How do you feel about Shane Warne?

[FaaipDeOiad]

No, leg-spin = a stock-ball that turns away from the right-handed batsman.

Wrist-spin = spin which uses the wrists more than the fingers. Finger-spin = spin which uses the wrists very little and gets almost all spin from the fingers.

You'd have to be pretty clueless to think Murali doesn't get most of his spin from the wrist.

Legspin\offspin and fingerspin\wristspin are not remotely connected. It just so happens that wristspin is the general technique used for legspin and fingerspin the general used for offspin. There's no reason at all that it can't be the other way around, though obviously it's much harder to bowl legspin using fingerspin, and very difficult indeed to bowl offspin using wristspin.

Haha, this is such a dismal argument. Pure semantics. All spinners use both their wrists AND their fingers to turn the ball, and any finger spinner will tell you that wrist position is absolutely crucial to bowling well. Every bit as important as what you do with your fingers. Your argument smacks of someone who has never held a cricket ball in their life.

The terms are used in a practical fashion to descibe the two different schools of spin bowling, nothing more and nothing less.

 

[Ikki]

Interestingly, if you look at ESPN's panel of judges, you see fast bowlers: Michael Holding, Imran Khan, Richard Hadlee, Botham, Wasim Akram and Mike Proctor...yet the highest placed bowler is Shane Warne. Only Benaud is the notable spinner in that panel.

 

[silentstriker]

Number of great fast bowlers - heaps

Number of great legspinners - less than 5 and the one before Warne died of old age in the same year as Warne made his test debut

That should tell you:

a. how hard it is to bowl; and

b. why he is regarded as so special

Not disputing how hard it is, but a skill being harder to execute does not make it better.

 

[weldone]

Not disputing how hard it is, but a skill being harder to execute does not make it better.

AWTA...exactly that was my point...a song that is hard to sing might be worse than a song that's easy to sing...A bat that is hard to score with is seldom a better bat than one which is easier to score with...Still I don't know why people take this whole point of 'something being harder' while deciding which one is more effective...

 

[social]

But I'd say if spin ceased to be bowled, cricket would live on, whilst the same thing would categorically not be true of seam.

That is such a ridiculous statement but I'll excuse you because you werent watching the game in the 80s

FYI, a LOT of people got thorughly sick and tired of seeing teams copying the WI model - this involved using a constant stream of pace bowlers to batter the opposition into submission or, when things inevitably didnt go their way due to lack of variation, slowing the game down through ridiculously slow over rates or a proliferation of bouncers that people couldnt get a bat on.

Fortunately, administrators took heed and introduced minimum overs in the day, placed a limit on the number of bouncers and the cricket ball definitely became less bowler friendly (reduction in seam height, etc)

All of these moves were designed to bring spin bowling back into the game as it was becoming repetitve and friggin' boring

 

[99*]

Haha, this is such a dismal argument. Pure semantics. All spinners use both their wrists AND their fingers to turn the ball, and any finger spinner will tell you that wrist position is absolutely crucial to bowling well. Every bit as important as what you do with your fingers. Your argument smacks of someone who has never held a cricket ball in their life.

The terms are used in a practical fashion to descibe the two different schools of spin bowling, nothing more and nothing less.

I'm not sure that's what Richard was saying though, that spinners do not use either their wrists or fingers in spinning the ball.

Saying wrist-spin=leg-spin is misleading, it is implying that they are the same thing, which they are not. Leg-spin is bowling in which the stock ball spins off the pitch causing it to turn away from a RHB (assuming RH bowler) using the wrist to place most of the spin on the ball. Off-spin is bowling in which the stock ball spins off the pitch into the batsman (same assumptions as above) by using finger placement on the ball to gain most of the spin.

Richard's example of Murali however shows why saying wrist-spin=leg-spin is incorrect, Murali uses his wrist to place most of the spin on the ball, despite bowling off-spin.

 

[Ikki]

Interesting. What about if Warne were to bowl a Wrong-un or Murali a Doosra? Does one become off-spin and the other leg-spin?

 

[vic_orthdox]

Interesting. What about if Warne were to bowl a Wrong-un or Murali a Doosra? Does one become off-spin and the other leg-spin?

That delivery is an "off spinning delivery".

 

[99*]

Interesting. What about if Warne were to bowl a Wrong-un or Murali a Doosra? Does one become off-spin and the other leg-spin?

No because that is not their stock delivery, a bowler is called a leg-spin/off-spin bowler based on their stock delivery.

 

[Engle]

Not disputing how hard it is, but a skill being harder to execute does not make it better.

It makes the contribution to the team (and to the game) better

 

[silentstriker]

It makes the contribution to the team (and to the game) better

Huh? Scoring with a blindfold on is harder, it doesn't mean the team will be better off for it.

 

[Engle]

Huh? Scoring with a blindfold on is harder, it doesn't mean the team will be better off for it.

How did we go from bowling to blindfold ?

The more diverse your bowling attack, the better.
So, if you come across bowlers a-dime-a-dozen and one who stands out significantly different (cause it's not easy to do so), you generally choose the latter.
Why ? To add variety to the attack thereby unsettling batsmen who may be able to play one type of bowling well.

 

[silentstriker]

How did we go from bowling to blindfold ?

The more diverse your bowling attack, the better.
So, if you come across bowlers a-dime-a-dozen and one who stands out significantly different (cause it's not easy to do so), you generally choose the latter.
Why ? To add variety to the attack thereby unsettling batsmen who may be able to play one type of bowling well.

Again, this is irrelevent. This is the reasoning for having a spinner, as in your attack as a whole might improve than adding a fourth seamer. First, that reasoning to me is faulty, as Warne was in the team because he was one of the four best bowlers, spin or not. In an all time team, the bowlers are going to be good enough and varied in their attack even if you don't have a full time spinner. The same thing would apply if you went in with an all spin attack, and then you'd need a fast bowler for variety. That has nothing to do with the individual impact of one bowler.

 

[Engle]

Sorry, dont buy that.

In an all-time team, against all types of opposition, under all conditions, on all types of wickets, in all eras etc etc......you need all types of bowlers.

 

[silentstriker]

Sorry, dont buy that.

In an all-time team, against all types of opposition, under all conditions, on all types of wickets, in all eras etc etc......you need all types of bowlers.

So I guess we need a chinaman too? SLA? Offspin?

 

[subshakerz]

So I guess we need a chinaman too? SLA? Offspin?

No, when you have three or four pace bowlers already, it makes sense having at least one spinner for situations or pitches when spinners would prove more advantageous. Still, that doesn't make spinners more valuable than pace bowlers when it comes to taking wickets.

 

[Richard]

Haha, this is such a dismal argument. Pure semantics. All spinners use both their wrists AND their fingers to turn the ball, and any finger spinner will tell you that wrist position is absolutely crucial to bowling well. Every bit as important as what you do with your fingers. Your argument smacks of someone who has never held a cricket ball in their life.

The terms are used in a practical fashion to descibe the two different schools of spin bowling, nothing more and nothing less.

Well I assure you, I have.

Of course wrist position is important to fingerspinners, and of course all bowlers use the fingers.

However, you'd be a complete dunce if you suggested wristspin didn't use far more wrist than fingerspin to attain greater spin.

The terms are used to describe how much spin can be attained. Wristspin can spin the ball far more than fingerspin, even if the direction is the same. A Googly turns far more than an Off-Break given impact on the same surface - because the wrist has been used far more in a Googly than an Off-Break.

 

[Richard]

That is such a ridiculous statement but I'll excuse you because you werent watching the game in the 80s

I'm well aware of what happened there, though, obviously.

FYI, a LOT of people got thorughly sick and tired of seeing teams copying the WI model - this involved using a constant stream of pace bowlers to batter the opposition into submission or, when things inevitably didnt go their way due to lack of variation, slowing the game down through ridiculously slow over rates or a proliferation of bouncers that people couldnt get a bat on.

Fortunately, administrators took heed and introduced minimum overs in the day, placed a limit on the number of bouncers and the cricket ball definitely became less bowler friendly (reduction in seam height, etc)

All of these moves were designed to bring spin bowling back into the game as it was becoming repetitve and friggin' boring

Nothing can bring spin bowling back into the game the way it once was, other than starting to uncover pitches again. The only reason spin has become a prominent weapon again between 1993 and the current time is because of two exceptional practitioners of it. When both Warne and Murali are retired, spin will return to what it was in the 1970s and 1980s - a very, very peripheral art. Until the next Warne comes along, which may be many, many years.

 

[Richard]

Interesting. What about if Warne were to bowl a Wrong-un or Murali a Doosra? Does one become off-spin and the other leg-spin?

The Googly is a wristspinner's ball. The Doosra isn't really a Murali ball, he just calls his Wrong-'Un that. The Doosra is actually a fingerspinner's ball bowled by Saqlain Mushtaq and Harbhajan Singh, but Murali in addition to his unique Off-Break bowls a unique Wrong-'Un.

 

[Richard]

Sorry, dont buy that.

In an all-time team, against all types of opposition, under all conditions, on all types of wickets, in all eras etc etc......you need all types of bowlers.

In a team selected to play on covered wickets, you need no spinners.

In a team selected to play on uncovered wickets, you need spinners.

It's as simple as that.

It's as brainless to pick a team for both pitch-types as it is to pick a combined Test and ODI team. Change the pitch from covered to uncovered, and you're changing one hell of a massive variable in the game.