R Ashwin, A crap Test Bowler?

[Cricketics]

Today Fernando Torres has to bowl well for India to have a better chance of winning. Hopefully Torres is ready.

[Muloghonto]

A good leg spinner is worth his weight in gold as they are alike to a fast bowler who has real pace and is not dependent on conditions to get wickets' date=' modern day captains are not willing to pick up leg spinners as they feel an offie can keep it more tight and can be used as a defensive option, Rahul Sharma should be persisted with a bit more, I hear Malolan has some promise too, even Chawla is a talented , versatile cricketer, can bat pretty well and has developed a good fast one and with a bit of push and support could be the leg spinner for us.[/quote'] Err, conventional leggies are rarely successful in the test arena. Of the conventional leggies i can think of (and seen), only Mushtaq Ahmed and Kaneria were at all successful at the top level. Fact is, leg spin is the hardest type to bowl because it is the hardest type to control. The top leg spinners in the world have been unconventional leggies. Qadir was a killer googly merchant, with two different googlies. Kumble and Chandrasekhar were both slow-medium paced leggies who traded the conventional turn for accuracy. Warney was not that accurate either but had monster turn and a full bag of tricks. Stuey McGill befuddled the average teams against spin by turning it a mile but promptly got caned by the strong teams against spin because he too was erratic. The modern game has reduced the margin of error for spinners to practically zero. Even good deliveries get carted for six and heavy bats mean batsmen dont have to make perfect connection for it to carry over the infield or a six. This is why we dont have leg spinners of inernational quality in the world, which is dominated by offies- right arm or left arm types. Before the big thing about the offies was that they didnt produce as much wicket-taking deliveries as the leggies because while a good googly spins like a weak offbreak, the arm ball just keeps going straight. As such, batsmen could afford to play inside the line to offies and neutralize them, especially in tests. But ever since the doosra became the bread and butter of most offies, they got the ability to compete with leggies for variations ( still not as many, but turning the ball both ways go a long ways to equalize the field) but have them dominated for control.

[MCcricket]

By the very nature of their art leggies are unconventional, Warne was a proper leggie, who had strong shoulder and forearm to rip it with a slight slingy arm to get huge turn and drift, only Chandra was the unique one with the deformity in his arm, leggies need support, important factor should be the turn he gets, variety and accuracy, well Kumble was an aberration, Mishra is useless, Chawla is better and Sharma has some good things going for him , even if India can find someone who can turn as well as Tendulkar then draft him in.

[Muloghonto]

Proper leggie would be Danish kaneria or that Zimbabwean leg spinner from the 90s( his name escapes me at the moment). Warne was an atypical leggie because he relied so heavily on turn and was not that accurate. Kumble, Chandra- they are all atypical because they are not the leg spinner of the classical mould, who turn the ball half a foot, give it a lot of air, etc. Its almost impossible to succeed at the top level being a proper leggie because proper leggies don't really have any decisive way to be consistently accurate. You need to be unconventional, in the sense that you either need monstrous turn or slow-medium pace (at the expense of turn) or killer googlies to make up for the lack of accuracy that is inherent to all proper leg spin bowlers. turning the ball as a leggie is never the problem. If you ask any leggie to turn the ball a foot, they will do it with ease. The problem is to be accurate. Its virtually impossible to be accurate AND turn the ball a foot. Apparently Gupte could do it, which is why Sobers rated Gupte the best leggie he's ever seen. Invariably, leggies cut down on turn to get more control over their accuracy. Warney was the only one able to get away with it because, as you said, his massive shoulders and forearms allowed him to spin the ball so much, that, coupled with his variations, he had more margin of error on the accuracy factor.

[Clarke]

I don't recall that many right handers caught in the slips off his bowling. Does Ashwin have a floater/straighter one in his bag of tricks ? The carrom ball is a completely different action.

[Clarke]

Proper leggie would be Danish kaneria or that Zimbabwean leg spinner from the 90s( his name escapes me at the moment).

Paul Strang.

[Muloghonto]

I don't recall that many right handers caught in the slips off his bowling. Does Ashwin have a floater/straighter one in his bag of tricks ? The carrom ball is a completely different action.

Offies get far less catches from the slip region than leggies do but they get a lot more bat-pads.

[TheWall]

Never looks like taking a wicket...

[King Tendulkar]

I actually dont think he has bowled that bad:haha: Bowled ok today, not a lot for spinners

[Sidhoni]

crap test bowler? surely not. He has been quickest to 100 wickets FFS.

[King Tendulkar]

crap test bowler? surely not. He has been quickest to 100 wickets FFS.

Apparetly wickets and runs in India dont count at all:giggle:

[CG]

Correct me if i am wrong but Kumble's monster haul in 2003-04 series in Australia was the single most successful series for a visiting spinner in Australia since...WWII ? I dont believe any offspinner has been the wrecker-in-chief in Australia.

E. Prasanna

[Pagalpanti]

He's bowled well with no luck in 2nd innings

[Number]

Never seen a bowler giving up so early once he finds pitch and batsmen not helping his cause. He is one of the reasons we ended up drawing this game, not a single ball he troubled batsmen.

[Cricketics]

Fernando Torres getting lot of slack today from crowd. I expected that. As said earlier, it's not easy to take wickets agaisnt South Africans or away from home for any spinner. Few more games like this, and Ashwing might find himselof out of the side. Hopefully he comes out strong from here. All the best to Torres.

[Sean Bradley]

Bowled ok today, but nothing threatening really, Faf & AB played negotiated him really well.

[ThePhenomenal1]

poor stuff, jadeja would have atleast threatened the batsmen and set things up. This idiot was non-threatening and was outbowled by JP Duminy! Jadeja can also bat a bit, so if u needed ashwin for his batting, jadeja can replace him. Better fielder too.

[Lord]

poor stuff' date='[b'] jadeja would have atleast threatened the batsmen and set things up. This idiot was non-threatening and was outbowled by JP Duminy! Jadeja can also bat a bit, so if u needed ashwin for his batting, jadeja can replace him. Better fielder too.

no guarantee of that.he may have got hammered too leading to SA win

[Marut]

poor stuff' date=' jadeja would have atleast threatened the batsmen and set things up. This idiot was non-threatening and was outbowled by JP Duminy! Jadeja can also bat a bit, so if u needed ashwin for his batting, jadeja can replace him. Better fielder too.[/quote'] Has Jadeja been tested before in these conditions? In a test match? How do you know he would have threatened the batsmen?

[Tiger80]

Ashwin needs a Minnow team like WI or NZ and a spin friendly wicket then he is all over them but he hardly do anything against batsmen who play spin well.