All About Twirlymen : Spinners in India now

[rkt.india]

Mohhammad Sanuth is said be like Ajanta Mendis, will play for KKR this season, has not played much FC yet. http://www.espncricinfo.com/vijay-hazare-trophy-2011/content/player/378457.html

[Cricket Tragic]

most are left arm spinners. Cannot see any decent right arm off spinner or leg spinner in our domestic cricket other than who are playing or have played for India.

That's the impression I've got as well.

[Crookbond]

I can't see any decent spinner. Times are changing.

[Sooda]

Hopefully some good SLAs will be taken on A tour to WI. Apanna maybe Id say

[rkt.india]

Indian Spinners Recently : Flatter, faster, weaker When Chris Gayle hit Rahul Sharma for five consecutive sixes in an IPL match in April, I found myself wondering not about Gayle's brute strength or his ability to hit sixes at will but the spinner's response to the onslaught. Would he slow it down, bowl a googly or try a big spinner? Sharma changed his lines and lengths, but didn't significantly change his pace or variations. If anything, he bowled a bit quicker. Since he is believed to have modelled his action on the great Anil Kumble, it's worth deliberating how Kumble would have responded to such a situation. My educated guess tells me Kumble may have bowled a couple of googlies, taken the pace off another two, or tried a flipper, bowling it faster and pitching it short of a good length, so it skidded off the surface and forced Gayle to pull. All this may or may not have changed the outcome but the use of spinner's most potent weapon, deception, would definitely have made a contest of it. Since Sharma is still cutting his teeth at international cricket, it's unfair to compare him to a man who has taken 600 Test wickets. But I like to believe that Kumble got to that milestone because of his desire to try something new each time, and not that he experimented only because he had a pile of wickets to support him. After all, records don't make men great; great men make records. Let's take a look at how other spinners who have a realistic chance of playing for India in the next few years have responded in similar situations. In the IPL, every time a left-hand batsman went after his bowling, Pragyan Ojha responded with yorkers aimed at the batsman's toes. Some missed their mark by a few inches, some were deposited into the stands by the likes of Gayle, and others went wide down the leg side. Even Harbhajan Singh, despite his considerable experience, was guilty of bowling flat or fast yorkers under pressure. Would Muttiah Muralitharan and Daniel Vettori have responded differently? Having watched them play in the IPL for the last five years, it's fair to say that both have enough tricks in the bag to not have to resort to bowling flat in these situations. Murali rarely bowls a yorker, for his strength lies in extracting spin off the surface and disguising his doosra. Vettori slows it down, keeps the ball hanging in the air for a fraction longer and changes his line to counter the onslaught. R Ashwin is perhaps the only Indian fingerspinner willing to flight the ball, but unfortunately he too seems to be falling into the trap of bowling only doosras and carrom balls. He has compromised on a spinner's biggest strength, the ability to turn the ball, and his performance in Test cricket is getting affected by it. Not surprisingly, legspinners Piyush Chawla and Amit Mishra refrained from bowling yorkers, because leggies struggle to find the blockhole at will. Mishra bowled variations in the latter part of the tournament, but Chawla wasn't too inclined to turn the ball away from the right-handers. While it's a given that the best fast bowlers in the IPL will be overseas players, it's a worry if the best spinners are not Indian. But it's not just the IPL; there are no good spinners on India's domestic circuit either. Few try to get drift in the air or put enough revolutions on the ball to extract spin and bounce off the surface. Most spinners are just slow bowlers who break the monotony of seam bowling. As young batsmen we were told to spend quality time honing our skills to defend against the turning ball. It was imperative to transfer the weight at just the right time, keep the bottom hand loose always, and play close to the body. To succeed in first-class cricket you had to have a solid defence and the ability to hit the turning ball along the ground. We practised these by playing with a tennis ball from a short distance. Even then, hours of training weren't enough every time, because spinners like Bharati Vij, Venkatapathy Raju, Sunil Joshi, Kanwaljit Singh and others would use the SG Test ball to their advantage and extract both drift and spin. They would rarely bowl flat and fast, because even a batsman's fiercest assault could be countered by deception. Turning the ball a bit more than expected to get bat-pad dismissals, beating the batsman in the drift and forcing him to edge it to slip, or exploiting poor weight transfer by getting the batsman caught at short cover or midwicket were regular modes of dismissals. As a batsman, it was imperative to look for the shiny side even when facing spinners, for that helped you read the direction of the drift and the arm balls. Today, even talking about all this makes me feel nostalgic because I can't name a single spinner in the domestic circuit who uses these skills. I also don't see batsmen spending hours to get their forward defence watertight against spin. The only thing a modern batsman does is place the bat in front of the front pad to avoid lbw decisions. Most spinners, not looking to extract any turn, try to bowl wicket to wicket, expecting to get leg-before decisions in case the batsman misses the line. Fielders at short leg and silly point are of ornamental value, except on rank turners. This is a sorry state of affairs for a country that boasted many fine spinners. The deterioration in the quality of spin started about a decade ago, but the IPL has aggravated it. Anyone willing to practise the traditional craft of spin bowling is routinely overlooked by the IPL talent scouts. The temptation of making it into an IPL team is so huge that compromising flight and spin for accuracy and flatter trajectories seems a small price to pay. While there were many young left-arm spinners on show this IPL season, not one of them bowled with a high-arm action or looked suitable for the longer version of the game. The moment you bowl with a round-arm action and lower your arm, you cease to get bounce off the surface. It also doesn't allow you to put enough revolutions on the ball to get spin off the surface, which is why such bowlers rely heavily on dusty pitches to spin the ball. It is a lovely sight to watch batsmen struggling to dig out accurate yorkers, but only if the practitioner operating 22 yards away is a fast bowler, not a spinner. http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/567333.html

[deathmonger]

rkt taking interest in spinners? :cantstop:

[rkt.india]

rkt taking interest in spinners? :cantstop:

I can turn my leg spin more than many played for India in recent times.:winky: :--D

[Sidhoni]

^More than the turn, its about the bounce.

[Old guy]

on topic.... yes thts their natural response now a days and thts why i liked ashwin before :(( if they wont flight the ball there is no chance of spin on pattas and no deception just gentle pace to smack ball out of park

[rkt.india]

ur jsut ftb... dont tell us spinners abt spin :D

No. If some one can turn the ball a long way than that is enough if one has decent consistency, like Macgill, Warne, etc., but some one does not have much turn up his sleeve, he will have to depend on accuracy, variations of pace, and bounce like Kumble, Chandrashekhar who was a more of a medium leg cutter than spinner and used to get wickets due to his pace variations.

[rkt.india]

on topic.... yes thts their natural response now a days and thts why i liked ashwin before :(( if they wont flight the ball there is no chance of spin on pattas and no deception just gentle pace to smack ball out of park

Dont think Chopra even watched that over by Rahul Sharma carefully. He tried every thing quick ball and slower ball but nothing worked. If he just had bowled quick and straight he could have been spared, but he tried to bowl slow after first ball which was short and Gayle smashed out of the park.

[Old guy]

Dont think Chopra even watched that over by Rahul Sharma carefully. He tried every thing quick ball and slower ball but nothing worked. If he just had bowled quick and straight he could have been spared' date=' but he tried to bowl slow after first ball which was short and Gayle smashed out of the park.[/quote'] thing is like vvslaxman said (not real...out vvs :D ) once his quicker ball went for six on tht flat track it was all over for him were tracks flatter this year? or less helpful to spinners? :hmmm:

[rkt.india]

thing is like vvslaxman said (not real...out vvs :D ) once his quicker ball went for six on tht flat track it was all over for him were tracks flatter this year? or less helpful to spinners? :hmmm:

yes. Apart from Kolkata most of the tracks were flatter. There was not much turn in any track this year.

[bajrang]

Sharma changed his lines and lengths, but didn't significantly change his pace or variations.

bogus and bull crap statement. one bowl in that over (maybe the last ball) that went for six was around 75k. he went 95 to 75 in that over. i remember it cause i was yelling him to bowl slow and turn it. just because nobody is going to check on him he made this statement. what a irresponsible fellow.

[Old guy]

yes. Apart from Kolkata most of the tracks were flatter. There was not much turn in any track this year.

even pune turned a lot at end but for most part i think it was flat

[rkt.india]

bogus and bull crap statement. one bowl in that over (maybe the last ball) that went for six was around 75k. he went 95 to 75 in that over. i remember it cause i was yelling him to bowl slow and turn it. just because nobody is going to check on him he made this statement. what a irresponsible fellow.

His 90 mph ball is slow for him. He is a 6 foot 5 inch bowler. He will never be a traditional flight leg spinner due to his height. His trajectory will normally be flat and even his slower balls will be quicker than most spinners. The super slow ball he bowled came out a lollypop and went far too. IF he gives air like Warne, most times, they will end up in half volley or full tosses or beamers.

[rkt.india]

even pune turned a lot at end but for most part i think it was flat

yes it was low and later, it started turning.

[bajrang]

His 90 mph ball is slow for him. He is a 6 foot 5 inch bowler. He will never be a traditional flight leg spinner due to his height. His trajectory will normally be flat and even his slower balls will be quicker than most spinners. The super slow ball he bowled came out a lollypop and went far too. IF he gives air like Warne' date=' most times, they will end up in half volley or full tosses or beamers.[/quote'] i am saying he did vary his pace no matter how infective unlike Chopra suggested. now last time he bowled to gayle in ipl 2011 he got him LBW. ball was turning lot more at that time in banglore. go read the commentary thread at cricinfo. he genuinely troubled him with spin . i

[rkt.india]

i am saying he did vary his pace no matter how infective unlike Chopra suggested. now last time he bowled to gayle in ipl 2011 he got him LBW. ball was turning lot more at that time in banglore. go read the commentary thread at cricinfo. he genuinely troubled him with spin . i

Agree. Same thing I said above.

[jj_28]

Who's going to be our spinner in Future Test matches? With the emergence of Yadav, Aaron, Ahmed and hopefully a fit Ishant plus the ever present Zaheer we have a few fast bowlers to choose from but what about a Spinner? Harbhajan has lost his magic and neither Ashwin or Ojha have particularly stood out and staked a claim for that vacant spot Ojha - Test - 14 - Wicket - 62 - Average - 34.62 - Economy - 2.79 - Strike Rate - 74.2 Ashwin - Test - 6 - Wicket - 31 - Average - 34.48 - Economy - 3.16 - Strike Rate - 65.4 Who would you guys pick as your preferred spinner in the Test? EDIT : Looking back at our previous home Test matches We usually play 2 spinners and 2 fast bowlers at home so its likely both Ojha and Ashwin will play against NZ and England but the question of who will be the long term replacement for Harbhajan is still unclear in my view