Rohan495 Posted May 3, 2008 Share Posted May 3, 2008 Pragyan Ohja seems to be a good spinner Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cricketics Posted May 3, 2008 Share Posted May 3, 2008 good bowler, but not great. once Kumble decides to retire.. Ojha might get to pla for India. certainly better then Piyush Chawla.. better then pi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest HariSampath Posted May 3, 2008 Share Posted May 3, 2008 Ojha is my man, I had been posting about him last 2 months after I saw him play Ranji onedayers, terrific bowler, spins a lot and takes genuine spinner wkts. Even in Chennai I saw him running after every ball played off him, even if the ball was hit to point or covers :D he just hates to see singles pinched off his bowling, yells a bit at fielders for misfilelds and does some kind of a half Monty jump on getting wkts ! Go Ojha :yay: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swami1984 Posted May 3, 2008 Share Posted May 3, 2008 Ojha is my man, I had been posting about him last 2 months after I saw him play Ranji onedayers, terrific bowler, spins a lot and takes genuine spinner wkts. Even in Chennai I saw him running after every ball played off him, even if the ball was hit to point or covers :D he just hates to see singles pinched off his bowling, yells a bit at fielders for misfilelds and does some kind of a half Monty jump on getting wkts ! Go Ojha :yay: he looked calm under pressure Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flamy Posted May 3, 2008 Share Posted May 3, 2008 his fielding has been total cr@p. Of the top of my head, I remember that DD game when he let go of a Sehwag catch. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
h4te Posted May 4, 2008 Share Posted May 4, 2008 ideally, ali murtuza should be the one who should play for india. unfortunately, he is in ICL. ohja looks good. what hapenned to amit mishra? however, piyush and whale are still ahead of them according to selectors. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eternalhope Posted May 4, 2008 Share Posted May 4, 2008 I am not that impressed with Ojha. I don't think he has a good grasp of most of the tricks of the trade. Ali Murtaza of ICL is far better than him. But, of all the left armers, I have seen recently, I would bet on Sumit Kalia of ICL. I am really impressed with the nip this guy gets of the wicket. Somehow I feel ICL has better spinning talent than IPL. I wish these two, Ali and Kalia (both Left arm Orthodox) are groomed properly and ICL-IPL merger happens sooner than later for Indian cricket's sake. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest HariSampath Posted May 4, 2008 Share Posted May 4, 2008 ^ I think he has. I have been watching high quality left arm spinners for several years and have spoekn on the art to at least 2-3 India left arm spinners and more than half a dozen very successful FC cricketers who bowled left arm spin. Almost all of them had told me 3 things which Ojha has. 1. The rotation of the hips to get more turn. 2. control over wrist position and long spinning fingers. 3. bending of the knee at will during delivery to vary the trajectory, that helps in beating the batsman in the air. I went specifically to check him out in fc games in Chennai and I saw he has all this and more too. But I havent seen the ones you mention, maybe if I go to some ICL games I will check it out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
flamy Posted May 4, 2008 Share Posted May 4, 2008 Ali Murtaza OOZES CLASS. Love watching him bowl.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swami1984 Posted May 4, 2008 Share Posted May 4, 2008 Pragyan Ohja seems to be a good spinner Ojha :-D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eternalhope Posted May 4, 2008 Share Posted May 4, 2008 Hari - the three qualities you have mentioned is a given at this level. finger length is something no one can acquire but one with which one is born. For me as a bowler who bowls Left arm Orthodox, the nip of the wicket is the main criteria in judgin a bowler. For this the shoulder and the release of the ball comes into play. Then the ability to mix the arm ball and the stock ball with little/no change of action is the key. I think for me Ojha falls short of my expectation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest HariSampath Posted May 4, 2008 Share Posted May 4, 2008 Oh no its not a given at this level. I once had an hour long discussion with Ravi Shastri about it, in the company of another FC left arm spinner. Shastri himself told me that he did not have the ability to rotate the hips and did not even think it was necessary till Bishen Singh Bedi told him in 1983, 2 years after Shastri made his debut for India as a slow left armer. Bedi coached Shastri how to do this for one week at the Kotla nets and it was after this Shastri, being a finger spinner , was able to get a bit more turn, but then he was not exactly a great spinner. I had also discussed this with Maninder Singh several years back , he was a better natural spinner than Shastri but didnt perform in any great way, but an excellent student of the art. He had the hip swivel partly, and also a bit of the knee bend ( note this is a technique to release the ball from varying heights of delivery with same action, thereby the flight/trajectory is varied. It is a factor in what is called the "loop" the other being backspin, perfected by the offspinning great Erapalli Prasanna). Maninder did not have a good wrist position or control and also changed his action completely after 5 years of test cricket which is almost suicidal for a spinner. The knee bend would be particularly more useful for the taller spinners, whereas the shorter spinners vary delivery stride to vary trajectory. The arm ball you speak of is good, but can only at best be an occasional variation , more powerful if the spinner is already extracting turn from the pitch, here the arm ball , if disguised serves two purposes. 1. makes an lbw possible for a batter with good forward technique. 2. For a batter with doubtful forward technique who pushes forward expecting an armball, usually a bat pad catch at silly point is a trap when the ball does turn a bit instead of the expected arm ball. Here it is a question of slightly turning the ball while fooling the batter into thinking you are bowling an armer to get an lbw. The nip off the track almost always depends on the ball gripping the track/or being somewhat bouncy, this is a skill for off the pitch dismissal, depending on pitch, whereas the basic skills I mentioned that mark out a classic bowler are for through the air dismissals but will also work where off the pitch skills are applied. But yes, you also have a point, but its just that I have been studying spin skills for many years, and I think from what I had seen of Ojha in person ( fc games) , he does have them. Lets see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
msb1991 Posted May 4, 2008 Share Posted May 4, 2008 A left arm finger spinner is never going to have a long successful career with turn and flight alone though; he must be well learned in the art of attrition and persistance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mhr123 Posted May 4, 2008 Share Posted May 4, 2008 A left arm finger spinner is never going to have a long successful career with turn and flight alone though; he must be well learned in the art of attrition and persistance. Daniel Vettori prime example... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest HariSampath Posted May 4, 2008 Share Posted May 4, 2008 A left arm finger spinner is never going to have a long successful career with turn and flight alone though; he must be well learned in the art of attrition and persistance. No finger spinner ever gets much turn, whether it is a left armer or right arm off spinner etc. Spin essentially evolves from the 3 hinge principle. Hips, shoulder and wrists..all acting as hinge points and serving to swivel the end point of delivery through progressively acute angles. Here the wrist is the main hinge and for a left arm orthodox bowler, the more the wrist is cocked to turn back towards the midwicket-midon region, the greater the spin, of course enhanced by the number of revolutions imparted by the fingers. For example in the case of Murali, see how much the wrist cocks and the palm faces backwards before begining delivery, resulting in an almost 360 degree rotation of the wrist as the arm wheels over for delivery. This results in the wrist making almost a complete cycle of rotation at the moment of release, and the ball spins like a top, the shoulder hinge helping the rotation during the arm turning over. It is the same for all spinners but in opposite directions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
eternalhope Posted May 4, 2008 Share Posted May 4, 2008 The position of the wrist at the release determines the spin, cocking of the wrist notwithstanding. It also determines whether the ball is going to be some sort of a topspinner or the awayspinner. Even the arm ball gets the slight turn into the batsman by the wrist position, but the release is a little ahead of the normal ball. The pivot and the turn of the hips and shoulders also aid in the drift of the ball in the air. I agree that the main skill of a Left arm spinner or for that matter any spinner is beating the batsmen in the air. But, the real successful ones are the ones who can deceive the batsmen both in the air and off the pitch. There are some naunces which only comes with experience, you can get some more variations by the position of the forearm also. Spin is such a fascinating subject, you learn so many new things everyday you practice it. when you see a bowler one can make out whether he is good or bad. I am not saying Ojha is a bad bowler, but I definitely believe he is not India material yet and there are many other good bowlers languishing there for lack of chances. Ojha might still improve and make it to the Indian team, but I dont see him being successful with his present skillset. The main drawback I can see in Ojha is, even I can make out watching the TV, what he is trying to bowl It's a shame to hear that Shastri did not know about it till so late in his career. This itself tells a story of the skill levels of our so called experienced and successful stars. I always tell my friends it is a science and not just an art. With constant practice you can master it, but unfortunately most Indians are artists and have no method and it explains their inconsistency. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rohan495 Posted May 6, 2008 Author Share Posted May 6, 2008 wow-OHJA! bring OHJA into the team once Kumble is gone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
satishg Posted May 6, 2008 Share Posted May 6, 2008 he looks to be a very gud prospect..he needs to bowl a lot more in the ranji format and then come into the team.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
graphic23 Posted May 6, 2008 Share Posted May 6, 2008 I'd like to see him perform against Gambhir and Sachin, and even Sehwag, who all are very good players of spin, with Sachin being the greatest of them all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest HariSampath Posted May 6, 2008 Share Posted May 6, 2008 To me the brightest spot of today's CSK drubbing was PoOjha !!! He has always been my Fav and I just love his bowling and although I was a little unhappy he bowled well against us, nonetheless I am very very happy this fellow could make a clown out of Dhoni...mind you its not an easy task to bowl to one of the most powerful hitters in world cricket, but Ojha made him look like a rabbit...Go Ojha :yay: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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