I am surprised that you wrote 8 paragraphs on finger spin in this decade without ever mentioning Vettori! But will have to agree, Swann is the bowler of the year...

Vettori?

You have written about four, five fielders crouching around the batsman. Are they there to really take the catches or create a pressure cooker situation and get the batsman out by other means as you have said. Chandrasekar, Prasanna, Bedi and Venkataraghavan were classic spinners a cut above the rest. But Solkar at forward shortleg, Abid Ali at backward shortleg, Wadekar at slip and Venkat at gully made them even more dangerous by taking half chances and blinders. When the batsmen went for the pull Solkar never turned his back, but instead would go lower down waiting for the miscued shot and that to without a helmet. They, were fielders, and you could call them close catchers. Not today's fielders.

It would surprise many people that even the genius of Warne was not recognized by the Victorian coach as the blonde wizard could not hold a permanent place in the Victorian side for the first 2 first class seasons. It is a different matter altogether that he was still picked for the Tests by the selectors and created history thereon. Paucity of quality spinners only reflects the lack of understanding of the game by the Captains and their coaches. Spinner , any kind of spinner will always pose problems for most batsmen at any point of time. It is good for the game that despite the advent of T-20 and flat pitches all over the world the spinners even the finger spinners can hold their own. But for that to happen the think tank of a team should have the vision and it should cultivate an environment for it to flourish.

dear mike
I still remember in one of the india austrailia series, left arm Maninder Singh bowling lured genius like Allan Border to come forward only to see the ball turning infrnot of him and finally being stumped by the wicketkeeper. Although maninder hadn,t get numerous chance to represent the country as he shd be, his spinning capability( from finger) was remarkable. SOme one rightly poonted out, why Vettori was left out from ur article. In the same fashion can we say, the Saqlain Mustaq was also left out from references?

[Mike: My main point was that we now have a new generation of fairly ordinary spinners doing good things. Vettori's pedigree is excellent, but he was bowling ten years ago and anyway New Zealand virtually have to pick any bowler of Test quality. Two years ago, most of us had not heard of Harris, Swann, Benn or Hauritz unless we were following domestic cricket, yet here they are playing major parts in matches outside Asia despite not being all that special - although I'm beginning to revise that opinion with regard to Swann after his performances at Kingsmead.

Saqlain was really a 90s bowler, but more importantly he was one of the first to use the doosra and I was specifically excluding bowlers who had speciality balls.]

My observation is that Swann and Hauritz are not necessarily the typical classical finger spinner like a Lance Gibbs or a Venkat for example. I find that they use subtle wrist movements.

If Test pitches were uncovered, you'd have tons of finger spinners, you can't compare the two ages of uncovered and covered pitches, Underwood and Chandrasekar were unplayable on tacky wickets, it would be interesting to see how Underwood would fare against Sachin on the front foot plonking flat decks in India and Pakistan today. Even Hauritz took his first ever 5-fer, and it was in a Test! Even Warne did not have a great record in India, and he was as good as it gets.

Mike is right: captains can make spinners. Len Hutton, an opening batsman, thought pace bowling was what would win matches, and it took him a couple of seasons to realize he had a huge advantage in the great spinners (Laker, Lock, Wardle, Tattersall, Appleyard) available to him.

its really sad that people today forgot daniel vettori who is the certainly the best finger spinner for me in the world n it can be clearly identified by hvg a look at the rankings, he i s doing well in all forms unlike those who are good in only sm!!!!!

I'll agree with those surprised at Vettori's being left out of writing. Finger spinners and military medium bowlers are the most underrated sorts. Hauritz was written off in the press before the Ashes and got ten wickets in three tests, including Pietersen, Prior and Strauss. It's probably the surprise value they have, even if you know what's coming, or that the batsmen just get a little big-headed. It was good to see Hauritz and Swann get fivers.

Really Swann is the best spinner in the world right now, and he will win many more games for england. England should be looking for a 3-0 win now considering their win margin in the second test.

I have been watching cricket for many years and certainly one of things that these current batch of finder spinners are doing, is flight and getting the ball above batsmen eye line. Hauritz and Swann are great at bowling slowly and giving the ball air. There is so much limited over cricket these days where slow bowlers tend to bowl darts, so it is very refreshing to see these guys float the ball. sure they are going to get hit from time to time but they will be wicket takers and the challenge btween bat and ball is fantastic viwing. All young spinners and young captains should be watching Hauritz and co very closely.