Left-arm Chinaman bowlers!!..can they make it at test level?

[WindieWeathers]

Will one ever make it at test level and become a regular wicket taker in the current climate? seeing one on the international scene these days is extremely rare, we used to have the "tadpole" aka Dave Mohammed who played five tests back in the day but never had impressive figures, we also had Ellis Achong in the 1930s who was the "chinaman" they created the saying from, he never got many wickets either, then from other teams Bradd Hogg came and went, but Michael Bevan did alright i guess, i ask this question because in our t20 competition a young chap has emerged for CCC named Kristopher Ramsaran and he looks very decent indeed, only two games in mind but he's dazzling people like a young Narine at times!!, especially when he bowls the "googly" , but anyway in closing the question is can the "chinaman" style ever be productive at test level?

 

[Spikey]

you need balls to make it as a wrist spinner at test level, and as we all know, lefties have no testies, so no, they can't

 

[Viscount Tom]

Johnny Wardle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Old Johnny Wardle didn't do so badly.

 

[BoyBrumby]

Katich used to send down a few too.

Got Vaughan with the rankest of full bungers in the 2005 Ashes, if memory serves.

As for Chinaman bowlers generally, I suppose a few factors mitigate against them: left-handed people are only 10% of the population, wrist spin is a hard trade to master and by doing so cack-handers are giving their natural advantage of having a stock ball that turns the away from right-handers, who still make up the majority of batsmen.

 

[WindieWeathers]

Johnny Wardle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Old Johnny Wardle didn't do so badly.

Cheers, never knew about him, his wiki suggest he did bowl left-arm orthodox aswell though so one wonders how many wickets he got with just the "chinaman" delivery!! .

 

[Cabinet96]

wrist spin is a hard trade to master and by doing so cack-handers are giving their natural advantage of having a stock ball that turns the away from right-handers, who still make up the majority of batsmen.

Yeah I think this is the main factor. Why would you try and bowl wrist spin, a much harder art, to turn it into the batsmen, when you can bowl finger spin, a much easier style to achieve, to turn it away from the batsmen?

 

[Viscount Tom]

Cheers, never knew about him, his wiki suggest he did bowl left-arm orthodox aswell though so one wonders how many wickets he got with just the "chinaman" delivery!! .

Most of his overseas would've come from Chinamen I eckon, the main reason for him not bowling them as much at home was misgivings from Yorkshire and the MCC about its effectiveness but it was definitely his preferred method of bowling.

 

[benchmark00]

 

[Spikey]

Yeah I think this is the main factor. Why would you try and bowl wrist spin, a much harder art, to turn it into the batsmen, when you can bowl finger spin, a much easier style to achieve, to turn it away from the batsmen?

Vic_O made a post last year, around the time Casson had to retire, saying that Casson really made it tough for himself, because left arm chinaman bowlers, when they drag it down, are usually dragging it down straight onto their leg stump (for the right hander) so, usually getting smacked over midwicket for six.

trying to find the exact post (or he can just post it again)

 

[WindieWeathers]

Yeah I think this is the main factor. Why would you try and bowl wrist spin, a much harder art, to turn it into the batsmen, when you can bowl finger spin, a much easier style to achieve, to turn it away from the batsmen?

That didn't stop Murali against right handers though did it? his stock ball (offy) turned into the right handers but he was still a nightmare to deal with.

 

[BoyBrumby]

That didn't stop Murali against right handers though did it? his stock ball (offy) turned into the right handers but he was still a nightmare to deal with.

Well, that's true but I'd guess he has a better record against lefties than proper batsmen.

Especially if one excludes right handed Englishmen from his record.

Ironically, of course, the Pom who played him best was from the dark side: dear old Thorpey.

 

[WindieWeathers]

Well, that's true but I'd guess he has a better record against lefties than proper batsmen.

Especially if one excludes right handed Englishmen from his record.

Ironically, of course, the Pom who played him best was from the dark side: dear old Thorpey.

The new lad i was talking about has a googly which goes away from righ-handers, so it's gonna be interesting to see how he progresses in the next few years.

 

[NasserFan207]

Yeah reckon having a good googly is more important for a chinaman than an orthodox leggie

 

[Tom Halsey]

Well, that's true but I'd guess he has a better record against lefties than proper batsmen.

Especially if one excludes right handed Englishmen from his record.

Ironically, of course, the Pom who played him best was from the dark side: dear old Thorpey.

I'm not so sure about this. Lara of course played him better than anyone whilst being left-handed and Stephen Fleming springs to mind as not doing too badly as well. In fact, not that I've given it a great deal of consideration, I reckon if you were to list all the batsmen who had success against Murali (not that it'd be a particularly big list) the percentage of left-handers in that list would be higher than the overall percentage of left-handers in Test cricket.

 

[Neil Pickup]

Don't think you can use Murali as a counter-example here given what he could do with the ball; not yout common-or-garden offie, same way Ajmal isn't.

 

[Cabinet96]

That didn't stop Murali against right handers though did it? his stock ball (offy) turned into the right handers but he was still a nightmare to deal with.

And I consider him to be the greatest spinner of all time. He's no standard test bowler, he spun it more than most and could turn it away from the batsmen, etc....

 

[Tom Halsey]

Don't think you can use Murali as a counter-example here given what he could do with the ball; not yout common-or-garden offie, same way Ajmal isn't.

Yeah but that (arguably) means he's even more comparable to a left-arm wrist spinner. Murali was essentially a wrist spinner (he certainly generated the turn of one anyway), whose stock ball turned into the right hander but could also turn it away, which pretty much fits the description of a chinamen bowler. Apart from using the other arm, of course.

I think the best explanation of why there haven't been any world-class chinamen bowlers is simply how difficult an art wrist spin is. When you look at how few world-class legspinners there have been and factor in how much of the population is right handed, it isn't altogether unsurprising that there has never been a world-class chinamen.

 

[KiWiNiNjA]

They have greater chances than the right-arm chinamen.

 

[kyear2]

Yeah but that (arguably) means he's even more comparable to a left-arm wrist spinner. Murali was essentially a wrist spinner (he certainly generated the turn of one anyway), whose stock ball turned into the right hander but could also turn it away, which pretty much fits the description of a chinamen bowler. Apart from using the other arm, of course.

I think the best explanation of why there haven't been any world-class chinamen bowlers is simply how difficult an art wrist spin is. When you look at how few world-class legspinners there have been and factor in how much of the population is right handed, it isn't altogether unsurprising that there has never been a world-class chinamen.

awta

 

[Top_Cat]

Left-arm wristies aren't closely analogous to right-arm offies at higher levels, mainly because they have fewer effective options to keep a bat on strike for a decent period of time which, really, is what matters against guys who can bat. Even if the bloke is getting massive turn, you know a loose one is coming soon but a bigger factor is that you get a really good look at the line of the ball with a leftie wrist-spinner bowling over the wicket. So you can look to tuck away just about anything with low risk and knowing which ones to leave is pretty obvious because the bowler has to pitch them so wide to stop this. This applies double if they bowl around the wicket. A wrong'un won't save the bowler either because the line means it's a relatively easy decision for a batsman to decide whether to milk or leave the ball.

Big turn and tricks aren't everything at higher levels and blokes who rip a ball square are a dime-a-dozen at all levels. It wasn't Murali's bag of tricks that got so many bats out, it was the fairly relentless pressure he applied because batters knew they'd be facing him all day and that he had more subtle crease and line variations available to him so you can put more guys on the off-side. Left-arm wristies never have that luxury and rarely one of an attacking off-side field so facing them is fairly simple in the end; smash the more frequent loose offerings, work them away if they do land a ball and leave the clearly wide ones.