Most promising left arm spinner

[Uppercut]

as a left arm spinner and a person who is coached my the best left arm spin coach in the world....Vettori is the best left arm spinner around, Panesar a very very good second.

Vettori has the angles, can turn and do everything that is expected of a spinner and more(He can bat)
Panesar drops to much a time into mediocricy (is that a word...well you know what I mean)
and I do not agree about ' there is nothing to get excited about' the only reason Panesar is ' exciting' is because he is hyped a lot!
Vettori is a better bowler and a better cricketer overall.

I agree with that. But the point was that making a controversial statement at the top the thread was bound to turn into a comparison between the two, when really it was supposed to be about up and coming left arm spinners.

 

[Nate]

Aaron Heal. What a guy.

 

[Nate]

He's also not getting enough overs at the start of a game lately.

Not his fault. Gets treated like absolute crap.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Miller and Mohammed in tears right now.

 

[Richard]

Not his fault. Gets treated like absolute crap.

Where did I say it was his fault?

I was attempting to make it obvious that Bracken is being forced into bowling more spin than seam of late by the fact Ponting hasn't given him enough overs with the new-ball.

 

[Richard]

IMO, left arm spinners are never really that thrilling. Even legends like Vettori and Bedi has strike rates around 80, suggesting they are not that great as wicket takers.

Ever heard of Wilfred Rhodes, Hedley Verity, Alf Valentine, Tony Lock and Derek Underwood? There was a time when left-arm fingerspinners could strike with (and indeed above) the best seamers. Most pitches in the modern era just don't allow such a thing, but spin-friendly surfaces used to be far more common.

I rate Panesar so high because he is one of very few SLAs in modern era who has a strike rate in 60s.

That's not because he's some superman amongst fingerspinners. He's simply had more circumstances early in his career than most do - he's played on plenty of turning wickets, more than most fingerspinners in recent years, and he's also faced a West Indies side who, in the Tests at Lord's and The Riverside in 2007, played him little short of shockingly.

MSP's a good fingerspinner, one of the best you'll see, but he's not going to be someone who can completely defy all laws of fingerspin. His strike-rate is about as certain to go up as his career progresses as anything in cricket is certain.

 

[Prince EWS]

Miller and Mohammed in tears right now.

I highly doubt Mohammed will ever play for the West Indies again, so his international career isn't what I'm term "promising."

I definitely would have voted for Miller if he was on the poll though. I think it's pretty unlikely that any of the three on a poll will have Test careers of any note TBH, especially Casson.

 

[Jungle Jumbo]

Enamul to have the best career, but he's not the ebst bowler on that list.

 

[Prince EWS]

Enamul to have the best career, but he's not the ebst bowler on that list.

I've been very impressed with him at times, but I think it's plain for all to see that playing such little meaningful cricket has an effect on him. He's not involved in the ODI setup as his bowling plainly doesn't suit it, but with the lack of (and indeed standard of) First Class cricket in Bangladesh, he's recently been way off the boil. His effort against New Zealand was horrible.

I really think the best thing for him would be a stint in County Cricket, although obviously no counties are likely to sign him. I'd almost go as far to say that it wouldn't be an unwise investment for Bangladesh to actually pay a county in need of a spinner to take him, or at least hand him over for free and pay his match payments themselves. Realistically though there would be better things for Bangladesh Cricket to spend their money on. Even a stint somewhere else, like Pakistan, could really improve him IMO.

 

[andruid]

I've been very impressed with him at times, but I think it's plain for all to see that playing such little meaningful cricket has an effect on him. He's not involved in the ODI setup as his bowling plainly doesn't suit it, but with the lack of (and indeed standard of) First Class cricket in Bangladesh, he's recently been way off the boil. His effort against New Zealand was horrible.

I really think the best thing for him would be a stint in County Cricket, although obviously no counties are likely to sign him. I'd almost go as far to say that it wouldn't be an unwise investment for Bangladesh to actually pay a county in need of a spinner to take him, or at least hand him over for free and pay his match payments themselves. Realistically though there would be better things for Bangladesh Cricket to spend their money on. Even a stint somewhere else, like Pakistan, could really improve him IMO.

We could say the same thing about some of the more precocios talent in Kenya for example search as Hiren Varaiya, Tanmay Mishra and so forth, but I digress...

 

[NZTailender]

Paul Harris! ffs.

 

[zaremba]

There was little in the way of widely successful spin between about 1974 and 1992.

You may have overlooked Derek Underwood, Bishen Bedi, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, Iqbal Qasim and Abdul Qadir. Also Anil Kumble and Mushtaq Ahmed both of whom were playing Test cricket by 1990.

 

[Richard]

Underwood wasn't particularly successful from 1973 onwards, unsurprisingly enjoying his best success in the subcontinent; Bedi was only successful at home and in the second-innings; Qadir and Qasim were only successful at home; and Chandra, well, he was no more than good - certainly not outstanding.

Mushtaq too only became successful in 1995/96; and Kumble, apart from his very first tour, did not become a bowler capable of success away from home until the mid-2000s.

Basically, the general picture is that it can be a big success in the subcontinent and not very often elsewhere.

 

[Uppercut]

Underwood wasn't particularly successful from 1973 onwards, unsurprisingly enjoying his best success in the subcontinent; Bedi was only successful at home and in the second-innings; Qadir and Qasim were only successful at home; and Chandra, well, he was no more than good - certainly not outstanding.

Mushtaq too only became successful in 1995/96; and Kumble, apart from his very first tour, did not become a bowler capable of success away from home until the mid-2000s.

Basically, the general picture is that it can be a big success in the subcontinent and not very often elsewhere.

Or, bizarrely, in Panesar's case, the opposite.

 

[Richard]

Yeah MSP's had some circumstances conspire in his favour in England and similarly conspire against him in the subcontinent.

Of course, he's also bowled poorly in the subcontinent at least a couple of times - ie, the Second and Third Tests in 2005/06. But they were just his 2nd and 3rd games of his career, so I think you could probably forgive that.

 

[zaremba]

Underwood wasn't particularly successful from 1973 onwards, unsurprisingly enjoying his best success in the subcontinent; Bedi was only successful at home and in the second-innings; Qadir and Qasim were only successful at home; and Chandra, well, he was no more than good - certainly not outstanding.

Mushtaq too only became successful in 1995/96; and Kumble, apart from his very first tour, did not become a bowler capable of success away from home until the mid-2000s.

You have an interesting, and somewhat selective, perspective!

In fact Derek Underwood took 151 wickets from 1973 onwards, at an average of 28.4. Only 58 of those were taken in the subcontinent.

And Qasim had a pretty good record in Australia.

And IIRR, Viv Richards rated Chandrasekhar as the most difficult bowler he faced; Graham Gooch rated Qadir as better than Shane Warne.

And Mushtaq Ahmed took 3 vital wickets in the 1992 World Cup Final, and was a key part fo the wonderful Pakistan bowling attack in that tournament and the following summer in England.

And so on.

And yes all bowlers obviously have preferred conditions in which to bowl (look at Shane Warne's very poor record in India, or Dennis Lillee's record in the subcontinent). But you have to look at these bowlers' overall records - and reputations - and they do not lie. These were very fine players and your suggestion that spin bowling in this era was "mostly useless" is pretty wide of the mark.

 

[Richard]

But that wasn't what I said. I said "There was little in the way of widely successful spin between about 1974 and 1992." Which is precisely what I meant - most of the real, match-influencing success spin had tended to be in the subcontinent.

The Underwood case I mention is from 1972/73 onwards - having taken 120 wickets at 19.51 in his first 27 Tests, he was nowhere near as effective as covered wickets begun to take effect. His last 59 Tests produced 177 wickets at 30.12 - this included 17 Tests in India and Sri Lanka where he took 62 wickets at 24.62. Take this away and it's 115 wickets in 42 Tests at 33.08. And a strike-rate of 85. Clearly, covered wickets turned Underwood from "deadly" into the normal modern-day fingerspinner in terms of threat (though his speed enabled him to maintain an excellent economy-rate).

Various batsmen often rate various bowlers as the biggest challenge they ever faced - Bradman and Bedser or O'Reilly, for instance. It doesn't mean this bowler was automatically one of the best. Sure, Gooch may well have had bigger problems with Qadir than anyone else, and Richards with Chandra, but this doesn't have to relate to what they did with other batsmen.

Mushtaq's first 17 Tests (between 1989/90 and 1994/95) fetched him 40 wickets at 37.10, with a best innings of just 3-32 and match of 5-87. He was no significant threat until the 1995/96 season, after a chat with Shane Warne. Even then his success was sadly short-lived. ODIs are a different game.

 

[zaremba]

But that wasn't what I said. I said "There was little in the way of widely successful spin between about 1974 and 1992."

I'm afraid it was what you said...

If Mendis gets figured-out, barring someone else turning-up out of nowhere, spin will return to the sort of status it occupied in the aforementioned period - mostly useless.

 

[Richard]

Yes, but I clearly qualified that statement - it is likely to be mostly useless now, having been slightly less so 1974-1992. The quality of bats and attitude of batsmen makes scoring off spinners more common at the current time than it was in the former, thus higher spinner's averages.

As I said - the significant comment is this: "There was little in the way of widely successful spin between about 1974 and 1992." Because there wasn't. Most real success was confined to the subcontinent - particularly India and Sri Lanka. It wasn't something that could offer any real consistent penetration at most grounds in this country after wickets were covered; and wickets had been covered in Australia for years and the same was true there.

 

[zaremba]

Yes, but I clearly qualified that statement - it is likely to be mostly useless now, having been slightly less so 1974-1992.

Well if you want to say that now, feel free - but don't pretend you said this before!