for half an hour and yet we're already expecting kids to step up to the plate much, much before they are ready.
It's a game of patience with spin bowlers and developing them. It's so important that we are patient in helping them, understanding their need for patience, at the same time understanding from outside the fence - as coach, captain etc. We need to understand them and allow them to be scored off, allow them to learn how to defend themselves, allow them to understand that there are times when you do need to defend. But most of the time the art of the spin bowler is to get the batsman to look to drive you. That's where your wickets come, that's where you spin it most.
Warne said you never imposed yourself as a coach.
With Warne, when I first met him he bowled me a legbreak which spun nearly two feet-plus, and I was just in awe. All I wanted to do was try and help that young man become the best he could be, just to help him understand his gift, understand what he had, and to that end I never tried to change him. That's what he meant by me never imposing myself. We established a good relationship based on the basics of bowling and his basics were always pretty good. Over the years whenever he wandered away from them, we worked it back to them. There were lot of times over his career where, having a bowled a lot of overs, some bad habits had come in. It was not a case of standing over him. I was just making him aware of where he was at the moment and how he could be back to where he was when he was spinning them and curving them. His trust was the most important gift that he gave me, and it's an important thing for a coach to understand not to breach that trust. That trust isn't about secrets, it's about the trust of the information you give him, that it won't harm him, and that was our relationship.
I don't think of myself as an authority on spin bowling. I see myself as a coach who's developed a solid learning by watching and working with the best that's been, and a lot of other developing spinners. So I'm in a terrific business-class seat because I get to see a lot of this stuff and learn from it, and of course I've spoken to Richie Benaud quite a lot over the years.
Shane would speak to Abdul Qadir and he would feed back to me what Abdul Qadir said. Most people relate your knowledge to how many wickets you took and I don't think that's relevant. I think it's your capacity to learn and deliver, to communicate that what you've learned back to people.
From the outside it seems like there is a problem of over-coaching these days.
There are so many coaches now. We have specialist coaches, general coaches, we've got sports science and psychology. Coaching has changed.
Shane, in his retirement speech, referred to me as his technical coach (by which he meant technique), as Dr Phil [the psychologist on the Oprah Winfrey Show]. That means when he wanted someone to talk to, I was the bouncing board. He said the most uplifting thing ever said about me: that whenever he rang me, when he hung the phone up he always felt better for having made the call.
"Think high, spin up" was the first mantra you shared with Warne. What does it mean?
When I first met Shane his arm was quite low, and back then, given I had no genuine experience of coaching spin, I asked Richie Benaud and made him aware of this young Shane Warne fellow and asked him about the shoulder being low. Richie said, "As long as he spins it up from the hand, it'll be fine." But later, when we tried to introduce variations, we talked about the topspinner and I said to Shane, "You're gonna have to get your shoulder up to get that topspinner to spin over the top, otherwise it spins down low and it won't produce any shape." So when he got back to his mark the trigger in his mind was "think high, spin up", and when he did that he spun up over the ball and developed the topspinner. Quite often even in the case of the legbreak it was "think high, spin up" because his arm tended to get low, especially after his shoulder operation.
Can you explain the risk-for-reward theory that you teach youngsters about?
This is part of learning the art and craft. It's impossible for you to try and take a wicket every ball, but when you're really young that's what you do - you just try and spin it as hard as you can and take the consequences, and that usually means you don't get to bowl many overs. The art of improving is when you learn how to get into your overs, get out of your overs, and use the middle deliveries in an over to attack. I called them the risk and reward balls in an over. In other words, you do risk runs off those deliveries but you can also gain rewards.
There's been no one in the time that I've been around who could theoretically bowl six wicket-taking balls an over other than SK Warne. The likes of [Anil] Kumble ... he's trying to keep the lines tight and keep you at home, keep you at home while he works on you, but he's not trying to get you out every ball, he's working a plan.
The thing about excellent or great bowlers is that they rarely go for a four or a six off the last delivery. That is the point I make to kids, explaining how a mug like me used to continually go for a four or six off the last ball of the over while trying to get a wicket so I could stay on. And when you do that, that's the last thing your captain remembers, that's the last thing your team-mates remember, it's the last thing the selectors remember. So to that end you are better off bowling a quicker ball in line with the stumps which limits the batsman's opportunities to attack. So what I'm saying is, there's always a time when you need to defend, but you've got to know how to attack and that's why you need such a long apprenticeship.
Warne said the most uplifting thing ever said about me: that whenever he rang me, when he hung the phone up he always felt better for having made the call
Richie Benaud writes in his book that his dad told him to keep it simple and concentrate on perfecting the stock ball. Benaud says that you shouldn't even think about learning the flipper before you have mastered the legbreak, top spinner and wrong'un. Do you agree?
I totally agree with what Richie said. If you don't have a stock ball, what is the variation? You know what I'm saying? There are five different deliveries a legbreak bowler can bowl, but Warne said on more than one occasion that because of natural variation you can bowl six different legbreaks in an over; what's important is the line and length that you are bowling that encourages the batsman to get out of his comfort zone or intimidates him, and that's the key to it all. Richie spun his legbreak a small amount by comparison with Warne but because of that his use of the slider and the flipper were mostly effective because he bowled middle- and middle-and-off lines, whereas Warne was leg stump, outside leg stump.
Richie's a wise man and in the days he played there were eight-ball overs here in Australia. If you went for four an over, you were considered to be a pretty handy bowler. If you go for four an over now, it's expensive - that's because it's six-ball overs. But Richie was a great example of somebody who knew his strengths and worked on whatever weaknesses he might've had. He knew he wasn't a massive spinner of the ball, therefore his line and length had to be impeccable, and he worked around that.
In fact, in his autobiography Warne writes, "What matters is not always how many deliveries you possess, but how many the batsmen thinks you have."
That's the mystery of spin, isn't it? I remember, every Test series Warnie would come out with a mystery ball or something like that, but the truth is there are only so many balls that you can really bowl - you can't look like you're bowling a legbreak and bowl an offbreak.
Sonny Ramdhin was very difficult to read as he bowled with his sleeves down back in the 1950s; he had an unique grip and unique way of releasing the ball, as does Murali [Muttiah Muralitharan]. What they do with their wrists, it's very difficult to pick between the offbreak and the legbreak. Generally a legbreak bowler has to locate his wrist in a position to enhance the spin in the direction he wants the ball to go, which means the batsman should be able to see the relocation of the wrist.
In part two of his interview on the art of spin bowling, Terry Jenner looks at the damage caused to young spinners by the curbs placed on their attacking instincts. He also surveys the current slow-bowling landscape and appraises the leading practitioners around.
"Most spin bowlers have enormous attacking instinct, which gets suppressed by various captains and coaches" Nagraj Gollapudi
Bishan Bedi once said that a lot of bowling is done in the mind. Would you say that spin bowling requires the most mental energy of all the cricketing arts?
The thing about that is Bishan Bedi - who has, what, 260-odd Test wickets? - bowled against some of the very best players ever to go around the game. He had at his fingertips the control of spin and pace. Now, when you've got that, when you've developed that ability, then it's just about when to use them, how to use them, so therefore it becomes a matter of the brain. You can't have the brain dominating your game when you haven't got the capacity to bowl a legbreak or an offbreak where you want it to land. So that's why you have to practise those stock deliveries until it becomes just natural for you - almost like you can land them where you want them to land blindfolded, and then it just becomes mind over matter. Then the brain does take over.
There's nothing better than watching a quality spin bowler of any yolk - left-hand, right-hand - working on a quality batsman who knows he needs to break the bowler's rhythm or he might lose his wicket. That contest is a battle of minds then, because the quality batsman's got the technique and the quality bowler's got the capacity to bowl the balls where he wants to, within reason. So Bishan is exactly right.
What came naturally to someone like Bedi was flight. How important is flight in spin bowling?
When I was very young someone said to me, "You never beat a batsman off the pitch unless you first beat him in the air." Some people think that's an old-fashioned way of bowling. Once, at a conference in England, at Telford, Bishan said "Spin is in the air and break is off the pitch", which supported exactly what that guy told me 40 years ago. On top of that Bedi said stumping was his favourite dismissal because you had beaten the batsman in the air and then off the pitch. You wouldn't get too many coaches out there today who would endorse that remark because they don't necessarily understand what spin really is.
When you appraised the trainees in Chennai [at the MAC Spin Foundation], you said if they can separate the one-day cricket shown on TV and the one-day cricket played at school level, then there is a chance a good spinner will come along.
What I was telling them was: when you bowl a ball that's fairly flat and short of a length and the batsman goes back and pushes it to the off side, the whole team claps because no run was scored off it. Then you come in and toss the next one up and the batsman drives it to cover and it's still no run, but no one applauds it; they breathe a sigh of relief. That's the lack of understanding we have within teams about the role of the spin bowler. You should be applauding when he has invited the batsman to drive because that's what courage is, that's where the skill is, that's where the spin is, and that's where the wickets come. Bowling short of a length, that's the role of a medium pacer, part-timer. Most spin bowlers have enormous attacking instinct which gets suppressed by various captains, coaches and ideological thoughts in clubs and teams.
You talked at the beginning of the interview about the importance of being patient with a spinner. But isn't it true that the spinner gets another chance even if he gets hit, but the batsman never does?
I don't think you can compare them that way. If the spinner gets hit, he gets taken off. If he goes for 10 or 12 off an over, they take him off. Batsmen have got lots of things in their favour.
What I mean by patience is that to develop the craft takes a lot of overs, lots of balls in the nets, lots of target bowling. And you don't always get a bowl. Even if you are doing all this week-in, week-out, you don't always get to bowl, so you need to be patient. And then one day you walk into the ground and finally they toss you the ball. It is very easy to behave in a hungry, desperate manner because you think, "At last, I've got the ball." And you forget all the good things you do and suddenly try to get a wicket every ball because it's your only hope of getting into the game and staying on. The result is, you don't actually stay on and you don't get more games. So the patience, which is what you learn as you go along, can only come about if the spinner is allowed to develop at his pace instead of us pushing him up the rung because we think we've found one at last.
How much of a role does attitude play?
Attitude is an interesting thing. Depends on how you refer to it - whether it's attitude to bowling, attitude to being hit, attitude to the game itself.
When you bowl a ball that's fairly flat and short of a length and the batsman goes back and pushes it to the off side, the whole team claps because no run was scored off it. Then you come in and toss the next one up and the batsman drives it to cover and it's still no run, but no one applauds it; they breathe a sigh of relief
When Warne was asked what a legspin bowler needs more than anything else, he said, "Love". What he meant was love and understanding. They need someone to put their arm around them and say, "Mate, its okay, tomorrow is another day." Because you get thumped, mate. When you are trying to spin the ball from the back of your hand and land it in an area that's a very small target, that takes a lot of skill, and it also requires the patience to develop that skill. That's what I mean by patience, and the patience also needs to be with the coach, the captain, and whoever else is working with this young person, and the parents, who need to understand that he is not going to develop overnight.
And pushing him up the grade before he is ready isn't necessarily a great reward for him because that puts pressure on him all the time. Any person who plays under pressure all the time, ultimately the majority of them break. That's not what you want, you want them to come through feeling sure, scoring lots of wins, feeling good about themselves, recognising their role in the team, and having their team-mates recognise their role.
I don't think people - coaches, selectors - let the spin bowler know what his role actually is. He gets in the team and suddenly he gets to bowl and is told, "Here's the field, bowl to this", and in his mind he can't bowl.
Could you talk about contemporary spinners - Anil Kumble, Harbhajan Singh, Daniel Vettori, Monty Panesar, and Muttiah Muralitharan of course?
Of all the spinners today, the one I admire most of all is Vettori. He has come to Australia on two or three occasions and on each occasion he has troubled the Australian batsmen. He is a man who doesn't spin it a lot but he has an amazing ability to change the pace, to force the batsman into thinking he can drive it, but suddenly they have to check their stroke. And that's skill. If you haven't got lots of spin, then you've got to have the subtlety of change of pace.
And, of course, there is Kumble. I always marvel at the fact that he has worked his career around mainly containment and at the same time bowled enough wicket-taking balls to get to 566 wickets. That's a skill in itself. He is such a humble person as well and I admire him.
I marvel a little bit at Murali's wrist because it is very clever what he does with that, but to the naked eye I can't tell what is 15 degrees and what's not. I've just got to accept the word above us. All I know is that it would be very difficult to coach someone else to bowl like Murali. So we've got to put him in a significant list of one-offs - I hate to use the word "freak" - that probably won't be repeated.
I don't see enough of Harbhajan Singh - he is in and out of the Indian side. What I will say is that when I do see him bowl, I love the position of the seam. He has a beautiful seam position.
I love the way Stuart MacGill spins the ball. He is quite fearless in his capacity to spin the ball.
I love the energy that young [Piyush] Chawla displays in his bowling. The enthusiasm and the rawness, if you like. This is what I mean when I talk about pushing the boundaries. He is 18, playing limited-overs cricket, and at the moment he is bowling leggies and wrong'uns and I think that's terrific. But I hope the time doesn't come when he no longer has to spin the ball. When he tries to hold his place against Harbhajan Singh, for example. To do that he has to fire them in much quicker. He is already around the 80kph mark, which is quite healthy for a 18-year-old boy, but he still spins it at that pace, so it's fine. But ultimately if he is encouraged to bowl at a speed at which he doesn't spin the ball, that would be the sad part.
That's why I say this, there are lots of spinners around but it's the young, developing spinners who are probably suffering from all the stuff from television that encourages defence as a means to being successful as a spinner.
Monty is an outstanding prospect. You've got to look at how a guy can improve. He has done very, very well but how can he improve? He has got to have a change-up, a change of pace. At the moment, if you look at the speed gun in any given over from Monty, it's 56.2mph on average every ball. So he bowls the same ball; his line, his length, everything is impeccable, but then when it's time to knock over a tail, a couple of times he has been caught short because he has not been able to vary his pace. I think Monty is such an intelligent bowler and person that he will be in the nets working on that to try and make sure he can invite the lower order to have a go at him and not just try and bowl them out. That probably is his area of concern; the rest of it is outstanding.
What would you say are the attributes of a good spinner? Courage, skill, patience, unpredictability, and spin. You get bits and pieces of all those, but if you have got spin then there is always a chance you can develop the other areas. For all the brilliant things that people saw Warne do, his greatest strength was the size of the heart, and that you couldn't see.
Terry Jenner on the importance of the stock ball, getting the flipper right, why Australia are yet to produce a spinner of Shane Warne's calibre, and more
During practice and in matches I keep trying different ways of spinning the ball. I get wickets but also go for a lot of runs. How do I stick to the basics for the most part?asked Dylan D from China
It is a mental thing. The most important ball is your stock ball: if you are a legspinner it is the legbreak. You bowl it when you need to keep things tight and when you need to take a wicket. By all means work on your variations, but not before you have got reasonable control over your stock ball.
At times I get the ball to spin a lot but then there are times when it just does not turn. What do I do? asked Chad Williams from Belgium
The ball doesn't always react the way you want it to. In the 2005 Ashes Test at Lord's, Shane Warne bowled three legbreaks to Ian Bell, who shouldered arms to first two, as they spun a long way towards slip. The third one hit him in front and he was out lbw. He thought it was a variation ball but it was really a legbreak that did not spin.
Why can't all legspinners bowl the googly? Why do some of them lose their main delivery when they start bowling the wrong 'un?asked Milind from the USA
Because of the wrist position. When you bowl a googly, the back of your hand faces the batsman. The more you do that, the less likely it is for your wrist or palm to face the batsman when you bowl the legbreak. It just creates a bad habit. Most legspinners love the thought of bowling the googly which the batsman may or may not pick. But the trouble is the more you bowl it, the more your wrist gets into a position where it won't support your legbreak.
I know you do not believe in teaching budding offspinners how to bowl the doosra. But what about the away-going delivery as bowled by Erapalli Prasanna? I believe Harbhajan Singh's, and maybe even Jason Krejza's, doosra deliveries are the sort of floaters Prasanna used to bowl?asks Kunal Sharma from Canada
The thing about the doosra is that the people who have bowled it have normally had their actions questioned. Most of the guys don't have the flexibility to bowl that ball. Graeme Swann has shown how excellent an offspinner can be with an orthodox offbreak and an arm ball - a ball that looks like an offbreak but does not spin. Nathan Hauritz got five wickets against Pakistan in Sydney bowling the same way. Just because a delivery reacts different off the pitch does not mean the bowler is bowling the doosra. It can often be just a reaction off the pitch.
I would like to know how to make the ball dip. Also, how does a legspinner understand what is the right pace to bowl at?asks Nipun from Bangladesh
The right pace to bowl at is the pace where you gain your maximum spin. Then you vary your pace from there. But you must understand what pace you need to bowl at. That is very important. Warne gained his maximum spin at around 50mph (80 kph). After that, he got less and less spin. For a young bowler that pace could vary between 35-40mph. So whatever speed it is, be satisfied that you can bowl that ball and gain the maximum spin.
Regarding the dip, it comes from over-spin. When you release the ball, you spin it up and generate a lot of over-spin. For the curve, as opposed to the dip, it is important you align yourself with the target which, say is the middle stump. If you just rotate your wrist 180 degrees, release the ball right to left from you hand, there is a good chance the ball will curve in towards the right-hand batsman. Drop is different from curve.
I have watched your 'Masterclass' videos many times but still find it very difficult to bowl the flipper. I understand the concept of squeezing the ball out, but I haven't been able to grasp the idea of doing it in full motion: the arm movement is anti-clockwise and to "squeeze" the ball out of your fingers is clockwise?asked Akash Sureka from the UK
Again, alignment is very important if you are trying to bowl the flipper. You need to align yourself side-on towards your target, which should be around off stump. Then bowl with your shoulder towards that target, flicking the ball underneath as you release it from your hand. Keeping the seam pretty much upright encourages the ball to curve. Your fingers should be above and below the seam because you are using your thumb, your first and second fingers squeezing the ball underneath your hand. But the bowling shoulder needs to be powerful and also bowling towards the target. There is no anti-clockwise. The hand goes straight towards the target.
How do you think Warne got his amazing confidence, leadership skills and competitive spirit?asked Nadir H from India
I believe he was born with that gift just like he was born with the gift of spin. Warne had a massive heart and showed a lot of courage. You didn't know that the first day you met him. The longer he played, the more certain he became of his own ability and then the competitive spirit came forward.
I once heard Warne's technique should not be imitated by youngsters. Is it because there's pressure on his shoulder or that he doesn't have a run-up, so to speak?asked Nihal Gopinathan from India
This is one question I find annoying because a run-up is only for rhythm. Coaches who encourage people to run in like medium-pacers are not allowing the legspinner to go up and over his front leg. It is important that you bowl over a braced front leg. Warne had eight steps in his approach but walked the last three and had lovely rhythm. People said only Warne was strong enough to bowl that way. I don't think so, because as long as you bowl at your natural pace it is fine. If you are looking for a role model why would you not look at the best in the world? Warne had the five basics of spin: he was side-on; to get side-on, your back foot needs to be parallel to the crease and Warne's was; his front arm started weakly but by the time of release it grew very powerful; he drove his shoulders up and over when he released the ball; and completed his action by rotating 180 degrees. Those basics came naturally to him and were the key to him walking up to the crease and jumping to bowl.
Who do you think is currently the best spinner in the world?asked Yazad from India
Going by current performances, Swann is tough to ignore. He is getting important wickets and helping England win Test matches. I think he has every reason to believe, as he does, he should be very highly rated. I like Danish Kaneria, who probably is the best wrist spinner in the world.
Why has Australia not produced a decent spinner since Warne? Do you think Hauritz, Krejza, etc. have not been given the long rope that Warne got in his early days?asked Vijay from Singapore
People forget that Warne was thrown into the deep end and at one stage had 1 for 228 and his career could have been terminated very early. But faith, patience and others' the belief in his ability helped Shane recoup, along with the enormous talent he had. Before him, we had a lot of guys who were average-to-good legspin bowlers. Probably before Warne, Clarie Grimmett was the best legspinner. Richie Benaud was outstanding and consistent but did not spin big. Warne is an once-in-a-lifetime bowler. When he first played, he did not know how to defend himself. As he got better, he learned how to defend himself. That is how you become a great bowler.
Krejza is still in the mix, and at the moment they are pushing for New South Wales' Steven Smith but he is just a baby. Hauritz has shut the door on the others because he has improved steadily in the last 12 months. He has made improvements to his bowling action, is getting spin and drift and is very much a Test-match bowler.
Are there any other spin options on the horizon for Australia?asked Allan Pinchen from Australia
One of the difficulties in developing young spinners is the Under-19 competition. Every two years there is an U-19 World Cup. The limited-overs format is not about spin but about containment. When Warne came through the system, they played four-day games. During his formative years he toured England, West Indies and Zimbabwe, bowling in four-day matches. Brad Hogg on the other hand was a ten-over bowler. Between the two World Cups (2003 and 2007) I have no doubt Hogg was the best spinner. But when given the opportunity in the Test side, 10 overs were not good enough. You have to be able to bowl at least 20-25 overs.
Do you think in Twenty20 spinners are at a disadvantage since the ball is always relatively new and hence they don't get enough spin off the pitch?asked Ashish from the USA
Twenty20 is not about spin, even if they say it is. It is really about slow bowling. I watch fast bowlers bowl six slow balls an over. It is about taking the pace off the ball and the same applies to spinners. I watched Harbhajan Singh help India win the 2007 World Cup in South Africa and he was bowling 100kph yorkers wide off the crease. You wonder about the development of the spinner then. I don't think he has been the same bowler since.
With the growing emphasis on the shorter forms of the game, how can any country develop a quality wicket-taking slow bowler?asked John Westover from Australia
That is a great question. In my view we should find ways of getting those young, developing spinners to play longer forms of cricket where they can bowl sustained spells. There are two ways to develop as a spinner: by going to the nets and working on your craft and bowling at targets. Or by experimenting and bowling in matches where you can try the things you tried in the nets. In limited-overs games everyone applauds a dot ball but not the batsman's strokes. To develop as a spinner in the four-day game you have to invite the batsman to play strokes. If the mental approach of all concerned - the coach, captain and team-mates - is to keep it tight, the spinner struggles to develop. We say big bats and short boundaries have created difficulties for a spin bowler but dot-ball cricket has done more damage.
