Has anyone heard this one before?

[Starfighter]

I read a comment on a certain other Australian forum a couple of months ago whinging about people who can't tell the difference between a googly and a wrong'un because apparently Richie Benaud once proclaimed that a wrong'un is bowled 'with the palm facing away from you' while a googly comes 'straight over the wrist and fingers'.

Now I'd dismiss this as the ramblings of a boomer Justin Langer supporter, but about ten years ago when bowling whilst playing in school sport another cricket nerd guy absolutely insisted that my offbreak-with-a-legbreak-action was definitely a wrong'un and not a googly (which I called it).

Now I haven't got access to the widest amount of cricket literature but I've read sufficient to know both terms spread very rapidly in the wake of the delivery itself, prior to WWI and prior to anyone using high-speed cameras to discern release mechanics.

So has anyone else here (especially from Australia) heard of people differentiating between what are generally used as synonymous terms for a legspinner's off break?

 

[cnerd123]

A Googly is the ball Bosanquet invented, coming out of the back of the hand and spinning in.

I've heard people use Wrong'un as a broader term for any ball a leggie bowls that spins the other way. I suppose it should apply to fingerspinner's too, but 'Doosra' has since taken over, and now we have the Carrom ball, so really only gets used by wristspinners.

 

[Howe_zat]

My impression growing up was always that "wrong 'un" was just the Australian term for googly, like how they put the wickets first on the team score.

I can buy that there's specifics to the origin of either, but trying to hold on terms like this meaning something specific is like trying to hold water in your hands.

 

[Starfighter]

I can buy that there's specifics to the origin of either

From what I've read there aren't though. They referred to the same thing (wrong'un is from SA) which makes this differentiation all the weirder.

 

[thierry henry]

You were at school within the last 10 years???

 

[Shady Slim]

You were at school within the last 10 years???

hey so was i! (but tbf i post like it whereas starfighter has a certain maturity)
@trundler still is to be fair

 

[the big bambino]

They appear to be the same term for the leg spinner's variation irrespective of how it's achieved. From what I've read googly was the initial term and Australians ended up calling it the bosie in honour of its inventor. The SA tourists to England in 1907 possessed 4 such bowlers and I remember an article in a book called In Celebration of Cricket written by an English test player describing their impact and various styles. (The book was a collection of articles chosen from all eras of cricket). I can't remember the writer's name but in talking about the googly he mentioned the South Africans designated the name the wrong 'un to describe it.

 

[TheJediBrah]

You were at school within the last 10 years???

Why'd you delete that incisive character examination

 

[thierry henry]

Why'd you delete that incisive character examination

Cowardice + I don’t really know the guy in all honesty and I’m drunk

 

[thierry henry]

Also I don’t have the fanbase behind me to get likes for it

 

[TheJediBrah]

Also I don’t have the fanbase behind me to get likes for it

Don't sell yourself short*


*pun not intended

 

[Starfighter]

whereas starfighter has a certain maturity

I'm not sure whever to be flattered or concerned that my weapons-grade grouchiness and cynicism comes across as 'maturity'.

 

[honestbharani]

I'm not sure whever to be flattered or concerned that my weapons-grade grouchiness and cynicism comes across as 'maturity'.

It's Shady, isn't it?

 

[Slifer]

A wrong un or whatever is a googly. Case closed.

 

[Burgey]

I'm not sure whever to be flattered or concerned that my weapons-grade grouchiness and cynicism comes across as 'maturity'.

Run with it. Own it.

 

[G. S. Kohli]

When i read subject i thought You talking about India/ Eng together scored 590 in single day play in England in test.

 

[Athlai]

No one knows what it means. But it's provocative
It gets the people going

 

[peterhrt]

I can't remember the writer's name but in talking about the googly he mentioned the South Africans designated the name the wrong 'un to describe it.

The author was RE Foster and the original full-length article appeared in Wisden 1908. It confirmed that the South Africans were referring to the googly as the “wrong 'un” in 1907. Sixty years later Richie Benaud wrote a postscript to CS Marriott's The Complete Leg-break Bowler. He too confirmed that the googly and wrong 'un were one and the same. Also known as the “bosie” or “bosey” after the inventor.

However, Benaud then muddies the waters by saying he developed “a top-spinner bowled from between the second and third fingers, a delivery that skidded rather than bounced at the batsman.” Before spin-vision technology, and Shane Warne's propaganda, there was a tendency to describe any leg-spinner's delivery that went straight on as a top-spinner, and anything that turned from the off as a googly. Marriott's book in 1968 makes no mention of flippers, sliders or zooters. Yet these deliveries had been in use for some time.

Benaud's skidding delivery was not a top-spinner, which would have bounced more. It was probably the slider he learned from Doug Ring, backspin imparted with the palm facing forwards and downwards. And despite Warne's mischievous claims, the zooter may have been identical.

Abdul Qadir was reputed to bowl two different googlies. Was this more kidology? Writing in the 1930s Tich Freeman stated: “WH Levett, the Kent wicket-keeper, always said I bowled the googly in two ways. Actually, this was not so, but I sometimes released it earlier in my delivery. Also, like Grimmett, I bowled a ball that was not an ordinary googly. Everything else was the same except that, instead of the ball coming from over the back of the hand, it came out between the third and fourth fingers. By using the second method I brought the ball through quicker because I could grip it harder.”

Grimmett was said to have invented the flipper but this doesn't sound like it. The flipper was supposedly squeezed out of the front of the hand with backspin, skidding on. Quicker than the slider with more action on the ball, causing in Grimmett's case an audible click of the fingers/thumb.

Somebody here with more knowledge of leg-spin may be able to clarify.

To complicate matters further, the term “googly” itself, according to the link below, actually pre-dates Bosanquet's discovery by a dozen years or so.

When was the word ‘googly’ first used? | CricketSoccer

Cricket: What is a googly? “An off break bowled with an apparent leg-break action,” says the Oxford Dictionary. Its Cambridge counterpart agrees: “A way of bowling (= throwing) the ball in cricket so that it spins in the opposite way to what the batsman is likely to expect.”

www.cricketsoccer.com

 

[the big bambino]

Thank you that is a great post. I thought the author may have been Relf but you’ve clarified it’s Tip Foster.

I’ve heard Grimmett developed the flipper and practiced it for years before utilising it in a match. This occurred towards the end of the 30s. Grimmett was still evolving as a bowler even then, making his omission from the test team even more baffling.