The bowler’s biggest ally is variation; unfortunately, this skill never makes it to the statistics © AFP

By Arvind Kumar, Germany

Whenever a bowler is hit for a boundary these days, commentators resort to all kinds of clichés to describe the shot, followed by remark on how the bowler should be bowling ‘in the right areas’. With batsmen increasingly dominating, ‘bowling in the right areas’ is one of the most heard phrases in contemporary commentary. It certainly gives the impression that the commentators know what these so called right areas are, but they hardly ever elaborate; the comment is rarely followed up with a sensible, implementable suggestion.

So, let us try to narrow down these ‘right areas’ by isolating the bad areas. Let’s start with a bad line to bowl. Down the leg side is, not surprisingly, never considered good: a slight error and the delivery will be a wide, and the umpires cannot rule lbw to all balls pitching outside leg and most in the vicinity. Too much outside the off stump and the batsman has the room to play a shot or the opportunity to leave it well alone. So unless the bowler can move the ball a touch in or out, there is not much point to this line either. Next, the length of the ball. Bowling too full or too short is out, with an area something like two-thirds of the length of the pitch being ideal. Short balls without much pace only invite well executed pull shots; too full and, once more, it’s rather easy to pick off if it is not combined with swing. So, that’s it then, that ball at about two-thirds down around the off-stump, the so called ‘corridor of uncertainty’. But all bowlers know this; this is the ball that they practice, over and over.

It is not true, however, that a ball bowled in the ‘right areas’ is guaranteed to get you a wicket, or even that it will trouble the batsman every time you bowl it. Evidently, balls pitched well within the ‘right areas’ are smacked for easy boundaries and balls pitched in the so called bad areas get you a prized wicket with some regularity. A little research using the Hawk-Eye data available on ESPNcricinfo can confirm this. So if you have played cricket at any serious level, you know that in reality there are no ‘right areas’.

There is no perfect ball which can give you a wicket every time you bowl it; you may get some success on few occasions but soon the batsmen will develop a strategy to play that ball for maximum score. From the innovation of leg-glance by Ranjitsinhji all those years ago, to the switch-hit of recent times, there are clear indications that batsmen can come up with an antidote to any delivery given some time. So, in my experience, the ‘right areas’ are a myth created by the modern commentator who wants to sound educated in cricket.

Once a batsman senses what a bowler is going to do, he can execute any shot with some efficiency. So the biggest enemy of the bowler is predictability, the influx of monotony in his bowling, no matter how elegant it appears from the commentary area. The bowler’s biggest ally is variation, a touch of surprise in his bowling. Unfortunately, this skill never makes it to the statistics; we think that Glenn McGrath was a great bowler because he consistently bowled in the corridor of the uncertainty, but I think you should watch another video clip of him. Not just McGrath, revisit videos of any successful bowler and you will find unpredictability was the main weapon in his armour. Not those fabled ‘right areas’.

From Mrinal Kumar, United States

The only genuine pace bowler right now? © Getty Images

Lasith Malinga’s retirement from Test cricket marks yet another instance of a fast bowler’s career being curtailed by injury. Fast bowlers are a breed in steady decline, as the strains of excessive schedules take a toll on their bodies. The physical requirements of pace bowling - an endless run-up, a slinging arm, a fearful grimace at the end of it all - have not meshed well with innumerable number of matches their team plays. As bowlers look to push the speed barrier, they push their bodies beyond the limit. Brett Lee, Shoaib Akthar, Shaun Tait- the three fastest bowlers of this decade. The other similarity they share? They have all played less than 55% of their team’s Test matches since their respective debuts.

Injuries ranging from a troublesome knee to genital warts have kept the fastest men in the game on the sidelines. With Malinga the latest addition to that list, Dale Steyn stands as the only genuine fast bowler left in the world (it is too early to gauge young Kemar Roach). Steyn’s clean injury sheet can only be attributed to the excellent way he has been handled. He has been rested from several ODI series to save his fitness for the purest form of the game- Test cricket. By reducing his workload, South Africa have managed to extract the best from their premier fast bowler - the last of a dying breed.

Fast bowlers of yesteryear had significantly fewer fitness problems. Malcolm Marshall, the face of that West Indies quartet, played more than 75% of his team’s Test matches since his debut. With a schedule unclogged by a limited-overs match every three days, Marshall was able to leave his mark on history without giving up an ounce of pace. Men who try to replicate him these days, however, are met with nothing but frustration and pain- how can one expect their body to survive that type of physical exertion on such a regular basis?

The advent of Twenty20 has served the perfect arena for fast bowlers to express their art - in short, fiery bursts. This comes at the expense of the longer form, however, and one dreads to ponder upon the future of genuine pace. How long can speedsters wage the battle against this elastic schedule? It is time for the ICC to step in and breathe life into the most spirited members of the game. As Steyn hustles into the crease, ball in hand and scowl firmly entrenched on his face, hope – pray - that the ICC takes steps to save this species before it withers away.

From Matthew Davies, United Kingdom

Spinners who don’t really turn the ball have become an essential part of the game © AFP

Recently, Graeme Swann stated that spinners who don’t attempt to spin the ball should be “banished from the first-class game”. Spinners who don’t spin the ball have often been criticised, such as the criticism that fell on former England trundler Ashley Giles, especially when he was selected for the 2006-2007 Ashes instead of Monty Panesar, and the results of that series seemed to vindicate all the criticism. Yet, are spinners that don’t turn the ball really as bad as all that?

Swann may have been thinking more of finger spinners when he made his comments, but 619 Test wickets would seem to rebuke Swann’s sentiments. Anil Kumble relied little on spin, especially in later years. Daniel Vettori is another great bowler who depends more on changes of pace, flight and unrelenting accuracy, especially in the one-day game. Vettori’s Test bowling average of 33.98 might not look excellent, but it has to be remembered Vettori often bowls with not much pressure at the other end, a factor someone such as Shane Warne could always rely on when partnered with great pacemen such as Glenn McGrath and Jason Gillespie.

Yet there is some truth to be extracted from Swann’s words. It is not in the first-class game where spinners who don’t really turn the ball are most effective. It is the advent of the one-day game, and especially twenty-over cricket, that has seen them really come into their own. Looking at the 2011 World Cup, there were three spinners who stood out who do give the ball a rip: Swann himself, the legendary Muttiah Muralitharan and new boy to international cricket Imran Tahir. Yet the leading wicket-taker in the tournament was Shahid Afridi, a man who relies again more on variation than big spin. Sulieman Benn, Robin Peterson and Yuvraj Singh also took 42 wickets between them. Tillakaratne Dilshan also took eight wickets, with what was termed by many as “straight-breaks”, at just over four runs an over, and who can forget the trouble he caused Andrew Strauss in the quarter-finals?

Going back to the World Twenty20 of 2010, George Dockrell, Nikita Miller, Ray Price, Johan Botha, Vettori and David Hussey all had economy rates under six, which is very handy in that form of the game, and none of them give it a rip like Swann. Spinners who don’t really turn the ball are an effect of limited-overs cricket, and have become an essential part of the game, as shown by statistics showing their effectiveness. In a form of the game where it is paramount not to bowl loose deliveries, it doesn’t matter how much you turn the ball if you cannot find the correct length and lines or are too predictable, and this is true from the highest level of the game to the lowest. So Swann might have to wait until one-day cricket implodes in on itself before he gets his wish.

It is mostly classicists who criticise this breed of bowler, but it should be recognised that pitches are giving less and less help to spinners, especially those of the finger variety (Jim Laker himself might struggle a bit to take 19 wickets at Old Trafford nowadays), so there is less encouragement to give the ball a rip if the pitch isn’t going to aid your cause. It will take a radical change of direction if we are to see the death of non-turning spin bowlers, and we might as well encourage them while they’re around.

From Imran Coomaraswamy, United Kingdom

Dale Steyn is on his way to becoming the fastest bowler to get to 250 wickets in Tests © AFP

Is Dale Steyn getting the recognition he deserves? Yes, most cricket-lovers around the world know that he is a world-class bowler, and yes, a fair number are probably aware that he has sat atop the ICC Test bowling rankings for a little while now, but has the cricket world really taken note of quite how razor-sharp Steyn is?

The list of the fastest men to reach 250 Test wickets reads like a roll call of post-war bowling greats. Fred Trueman reached the mark in 56 Tests, while Ian Botham, Imran Khan, Shane Warne, Anil Kumble and Glenn McGrath all took 55. Just ahead of that group come Richard Hadlee and Malcolm Marshall (53 Tests), Waqar Younis and Muttiah Muralitharan (51 Tests) and then Allan Donald (50 Tests). The only man to have reached 250 wickets in fewer than 50 Tests is Dennis Lillee. By the end of the fractious Melbourne Test of February 1981 (Lillee’s 48th), he had accumulated 251 wickets at an average of 23.37 and a strike rate of 50.9. If we take Lillee as the gold standard for fast bowling, then both statistically and technically, Steyn measures up pretty well.

Were he to maintain his current form, Steyn would slot into the list of the fastest men to 250 wickets close to the very top. Before the start of the Cape Town Test, he had taken 232 wickets in 45 Tests at an average of 23.31 and an incredible strike rate of 39.7 (better even than Waqar’s 40.4 at the corresponding point of his career). What’s more, Steyn has been collecting his wickets at a time when batting averages have crept ever higher and other top-notch seamers have conceded more than 30 runs per wicket.

Amid the talk these days about “bowling dry” to frustrate impatient modern batsmen, Steyn stands out as a genuinely attacking quick – a bowler very much in the Lillee mould. His primary weapon is a textbook 90mph outswinger, while he is also capable of extracting plenty of movement in the opposite direction off the seam. These deliveries are made all the more effective by the fact that despite lacking the natural splice-hitting bounce of a Curtly Ambrose or Morne Morkel, Steyn is adept at pinning batsmen to the crease with hostile, skiddy bouncers. If his mastery of reverse-swing is not quite at the level attained by Wasim Akram and Waqar, then it cannot be too far off. There have been several spells with the old ball in which Steyn has resembled a 2005-model Simon Jones.

Mention of Jones and indeed Lillee reminds one of the need to cross one’s fingers and toes that Steyn avoids the various types of injury that can so often disrupt or curtail a fast bowler’s career. If he stays healthy, the Steyn is well on course towards becoming an all-time great. Indeed, he has already produced some truly outstanding returns on slow sub-continental pitches, something Lillee never did. Steyn picked up five-fors in Colombo and Karachi before his 5 for 23 in Ahmedabad in 2008 consigned India to their worst home defeat for almost half a century. Of course he did even better in Nagpur last year, when his 7 for 51 (which included a spell of 5 for 3 in 22 balls) set up another innings victory over India, by then the world’s top-ranked side.

Just like Lillee, Steyn has thrived as the leader of his team’s attack. He may be rather more soft-spoken than his Australian predecessor off the pitch but is just as tenacious and aggressive on it. For a country boy from the Limpopo province, he has also shown remarkable confidence on the big stage, never more so than in the epochal 2008 Boxing Day Test at the MCG, when his 10 wickets and career-best 76 runs – just the type of gritty innings of which Lillee would have been proud – sealed Australia’s first home series defeat for 16 years.

Steyn was named the world’s leading Test cricketer in 2008, a year described by Graeme Smith as South African cricket’s greatest ever. This was followed by a relatively quiet year for him in 2009, but in 2010, he was right back in top form. Though Jimmy Anderson, Graeme Swann and Zaheer Khan all enjoyed the best years of their respective careers, when the calibre of batsmen dismissed is taken into account, it is Steyn who emerges ahead of the pack.

Right now, aged 27, Steyn is just as deadly as Lillee ever was. What remains for him to prove is that he can be just as dogged.

From Rahul Oak, United States

Indians loved Kapil Dev since he at least made the batsmen think about coming in to bat with a helmet © Getty Images

I’ve often wondered what it must have been like being an Indian batsman in the pre-Kapil era. Say you toured a place like the West Indies and found yourself staring down the pitch to find a fire breathing Marshall or Roberts or Holding … basically someone who, from your point of view, looked at least 20 feet tall and was trying to decimate you by hurling a heavy object in the general direction of your helmet-less head at a million miles an hour. The reason the post-Kapil era was different is that you might have found yourself in that situation as well, but at least you had someone like a Kapil or a Prabhakar (hey, beggars cannot be choosers) or Prasad (ok, that’s going a bit too far – cancel Venky) on your team who might have been able to return the favor every once in a while. But to look at your dugout only to find Bedi, Prasanna and some other fairly unathletic looking types playing cards, sipping hot tea and discussing grips that impart maximum spin on the ball must have been a disheartening experience.

That is the biggest reason Kapil was such a revolutionary figure in Indian cricket. Batting ability and athletic fielding aside, people just simply loved him for the fact that he at least made opposition batsmen think about coming in to bat with a helmet on and actually ponder going on to the backfoot every now and then. After the heady moments of 1983, every Indian supporter imagined it to be the start of a new era where Kapil’s success gave rise to a new generation of truly genuine and hostile fast bowlers who would make batsmen the world over shake in their boots. Twenty-seven years later, we are yet to unearth such a species.

It’s not like India haven’t produced any fast bowlers in that period of time. Javagal Srinath and, lately, Zaheer Khan have been the torch bearers of the pack and deserve all the accolades that they have received. Zaheer, at his rawest, probably made every Indian sit up and take notice: he had the physique, the action and the skill. So also with Srinath at the beginning of his career (although Srinath was probably more raw than Zaheer at that point). But then they were the lone warriors – due to the serious lack of back-up (except for Srinath when Prasad was at his peak), they had to assume the role of leader of the pack, swing bowler, stock bowler and third seamer. With it came torn rotator cuffs and a host of other injuries which only accelerated (ironic how an adjective used to describe an increase in speed is apt here) their journey towards medium-fastness.

Of course, none of this is to say that we don’t appreciate Zak and Jaggu’s contributions to Indian cricket – far from it. But we are still obsessed with raw pace! Why you ask? Well, here’s a little insight into the psyche of the Indian supporter. Every time their team does well (or poorly), they take a look across the border at our dear neighbors. As long as they are doing worse, we are happy. This is one area where we have never been able to match Pakistan who seem to have a nearly unending supply of genuinely quick bowlers. From Wasim to Waqar to Sami to Shoaib, every generation seems to throw someone who absolutely rouses the speed gun and makes it sing. Compare this to our very own Praveen Kumar who barely manages to tickle the speed gun behind its ear as it stirs a little bit out of its slumber only to turn the pillow and fall back into a deep, dreamless sleep. We might laugh at their administration and politics and a bunch of other things that make Pakistan an entertaining team to follow, but for their fast bowlers we always have a grudging admiration.

The most annoying thing of all is that there have been times of real hope! From Ashish Nehra to Munaf Patel to Irfan Pathan to Sreesanth and more recently, Ishant Sharma – they have all showed promise. There has been at least one moment in all the above mentioned careers where they have bent their back and produced the odd delivery at over 140 kph. The next day Indians all over the world have YouTube’d the video and have stared at it in admiration and awe. But then something happens to them and they are somehow coached into bowling “line and length” at anywhere between 120 and 130 k’s an hour.

It could be a combination of many factors – maybe the diet (Srinath, for all that he was, was also vegetarian and ate the odd egg when a gun was held to his head), maybe it’s the pitches – but whatever it is, it is doing Indian cricket a serious disservice. Of course, one cannot fail to mention stupid selection policies. Remember Abey Kuruvilla and Salil Ankola - The tall pair of Bombay fast bowlers who used to bowl with pace and bounce? What happened to them? One was picked at the ripe age of 29 when he depended on slow offcutters for most of his wickets whereas the other decided that there was more promise in a television acting career. The absolute nadir, however came when on a tour of the West Indies, both Srinath and Prasad broke down and Kumble was shouldering the responsibility of being the leading spinner as well as quickest bowler in the team (Dodda Ganesh is said to have bowled faster than him on occasion, but it is hard to distinguish between truth and legend in this case).

But then, say what you will about Indian supporters, we are an optimistic lot. We will continue to forward each other YouTube videos of promising pacemen. We will continue to keep watching the speed gun hoping for a streak of 6 deliveries over the 140 kph mark. We will continue to hope that someday, at some point in the future, a generation of Indian supporters will be able to talk about how they saw an Indian paceman running in from a long run up, with the wind in behind his back, bowling fast as lightening and making the batsman (preferably Aussie or South African) hop, skip and jump before getting out fending a delivery in front of his face. Until then, we have Ijaz Butt.

P.S. Agarkar was not excluded from this article because he was forgotten. He was not mentioned for a reason.

From James Adams-Pace, United Kingdom

Has Dale Steyn helped lay the trappings of a bowling resurgence this decade? © AFP

Sir Neville Cardus wrote “a true batsman should in most of his strokes tell the truth about himself.” Cardus was, indeed, right, but should have gone further: a batman’s strokes also tell the truth about the state of cricket. Applying Cardus’ logic, what do the batsmen’s strokes in world cricket today tell us? Simple: the bowlers are beginning to strike back.

It is widely agreed that, in recent years, some Test matches had become a chore to watch, mainly due to an imbalance that had grown between bat and ball. It is immaterial whether this disparity had arisen because of a lack of quality bowlers or poor pitches (or both). The truth still remained that scores of 600-5 were becoming far too familiar. It’s not that watching batsmen compile big scores is not entertaining; the problem is when you only watch batsmen compile big scores, and this was the case on a far too frequent basis. India against South Africa in Chennai in 2008 and Pakistan’s tour of India in 2007 are good examples of the negatives of batsmen-dominated Tests.

However, 2010 seems to have bucked the trend. Batsmen are not just scoring runs, they are also getting out. Test matches are not always fading into insignificance, they are getting results within four days. Pakistan’s Test series against England and Australia have provided engrossing and unpredictable contests, while England’s visit to South Africa at the beginning of the year, despite not getting results in every Test, exhibited fine displays of fast bowling. Even Sri Lanka and India in the subcontinent have managed to bowl each other out. The common factor in all these series? The prominence of the bowler.

Nonetheless, things are not perfect: India’s bowling attack currently looks slightly toothless, with a lack of quality and in-form fast bowlers, while Sri Lanka are yet to find adequate replacements for Muttiah Muralitharan and Chaminda Vaas. Concomitantly, world spinning stocks, too, look rather depleted; aside from Graeme Swann, spinners such as Daniel Vettori and Harbhajan Singh only seem capable of containing, not taking wickets. Even so, Pakistan’s pairing of Mohammad Amir and Mohammad Asif, South Africa’s duo of Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel, and England’s James Anderson and Swann are showing that bowling has turned a corner.

This is not an attack on free-flowing centuries - far from it. The game needs Virender Sehwag, Sachin Tendulkar and others to keep challenging the bowlers and scoring big tons. However, it would be a welcome change to think that the batsmen are earning their runs and that, at any minute, they could still be out. This year has provided the glimmer of hope that cricket fans have been waiting form. Maybe, just maybe, the curators and officials are beginning to understand: cricket needs bowlers to have an influence on the game. Maybe, just maybe, we are entering the decade of the bowler.

From Imran Coomaraswamy, United Kingdom

The world's greatest match-winner? © AFP

Earlier this year, a 60-strong panel of experts took part in a poll to select Cricinfo’s Cricketer of the 2000s. Ricky Ponting’s list of accomplishments as leader of the dominant Test and ODI team of the era justifiably earned him the top spot.

If separate prizes were awarded for each of the game’s formats, however, I would have given the trophy for champion Test cricketer to Muttiah Muralitharan. The “Milestone Man” took one and a half times as many wickets as Makhaya Ntini, the next highest wicket-taker in the Noughties, at a McGrath-like average and Waqar-esque strike rate. As Cricinfo pointed out, he remains top of the pile even if “cheap” wickets taken against Zimbabwe* and Bangladesh are excluded. His astonishing 20 ten-wicket hauls in 84 matches include at least one against every Test-playing nation. He won more Man-of-the-Match and Man-of-the-Series awards than any other player and propelled Sri Lanka from close to the bottom of the Test rankings to within a series win of top spot. What’s more, he achieved all this in the "Age of the Bat." If 55 is the new 50 as far as batting averages are concerned, just how good is a bowling average of 23.48 against the top eight teams? To my mind, Murali was the decade’s greatest match-winner by some distance, as well as its “greatest joy-giver.”

Murali does not play for one of the three nations – India, England and Australia – that dominate cricket’s money-making and its mass media. He has not had the advantage of the stage provided by a “marquee series” like the Ashes or India-Australia to help him grab the world’s attention. In fact, he has never even been afforded a five Test series in which to showcase his mastery: the majority of Sri Lanka’s series since 2000 have been just two Tests long, and none in their history more than three. As such, his moments of magic – just as important as statistics and records when it comes to achieving sporting immortality – perhaps do not get as much attention as they should.

Described below are the six moments that I believe were “Murali’s Greatest Hits of the Noughties.” On all these occasions – three at home and three away, each against a different opponent – Murali took ten wickets, won a Man-of-the-Match/Series award and ensured Sri Lanka emerged victorious.

Two in two in the twilight: 10 for 148 v Pakistan, Peshawar, 2000

One over of play left on the fourth day at Peshawar and a low-scoring match was delicately poised. A fiery Shoaib Akhtar had restricted Sri Lanka to 268 in their first innings and Pakistan had then slipped from 137 for 2 to 199 all out, with Murali the wrecker-in-chief. Thanks to Russell Arnold’s battling 99, Sri Lanka had set Pakistan a stiff victory target of 294, but at 220 for 6, the home side were very much in the game. Saeed Anwar was back at the crease after retiring hurt earlier in the innings and alongside him was Mohammad Yousuf (then Yousuf Youhana), who had counterattacked brilliantly, smashing three sixes and eight fours on his way to 88.

Enter Murali. Flighting the ball invitingly and generating massive turn off a slowing wicket, he trapped Yousuf leg before, before getting Waqar Younis to prod the very next ball to silly point. It took Sri Lanka just ten balls to finish off proceedings the next morning. Murali missed out on a hat-trick but did pick up the last wicket, sealing the match and the series.

Bat first, bat big, and let Murali do the rest: 13 for 171 v South Africa, Galle, 2000

Sri Lanka have won 31 of 53 home Tests since the turn of the millennium. In most of those matches, they have relied on a simple formula: bat first, bat big, and let Murali do the rest. This plan has never worked better than in the first Test against Shaun Pollock’s South Africa in 2000. A trademark onslaught from Sanath Jayasuriya and a big hundred from Mahela Jayawardene took Sri Lanka to 522 all out. Spectators watched from the ramparts of the Galle Fort as Sri Lanka then employed their siege engine. Two days later, Murali had taken 13 for 171 from 76 overs and the tourists had been bowled out twice. Jayasuriya summed things up nicely: “Murali bowled very well and everything else just fell into place.”

These days captains often turn down the chance to enforce the follow on as they are worried about tiring out their bowlers. Sri Lankan captains have had no such worries, even when temperatures on the island exceeded 35 degrees celsius. A spinner he may be, but Murali’s stamina – both physical and mental – is pretty much unprecedented.

Four in four: 10 for 135 v West Indies, Kandy, 2001

For most bowlers, a ten-for is a career-defining moment. Murali, on the other hand, has dealt in multiples of ten. At Kandy in 2001, he completed his fourth consecutive ten-wicket haul. Many people remember this particular tour as “Brian Lara v Sri Lanka,” as Lara scored 688 runs in six innings and yet failed to stop Sri Lanka winning 3-0. In this, the decisive second Test, Lara fell to Murali in the first innings and an umpiring blunder in the second. Life after Brian was not pleasant for the visitors. Murali took 4 for 9 in 14 balls to clinch Sri Lanka’s first ever series win over the West Indies.

A duel won and a devastating dose of déjà vu: 11 for 132 v England, Trent Bridge, 2006

Kevin Pietersen took the attack to Murali at Lord’s in 2006, famously switch-hitting him for six on the way to a superb century. Pietersen scored another crucial ton as England went 1-0 up at Edgbaston, though Murali gave the home side plenty of jitters as they chased down a small fourth innings target.

At Trent Bridge, Sri Lanka’s batsmen finally produced decent showings in both innings and set England 325 to win. Murali had taken already taken the first three wickets to fall when he ripped the heart out of England’s resistance in one sublime over. First, he won his personal duel with Pietersen, foxing him with a topspinner as he tried to charge down the track; KP found himself in quite a tangle and the ball bobbled up off pad and glove to Tillakaratne Dilshan at short leg. Next up was England’s acting captain Andrew Flintoff, who lasted just four balls. Murali ripped a doosra past the outside edge of the bat before tossing up an off-break that found the inside edge and lobbed straight to Dilshan once again.

Thereafter, the only question was whether Murali could take all ten wickets in the innings. In the end, he had to make do with 8 for 70, still the best ever figures at Trent Bridge. For England, it was a case of déjà vu. Their second loss to Sri Lanka on home soil had come in a similar manner to the first (at the Oval in 1998), courtesy of a Murali masterclass.

Filling his boots in Wellington: 10 for 118 v New Zealand, Wellington, 2006

Sri Lanka’s batsmen had struggled on a green-top in Christchurch but coped much better with similar seamer-friendly conditions at Basin Reserve. Kumar Sangakkara scored an unbeaten 150 in their first innings before Chamara Silva repeated the feat in their second. In between, Lasith Malinga terrorised the Kiwis with a lethal mixture of bouncers and yorkers. By the third and fourth days, however, the pitch had slowed down, leaving it up to Murali to finish the job. That he did, and in some style. His 6 for 87 levelled the series and completed an incredible sequence of performances in the second half of 2006. He had taken 60 wickets in six matches, all against major opposition (England away, South Africa at home, New Zealand away), including another set of four consecutive ten-fors.

Bamboozling the best: 11 for 110 v India, Sinhalese Sports Club, 2008

In the last 30 years, few spinners have genuinely troubled India’s batsmen, with the likes of Warne, Qadir, MacGill and Vettori all conceding around 50 runs per wicket against them. Murali has had to bowl more than 1100 overs at Indian batsmen in his career, 30% more than anyone else in history (60% more than Warne), and has averaged a very respectable 33.34. One of his very best spells came in a defeat at the Feroz Shah Kotla in 2005. His 5 for 23 on the second morning included the wickets of Tendulkar, Ganguly and Dhoni (to go with those of Dravid and Laxman, collected the previous day) and he single-handedly brought Sri Lanka back into that game. However, Sri Lanka failed to capitalise on Murali’s first innings heroics, just as they had done against Australia at Galle a year earlier.

At the S.S.C. in 2008, things were different, as Murali had top quality support** in the form of “mystery spinner” Ajantha Mendis. Far from feeling threatened by the hype surrounding Mendis’ debut, Murali rose to the occasion magnificently. When India followed on, they promoted Laxman to number three, no doubt hoping for a repeat of Eden Gardens in 2001. Murali had other ideas. He followed up his five-for in the first innings with a magical 6 for 26 in the second. Perhaps the sweetest moment was the dismissal of Gautam Gambhir, who was stumped smartly by Prasanna Jayawardene when a fizzing off-break dipped late and darted past his attempted off-drive. India lost by the mammoth margin of an innings and 239 runs. While his apprentice stole the show later in the series, Murali had certainly made his mark.

* It is debatable whether the wickets Murali took against a Flower-powered Zimbabwe pre 2003 were really any cheaper than those harvested by Warne and McGrath in a succession of one-sided Ashes contests. It’s seldom mentioned that Murali has bagged 112 wickets in just 16 matches against England – seven per Test – while no other bowler has managed even six per Test against them over more than a couple of series. Had Murali been given the chance to take part in a biennial England bonanza, he might well have passed the 900-wicket mark by now…

** It is unlikely that Murali would have bagged so many ten-fors if he had had to queue up to bowl after Malcolm Marshall, Michael Holding and Joel Garner. On the other hand, who is to say he would not have been even more prolific had he lined up alongside Glenn McGrath and a solid support cast that helped pile the pressure on opposition batsmen? After all, Murali’s two purplest patches coincided with Chaminda Vaas’ most successful year (2001) and Lasith Malinga’s most potent period in Tests (2006).

From Apoorv Singhal, India

Cricket needs more of these © Getty Images

Umar Gul is walking back to his run-up mark when it suddenly strikes him he is not playing in the sub-continent anymore. He decides to go round the wicket and asks for a short leg. The batsman, Ross Taylor, stiffens and opens his stance a wee bit. Gul sprints in as he always does. Is it going to be a bluff delivery? Nope, no need to bluff anyone here. He bangs the ball in and it is aiming straight for Taylor's jaw before his gloves come in the way as he fends it off awkwardly, the ball bouncing a couple of feet from the short leg's outstretched hands. A wry smile and Gul tries it again. Taylor goes for the pull but the rising delivery takes the top edge and goes for four to the fine-leg boundary.

I think I know what may have gone through Taylor’s mind after that. "What's that smell? Oh wait, I know that. That's the smell of leather. Wow, it's been a long time since that round, red thing has whizzed past my nose." And Gul? "What's that smell? Oh wait, I know that. That's the smell of fear. Wow, it's been a long time since I have seen the guy with the bat tapping his nose to make sure he can feel it."

So what has happened in the last few years? Why don't the Donalds go around the wicket, bang the ball in and make the Athertons jump and dance around? Since when did the Marshalls start caring less for the wickets and more for the 'spirit of cricket'? If you'd have told Geoffrey Boycott in 1971 that 39 years from then, batsmen will try to scoop 150 kph deliveries over their heads, you'd have heard something like "Now, now, we all have a little too much to drink sometimes, son. Now run along, there's a good lad."

If I were facing Marshall bare-headed, wearing a box that hasn't been approved by research labs around the world, with some foam qualifying as glove protection, and unable to discern the pitch colour from the square adjacent to it, I'd be pretty darn scared. And I'd know that Marshall wasn't lying when he said that "he's going to pitch it short" and that "there was nothing you can do about it". Doesn't matter what happens next. When Marshall started running in, batsmen weren't going to give themselves room, or go across, or try the suicidal - crouch down and try to scoop the ball over the keeper's head. Some overworked grass cutters and bomb-explosion-proof helmets later, batsmen are actually going down the pitch to fast bowlers, cross-batting perfect length deliveries over midwicket, glaring at the bewildered bowler and acknowledging his team-mates' applause for his second triple century of the season.

The captain runs to the disconsolate bowler and puts his arms around his shoulders. "Don't you want to renew your IPL contract next year, buddy? What are you doing, staring back at the batsman and all that? Now let's stick with the change-up delivery and don't let me see you try and bowl the "quicker one" till you get my nod, ok son?"

I'm not sure Lillee or Thompson or Marshall ever sniffed the idea of "varying their pace". Nor were they ever ordered to take care of their daily calorie intake, or told to come back after the day's play and check out their pitch maps, or ensure they complete their monthly 56 compulsory hours of gym training. As these bowlers would tell you, all they needed was a two-month break after every series to recharge their batteries, after which it was difficult for the captain to take the ball away from their hands. What made them tick was the sheer hunger and desire to play and perform every single time they walked onto the field, and they eluded injuries for the better part of their careers.

Now, with the insane amount of back-to-back matches that the fast men have to deal with, they can't steam in without a care for their ankle ligaments. They have to run in, systematically, gingerly at times, hoping they could pull through to the next IPL edition. The ones who do try and push their bodies find out the hard way, that bowling short and fast isn't doing much good, with the slow and barren pitch making it easy for the well-protected batsmen to flay their super-bats around, scoring boundaries from half-timed slogs.

Nowadays, a specialist bowler is expected to master conventional swing, reverse swing and slower balls, contribute with the bat down the order, and shave regularly. What happened to the hairy, muscular, growling, moustache-sporting, curly-haired, chest-baring and loud-mouthed men who ignored the umpire mumbling something about "keeping it easy" and bowled as fast as possible and as short as often as their bodies could allow?

The administrators around the world are flattening tracks in the hope of ensuring five days of run-fests in Test cricket to entice crowds. Only in England and New Zealand, where the administrators can't control the weather, the conditions still provide an even battle between bat and ball. Does anyone remember the countless, meaningless, mammoth run-fests played in the subcontinent?

Easily, the most memorable tournament this decade was the Ashes 2005 series, where the fast bowlers decided the fate of the series. One man gave us indefatigable fans few of the greatest Test cricket moments. Andrew Flintoff has been one of the few bowlers in this era who could actually make top-order batsmen stand rooted to their guard. I can vividly remember that Edgbaston moment, when he had just taken Langer's wicket and Ponting came to the crease. Fred turned on his run-up mark, and started sprinting in. Ponting took guard and wondered for a fleeting moment whether he had filed his health insurance papers when the noise from the crowd brought him back to his surroundings.

Flintoff steamed in, and the crowd went 'OOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHH' in a united chorus. Flintoff hit the length, the ball seamed away, taking Ponting's outside edge and landed in Jones's gloves, and the din that followed enveloped your senses. The fan in you was entranced, as if transported to Edgbaston, and transported to those times when the batsman knew what leather smelt like.

From S Giridhar and VJ Raghunath, India

	Bats have improved tremendously over the years © AFP

Cricket has seen many significant changes over the last 110 years. Some have been marvellous innovations that have heightened the thrill of bat versus ball while others have seriously disturbed the golden balance.

The most significant of the pre-World War I changes was that pitches instead of being “natural” began to be “prepared”. Thus a game that was wickedly and capriciously slanted in favour of bowlers (the bowling averages and figures of Trott, Spofforth and Blythe at the turn of the 20th century bear testimony to this) began to bestow better chances for batsmen. Yet, even on these prepared wickets, great bowlers reaped almost the same rewards; none exemplifying this better than Wilfred Rhodes, the torch bearer for the tribe of spinners.

Many years later, the “covering” of pitches was another great change – less play was lost because of this simple measure and it also ensured that the weather did not provide undue advantage to a bowling side to demolish the batting side on a drying pitch. Covered pitches did swing the game well in favour of batsmen.

Science and technology have obviously been the biggest influence. Except the ball, everything else has undergone such change that Trumper and Ranji will not recognise today’s batsman.

The bat is becoming stronger by the day. Gone are the days of thin handles, linseed oil seasoning; instead we have thick multi-rubbered handles and compressed wood, with such lethal weight distribution that almost the entire bat is a “sweet spot”. It means that a mistimed hit that Trumper or Ranji would have holed out to, now regularly clear the ropes.
Pads, inner guards and gloves have all become lighter and batsmen and keepers are much more mobile. If this was not enough, grounds have been becoming smaller. At numerous small venues a 65-yard hit is a six these days where earlier a six would have to clear 75 yards. We have talked extensively of the LBW laws in an earlier article (Inbox May 2009) and till the 1980s the benefit of doubt to batsmen was another factor in favour of the batsmen. Cricket, not so subtly, post World War II, became even more of a batsman’s game.

As the game tilted towards batsmen, the oppressed bowlers found ways and means to restore balance and wrest some rights for themselves. There have been three significant changes that bowlers have succeeded in creating for themselves. The first is of course reverse swing. On benign pitches, because of “ball management” a bowler of speed today confounds well set batsmen. A sense of unpredictability, suspense and balance has been introduced. What Sarfraz Nawaz started, Steyn and Zaheer have converted into fine art. But reverse swing must remind people of bottle caps, strong teeth, finger nails and pockets full of sand.

The other great change is the doosra. What Bosanquet’s googly was to legspin, Saqlain Mushtaq’s doosra is to offspin. Saqlain delivered the ball perfectly legitimately, perhaps because he had a long last stride like a wrist spinner. But after him there have been a slew of off spinners who have been under scrutiny, whether it is a Harbhajan Singh or a Johan Botha. Hauritz and Swann are perhaps two purveyors of offspin who have not yet resorted to the doosra.

And that brings us to the third major change. The laws of the game now allow bowlers with a bent arm. So from an era when the bowler had to really adhere to a “bowling action” today’s bowler is allowed a 15 degree flex of elbow. All the three changes in bowling have actually been thrust on the game because of the manner in which the game is loaded in favour of the batsman. And because the laws of the game do not firmly address these imbalances, the bowlers will find newer ways; the lines between right and wrong will get blurred in an uncontrollable spiral.

Even as the game is grappling with batsmen already having it mostly their way, a couple of things have further loaded the game in favour of batsmen. One is the annoying tendency of batsmen suffering from cramps in the one-day games and having the luxury of a runner. The one-day game is as much about fitness and agility as about talent, technique and temperament. If after a stay of about 35 overs a batsman suffers from cramps, it is a sign of lack of fitness to last the course. To afford him a runner, when he is fully set is a travesty of justice and fairvplay. For this reason we would rate Kapil’s 175 and Viv Richards’ World cup final knock of ’79 higher than Saeed Anwar’s knock against India. Tendulkar, nearly 37 years old, scored 200 on his own legs putting our argument in the best possible perspective.

There is a case for the rules to ban “runners” in one day cricket for cramps and pulled muscles suffered during the course of an innings. We believe that if fatigue, cramps or a muscle pull hampers a batsman’s mobility, that’s part of the game and his fitness level; he cannot ask for assistance and must decide to either bat on with discomfort or retire. Contrast this facility given to batsmen with the rule which prevents bowlers from bowling immediately if they leave the field for an extended period of time to attend to injuries. If batsmen with cramps are allowed runners then bowlers must be allowed to bowl as soon as they return to the field after repairs or rest.

The second unfair advantage that batsmen are employing is the switch-hit. The reverse sweep can be viewed as dexterity because it is played the other way without changing the grip and in that sense clearly legitimate. But when you change your grip, become a left-hander and sweep or slog the bowler through point or covers you are actually cheating the bowler and the field set for you. Allowing a switch hit is akin to bowlers being permitted to change without notice from over the wicket to around the wicket. Perhaps one way of restoring balance with regard to the switch hit, is to declare the batsmen LBW if he is struck on the pads while playing the switch hit to a ball pitched outside the leg-stump and turning in. If the switch hit has come to stay make sure it is balanced by something for the bowler. Do not goad and frustrate the bowlers further.

Cricket in its relentless march will see wonderful innovations as well as unwelcome irreversible changes. The sport is commercialized and the audiences seem to be conditioned more easily to respond in larger numbers to a batting blitzkrieg. And yet the same audiences respond magnificently to tight well-fought matches even if they are not raining fours and sixes. We have enough evidence of this even in Twenty20 let alone Test matches. The challenge for people in charge of the game is to credit the audiences with discernment and ensure that the contest between bat and ball at all times remain even. For balance is what provides harmony to cricket as it does to all things in life.

From S.Giridhar and V.J. Raghunath, India

	Australian bowler John Gleeson demonstrates his grip © Cricinfo Ltd

A prison cell during World War II: An Australian prisoner of war is spinning a ping-pong ball to pass time. Iverson is trying out different grips to flick and turn the ping-pong ball against the wall. He finds he can turn the ball both ways by flicking the bent middle finger on either side of the ball and keeps practicing. When the war is over, Iverson unleashes this in Sheffield Shield. Called to play against Freddie Brown’s English team in 50-51, he takes 6 for 27 in the second innings of the third Test in Sydney…..

Iverson is the pioneer, the “first man ever” in this story about right-arm mystery spinners. If Bosanquet introduced the googly to add magic to leg spin and if Saqlain discovered the doosra to spice up offspin, then Iverson it was who first showed the world the magic of imparting spin either way with fingers in a manner difficult for batsmen to fathom.

How rare is the mystery finger spinner? The title of our article itself contains the names of all the well-known exponents of this art form. There are over 150 spinners in Test history but Iverson, Ramadhin, Gleeson and Mendis occupy the table of mystique – the Harry Potters of cricket.

Today’s torch bearer: Just a few matches into his international career, a lethal delivery of his that turns less than the width of a bat has already been christened the “carrom ball”. The buzz around the ground when Ajantha Mendis is called on to bowl is very different – the air of great expectancy is such that the excitement simply boils over. Uncannily, there is a military connection here too, for Mendis comes from the Sri Lankan Army.

There is a truly wonderful close-up photograph of Iverson’s grip in the Wisden Almanack. And we who have watched Mendis’ grip in great detail over TV would be completely forgiven if we thought the hand holding the ball in that photograph was that of Iverson. The grip is all about how using the thumb and middle finger the ball will be flicked or propelled. It will be the middle finger that will decide whether the ball will go one way or the other. Not much turn but that lethal amount enough for an edge, LBW or bowled. Bowlers who know what is involved in delivering the ball, will be the first to acknowledge that to propel a cricket ball over 20 yards with the middle finger imparting spin calls for extraordinarily strong fingers. It is probably many times harder than the flipper which is squeezed out between thumb and finger.

The Magician’s Demeanor: Sonny Ramadhin brought a mystique to his bowling. Sleeves buttoned up always, wearing a cap when bowling, fast whirring action, Ramadhin created a Houdini-like atmosphere when he bowled.

Iverson of Australia played just one Test series in 1950-51 in which he took 21 wickets. An injury and he was gone for ever. Yet twenty years later when an unknown bowler called Gleeson was spotted in New South Wales, they said, “look at Gleeson, he is bowling Iversons!” The lure of mystery is something irresistible. Perhaps that was the reason Gideon Haigh the cricket historian wrote his painstakingly researched biography of Iverson - a biography not of a cricketer who played just five Tests or who took his own life many years later but of a pioneer who gave cricket something new.

Ramadhin appeared on the world stage around this time but played for a full decade. In 43 Tests, Ramadhin took 158 wickets. Bowling in tandem with the left-arm spinner Alf Valentine, Ramadhin caused havoc in England. His match figures of 11 for 182 in the famous series win against England in 1950 and his partnership with Valentine immortalized him in calypso. Ramadhin bowled his off break with his middle finger down the seam (a conventional off spinner would have this across the seam) and surprised batsmen with the odd ball from the leg with no apparent change of action. The hype over his disguised leggie mesmerised the English batsmen who were even more tied to the crease than usual – doubt and demon freezing their minds. However Down Under, the Australians decided to play him with better footwork and go down the wicket to play him off the pitch, a ploy that made him much less of a problem. In his second tour of England in 1957, Ramadhin started sensationally by spinning England out in the first innings of the first Test in Edgbaston. But in the second innings, May and Cowdrey made a then record third-wicket partnership of 411. They played a lot with their pads stretched forward, playing outside the line and treating him as an off spinner, ending his ascendancy forever. An amazing facet of Ramadhin’s bowling is that he got a whopping 61.5 % of his dismissals entirely by himself —that is he got them bowled or LBW or C&B. In this aspect he is No. 1 among all bowlers – fast and slow - with 150 or more wickets.

Johnny Gleeson started late – and was in late twenties when he made his debut in Sheffield Shield cricket. Catching the eye of Benaud and Bradman, Gleeson was pitchforked into the Australian team. Off a long run, Gleeson spun the ball both ways but used as a stock bowler by Lawry he lost his nip soon. Gleeson played 29 Tests for 93 wickets and on only three occasions did he take a five-for in an innings. Uncharitable though it may seem, Gleeson among the four mystery spinners appears the most prosaic. Perhaps we are biased by the fact that we saw him bowl against India in 1969 along with Mallet and found Mallet to be the more dangerous. He seemed accurate enough but not dangerous and the Indians seemed to pick him. Borde the stalwart Indian batsman said that was because Indians read the bowler’s hand rather than off the pitch.

And after Gleeson, for a long time - 36 years to be precise – there was not a whiff of the mystery spinner till Mendis burst on the scene. In nine matches he has 42 wickets; he already has a ten-wicket haul in a Test match. The picture of Dravid completely bamboozled by the carrom ball that knocked his off stump is fresh in everyone’s mind. But the TV is an inexorable enemy. Every bit of his action is being minutely examined. His googly anyway was easier to pick as it came of a clearly loopier trajectory. Pakistan played him so well recently that he was dropped. The pressure is only going to increase. The problem with these mystery spinners is that the minute they are sorted by batsmen they seem to wither away.

We can do no better than conclude with these words of Gideon Haigh: “….when mystery wears off there must be a residue of skill and resilience. Indeed, many international cricket careers now unfold like whodunits solved in the first 30 pages; after that, the player is a quarry on the run, trying to stay a step ahead of his opponents…..The acid test of Ajantha Mendis, then, is not what he is doing now, but how his game is standing up in two years' time.”

From R .Giridharan, India

	England has had plenty of quality finger spinners like Derek Underwood, but where are the wrist-spinners? © Getty Images

An arrogant cricketing official once dismissed a young Kapil Dev, “There are no fast bowlers in India”. One wonders whether aspiring wrist-spinners in England, New Zealand and South Africa were rebuffed in similar ways. This article is a humble attempt to identify the factors that conspired against the emergence of any worthwhile wrist spinner from these countries.

Nature, of course, is the first stumbling block. The wickets in England and New Zealand are soft and green and the outfields moist, breaking the heart of any wrist spinner. Overcast skies encouraged captains to prefer gentle wobblers over the tweaker. In South Africa, wickets are harder, but loaded with juice that the quicks can exploit. Currie Cup, the premier domestic competition was played for long with two balls, thereby keeping the ball newer for longer periods. The quicks therefore remain in the hunt throughout.

The three teams believe in keeping things tight, drying up easy runs and throttling the opposition, especially when spinners are bowling. Spinners are expected to play second fiddle and perform effective hold-ups while the quicks rest, refresh and recharge. Finger spinners fit the bill admirably. Indeed, Lohmann, Verity, Lock, Laker, Underwood, Giles, Panesar (Eng), Tayfield, Symcox, Boje (SA), Dipak Patel, Bracewell, Vettori (NZ) all made their way into the playing eleven as personifications of accuracy, before carving their own niche. The aggressive, predatory worldview of the wrist-spinner would probably be discarded in such a milieu.

Cricket in these countries is seen more as a craft and a science. A finger spinner who wears down the batsman by constantly hammering at his weakness is a natural choice. The greater reliability and predictability of the finger spinner allied with his greater destructive potential on a wearing wicket offers a package that is customised and therefore immediately embraced.

Wrist-spinners ride the chariots of rebellion. Their mental aggression belies their small frames and gentle image of a spinner. Their desire to make things happen, at times makes them profligate, an anathema to risk-averse captains. They are their own men and a coach’s nightmare, unless the coach is a patient and wise soul.

The game’s biggest oddities are wrist-spinners, Chandra (with a deformed hand), Paul Adams (frog-in-a-blender action), Ajantha Mendis (carrom-ball grip) to name a few. Formal coaching structures in conservative establishments prevalent in these countries are likely to frown upon such mavericks. Wristwork is often associated with oriental magic, a view accentuated by the plethora of wrist spinners emerging from the subcontinent as well as the artful hockey players.

Wrist-spinners are generally smaller in build, sloppier in the outfield and more likely to be genuine rabbits with the bat. There are notable exceptions like Kumble and Warne, but MacGill, Chandra, Hirwani, Qadir, Mendis, Bob Holland, Danish Kaneria do reinforce the stereotype. Thus the overall utility of a wrist-spinner when benchmarked against conventional yardsticks would be lower.

Cricket, like any other discipline, thrives on role models. The home-grown models like Denis Compton, Ken Barrington and Mike Atherton were peerless batsmen and used wrist spin as a pleasurable past time. Even Johnny Wardle, the most seasoned English purveyor of this art, bowled finger spin at home. The leading overseas practitioners were two Pakistani allrounders, Mushtaq Mohammad and Intikhab Alam apart from the peerless Garry Sobers. Thus a role model for a specialist wrist spinner did not exist in England.

Parallels can be drawn with the Indian experience where, till the emergence of Javagal Srinath, India’s new-ball bowlers were allrounders of varying genuineness. New Zealand and South Africa are profoundly impacted by the old art. Anil Kumble, Mushtaq Ahmed and Shane Warne have played county cricket in recent times and may be a revolution is taking place silently.

Many facets of wrist spin are counter-intuitive and are, unsurprisingly, shunned by orthodoxy. Wrist spin requires a mix of art and adventure sport. Zimbabwe could unearth a Paul Strang, grassroots cricket in India and Kapil Dev could help the country shed its aversion to pace. A venture capitalist is required in England, South Africa and New Zealand.

From S.Giridhar and V.J. Raghunath, India

	South Africa's Paul Adams is one of the most successful chinaman bowlers © Cricinfo Ltd

We set off to do a story on offspinners and left-arm spinners – similar to what we had done some months back on legspinners. We had hoped that our favourite mystery and left-arm chinaman bowlers will find adequate space. To our dismay we found that many of the names that rolled deliciously off our tongues just did not have enough wickets to qualify under stodgy criteria such as minimum number of wickets, etc. So we said, to hell with all that – let us just enjoy ourselves writing about our favourite chinaman and mystery bowlers – the non-conformists, conjurors and sleight-of-hand purveyors.

The left-arm chinaman is a mirror image of the right-arm leg break – bowled by turning the wrist so that the ball turns the opposite way to left-arm finger spin. When bowled back of the hand, it becomes the googly, it turns the other way. We identified 10 chinaman bowlers as we trawled through the history of the game. Even if you were to add up all the wickets taken by the chinaman bowlers it would be less than a combined tally of Bedi and Underwood. There are 45 left-arm spinners who have more than 40 wickets each but just four chinaman bowlers who meet this criterion. The strike-rate of the chinaman bowler is superior (a wicket every 70 balls as compared to 79 for the orthodox left-arm); the bowling average is similar, 31.6 as compared to 31.2. The difference is that while the 45 left-arm spinners have taken over 4800 wickets in 1605 matches, the 10 chinaman bowlers have played only 184 matches to take 427 wickets.

Old timers had the great fortune to see the peerless Garry Sobers bowl a lot of this stuff. In fact they were so fortunate that they saw that genius bowl left-arm fast, slow orthodox and chinaman all on the same afternoon. His 235 test wickets are a wonderful mix of all three. In the fifties, Johnny Wardle played for England. A maverick – and that sat badly in England – he bowled orthodox finger spin in England, but served up chinaman and googlies abroad. He bowled the way his heart dictated and he bowled really well - 28 Tests, 102 wickets at a strike rate of 65 balls per wicket. His average of 20.39 is the best for any post-war spinner who has over 100 wickets. In our statistical analysis, he is second-best among left-arm spinners since 1900 (min. 50 wickets) which is awesome. But he rubbed the administrators and his captain Peter May the wrong way. He would have played a lot more games for England but for May’s preference for his Surrey team-mate Tony Lock.

Time for a lovely story: Johnny Martin who played for Australia in the sixties bowled his chinaman very slowly through the air. In a Sheffield Shield match, Martin beat a batsmen all ends up and struck him on the back foot in front of the stumps. To his utter disgust, the Umpire turned down his appeal. Martin asks the umpire: “What’s wrong, ump, isn’t he in front?” Umpire: “Yes son, he is”. Martin: “Then why isn’t he out?” Umpire: “Because the ball wouldn’t have reached the stumps, Johnny!”

Why is it that most of the chinaman bowlers are from Australia? Is there something in the Australian air that makes spinners bowl back-of-the-hand wrist spin rather than finger spin? Just as they have given cricket so many famous legspinners from Mailey to Warne and MacGill, so too have they provided us a line of chinaman bowlers, from Fleetwood-Smith to Hogg. Strangely, Australia hardly has a worthy presence among orthodox left-arm spinners.

	Chuck Fleetwood-Smith is sadly best remembered as the bowler who leaked the most runs in an innings © The Cricketer International

Fleetwood-Smith (10 Tests, 42 wickets) in spite of some sterling performances in the 1930s is unfortunately best remembered as the bowler who conceded the highest number of runs in an innings - one for 298 out of an England score of 903 for 7. This was The Oval test where Hutton made 364.

Much later, Lindsay Kline (13 Tests, 34 wickets) and Martin (eight Tests, 17 wickets) had their unforgettable moments too: Kline took a hat-trick against South Africa in 1957 but his moment of glory was as a No. 11 bat for Australia in the famous 1960-61 series against West Indies. Coming in as the last batsman he stayed for more than 100 minutes with Slasher Mackay to earn Australia a draw in Adelaide. More than the fact that he lasted against Hall, Sobers, Worrell and Gibbs for that long, what was amazing was that he was practicing at the nets in the afternoon against similar bowling for more than an hour as if anticipating what he would be called upon to do later that day! Immediately after, he was dropped for the final Test – typical of Australian cricket, no sentiment at all.

Martin’s moment came in the same series. After the famous Tie in Brisbane, Australia won the second Test comfortably in Melbourne, thanks to Davidson and Martin’s bowling. In a golden spell, Martin removed Kanhai, Sobers and Worrell in four balls. Had he done it in three, it would surely have ranked as the grandest hat-trick ever!

Time once more to pull the leg of the chinaman bowler: This story was told with great relish by Dileep Sardesai. In the fourth Test in Barbados of India’s landmark tour of West Indies in 1971 – the series belonged as much to Sardesai as it did to Gavaskar – India were 70 for 6 and Sardesai was left with Solkar to repair the damage. Sobers, the West Indies captain, had Inshan Ali their chinaman bowler on at one end. Now, for the Indians this slow bowler was a far happier proposition and not wanting Sobers to change him, Sardesai and Solkar decided that in every Inshan Ali over they would deliberately appear to be beaten by the odd delivery, as though they had failed to pick him. Sardesai chortled that the extended spell to Inshan Ali actually helped the Indian cause. Knowing Sardesai, this could well be a true story!

Not much need be said about the chinaman bowlers of the last 25 years. We have watched them in close detail on TV. None more so than Paul Adams of South Africa, perhaps the only bowler to have ever had his face towards the umpire while delivering! His action – called frog in the blender – caused great consternation to the English batsmen when he was first unleashed. But batsmen sorted him out in time, because although Adams bowled good length and line he became too predictable. Nevertheless, by the time he finished he had 134 wickets in 45 matches. More recently, we have seen Hogg – tongue hanging out – bowl for Australia. Katich bowls too but we think that he should be bowled a lot more by Ponting.

It is surprising that the sub continent that produced left-arm orthodox spinners (Vinoo Mankad, Bishan Bedi, Dilip Doshi and Iqbal Qasim come to mind), does not have a single chinaman bowler in its Test history. The one chinaman bowler who could have played for India was a wonderfully gifted bowler from Hyderabad – Mumtaz Hussain. A contemporary of Gavaskar, Mumtaz promised a lot when he made his name in university and Ranji Trophy cricket with a mesmerizing mix of orthodox left-arm, chinaman and the googly. He was so difficult to read that the keeper had to devise a set of hand signals to read him. Sadly within a couple of seasons Mumtaz had greatly reduced his chinaman and bowled mainly orthodox finger spin. Soon – for it was the time when Bedi ruled – Mumtaz faded away into the anonymity of first-class cricket. It is probably the closest that India came to having an international chinaman bowler.

	Wait until that thing grows older © Getty Images

Many times in international matches we hear commentators use term “reverse swing” through the end of an innings. But most of the people don’t know what it is, except for grasping the fact that the ball somehow tends to reverse in a certain way when it gets old. Reverse swing is essentially an art. It is generally applied when the ball is old and rough with the help of extreme pace, even moderate sometimes (if executed properly), and get it to work lethally.

But before a bowler can think of reverse-swing, he must first go through the basic procedure of tracing his steps toward the root of swing, as the ability to swing is an art in itself.

What is Swing?

When a ball is released from the wrist, it habitually moves in the air and bounces directly proportional, or sometimes vice versa, towards or away from a batsman when a pace bowler is in operation. Swing merely consists of aerodynamics, which I’ll come to later.

It is a known fact that most fast bowlers strive for this sort of variation because it is a serious cause for concern for batsmen. Imagine yourself driving on a lane and encountering a vehicle moving to the left, but suddenly in full speed it decides to move in your direction. The judgment and reflexes then, of you as a batsmen or a natural human being, rely on your instinct; sometimes you survive the variation, sometimes you don’t. Batsmen gradually become accustomed to playing general swing, which is easier to judge and also gets predictable. Such swing is likely to occur in the first ten or 15 overs of a match when the ball is still hard.

However, recently, with the game constantly evolving, new-ball bowlers have discovered a way of swinging the older ball, especially when it’s dusty and scruffy. The movement, in this case, makes it more difficult for the batsmen to judge. But to attain it, there are a number of factors to consider.

The Role of the Cricket Ball

If you see a lot of cricket, or play in clubs, you will realize that fielders continuously shine the ball with their trousers or towels. The cricket ball has two sides across the seam. When players shine the ball, they deliberately leave one side rough while adding glossy sparkle to the other. The rubbing helps one side of the ball smoothen while the opposite is deliberately left to deteriorate through routine wear and tear. This is where aerodynamics come in, because the dual surface enhances a change in rhythm of flight from the bowler’s wrist to the batsman. The aerodynamics mean that the shiny side is prone to travel quicker through the air while the rough side works as a break pushing the ball in its direction.

The Seam Position

The stitching you notice around the cricket ball is called a seam. The seam acts like a helm for fast bowlers. All fast bowlers grip the seam vertically, with the middle and index fingers on either side, with the ball resting in the third finger and thumb. The idea of enhancing your swing is to hold the seam as straight as possible: The straighter the seam is at the point of delivering the ball, the greater the chance to swing it. And if the ball is old with one side shiny, the chances of variation will increase.

What are inswing and outswing?

Most bowlers get confused here. To move a ball in a typical fashion away from a left-handed batsman, the rougher side of the ball will be facing leftwards at point of release: notice the seam should be darting toward second slip. And it is understandably the other way round for an inswinging delivery; the rough side should be on right at point of release and the seam should be darting at an imaginary leg slip.

What is reverse-swing?

Once the ball turns older and more tattered, it will instigate a movement in the opposite route to where it would originally swing, disregarding the change in the bowler’s grip. For example, with the grip for an outswinger, the ball will move towards the batsman in the air while an inswinger will move away from the bat. Such variations usually occur very late after the ball is released, therefore it is extremely difficult for batsmen to judge the deviation in split seconds. Batsmen usually pick the changes in direction while in the air to confront the issue. It is not easy to execute revere swing, as they say bowlers need to be pace it at a minimum of 80 mph or above. Former Pakistan international Sarfraz Nawaz is known to have founded reverse swing during the late 1970s, and he passed his knowledge on to Imran Khan.

Mechanics

There have been plenty of theories about why, but here's the simplest explanation from former England bowling coach Troy Cooley: “Reverse swing is all to do with the deterioration of the ball and the seam position in flight. As the ball becomes rougher, it will take on a different characteristic as it deteriorates. So if you present the ball as an outswinger, the ball has deteriorated so much on the rough side that it takes on the characteristics of the shiny side. Which means a natural outswinger will become an inswinger and conversely, an inswinger into an outswinger."

How does it work?

Considering the fact that reverse swing generally occurs after 40 overs, it is tailor-made for the older ball. However, some of the England bowlers were able to reverse-swing the ball within 20 overs during the 2005 Ashes; Brett Lee managed it in 30 overs at Adelaide. But how can they manage to do this so early in the innings?

One reason could be the ball. In England, Test balls are manufactured by Dukes, while in Australia and parts of the sub-continent the Kookaburra brand is usually used. Like footballs, each manufacturer’s cricket balls are different. Some have more pronounced seams while others deteriorate slower, all of which have an influence on how the ball will move in the air.

Another theory is how some players are able to rough the ball up faster than other teams. In England's some years back, Steve Harmison and Andrew Flintoff both banged the ball hard into the pitch. Their fielders often threw the ball back to wicket-keeper Geraint Jones on the bounce from the outfield, all of which contribute to the deterioration of the ball. Regardless of all this, batsmen the world over know what to expect when the ball starts to get older.