Who Is More Effective/Valuable in the Modern Game? Right-Arm Off SPin OR Slow Left Arm? (*Official* Battle of the finger spinners)

[SillyCowCorner1]

I feel like stock of the SLA is way more valuable in the modern game...this applies to all formats.

I know that the finalists of the recently concluded WTC Final had two awesome off-spinners in their respective squads...one team chose to play theirs and they won lol.

As an observation (and I am probably wrong with this assessment), SLAs are better than Offies in the white-ball scene, and the converse occurs in the red-ball scene.

Thoughts?

 

[Socerer 01]

since SLA turns the ball away from right handed batsmen they may be more effective on average because there are more right handed batsmen but this is pure conjecture

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

since SLA turns the ball away from right handed batsmen they may be more effective on average because there are more right handed batsmen but this is pure conjecture

There's an old saying, and I am sure Sir Curtly Ambrose mentioned this on commentary in the recent test series against India...

If you are good enough to play test cricket, then you are good enough to bowl against any batsman, regardless if they are right-handed or left-handed.

 

[Coronis]

I don’t think it can ever really be defined. Obviously the best offspinners were better bowlers than the best SLA spinners. Is this because offspin is harder to face or because the pool of players is much larger so its more likely a talented spinner will be right handed?

Similarly with left arm pace bowlers and hell even left handed batsmen.. I don’t think they have an inherent advantage or disadvantage - and each individual batsman generally has weaknesses against different types of bowling - it comes down to individual matchups more than a sportswide advantage/disadvantage imo.

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

You are right, it's not a day and night difference...I'm just trying to address the prevalence of the SLAs in the white ball game and how effective they are as compared to the offies...

 

[SillyCowCorner1]

Stats for the last 10 years, top bowlers in each discipline,

SLA




Right-arm Off Spin



This is quite interesting.

 

[cnerd123]

Outswing/spinning the ball away has always been seen as the match up you want, but I think when you are a highly skilled bowler you would rather be swinging/spinning the ball into the batter instead. Attack the stumps, bring more bowled and LBWs into play. That's probably why we see right arm offspin being the dominant spin bowling form historically. And even top tier legspinners / left arm orthodox bowlers all have a ball that goes on straight as well.

 

[Starfighter]

Outswing/spinning the ball away has always been seen as the match up you want, but I think when you are a highly skilled bowler you would rather be swinging/spinning the ball into the batter instead. Attack the stumps, bring more bowled and LBWs into play. That's probably why we see right arm offspin being the dominant spin bowling form historically. And even top tier legspinners / left arm orthodox bowlers all have a ball that goes on straight as well.

Moving the ball away from the bat, whether off the seam or in the air has been considered the better method for pace bowlers for decades, despite moving it in being arguably easier to do. When you bring the ball into the batsman you are working with the natural mechanics of many batsmen's strongest shots rather than forcing them to make a less controlled stroke away from their body.

Off spin has been a historically dominant form of bowling because most people are right handed and leg spin is very difficult to do well. Of the highest FC wicket takers, ten of the top twenty-five are left arm orthodox or leg spinners, despite a smaller proportion of the population being left handed and the aforementioned point about legspin.

The 'ball that goes straight on' is a variation that plays on the batsman's wanting to predetermine where the ball is going. If you think about it such a delivery probably has more advantage when the stock ball is going away, as it brings in lbw and bowled whereas it would more likely simply be missed in the reverse situation. But in any case it's still the stock ball that gets the majority of the wickets. The incoming delivery is a surprise.

I find it mystifying how you came to this conclusion after watching a decade of spin bowlers being conspicuously more successful against batsmen they turn their stock balls away from.

 

[TheJediBrah]

I don’t think it can ever really be defined. Obviously the best offspinners were better bowlers than the best SLA spinners. Is this because offspin is harder to face or because the pool of players is much larger so its more likely a talented spinner will be right handed?

Similarly with left arm pace bowlers and hell even left handed batsmen.. I don’t think they have an inherent advantage or disadvantage - and each individual batsman generally has weaknesses against different types of bowling - it comes down to individual matchups more than a sportswide advantage/disadvantage imo.

It's most likely this.

I'm not sure the same holds with left-handed batsmen though, given so many (actually the majority) of high-class left hand batsmen are actually right handed people

 

[cnerd123]

I find it mystifying how you came to this conclusion after watching a decade of spin bowlers being conspicuously more successful against batsmen they turn their stock balls away from.

It's because you spend more time typing your reply than reading the post you're responding too.

If there's a clear skill gap between players - say a frontline bowler to a lower order bat - it makes sense to attack the stumps as your stock ball. We're talking red ball cricket, not white ball stuff where the hitting arc favours the legside (tho yes, that is changing). A lower skilled batter won't be as competent as protecting their stumps/pads and generally also more willing to leave the ball. So a bowler who spins/swings/seams it in is a better wicket taking option.

In terms of equal skill matchups, yes you want the ball moving away with the variation going on with the arm. But most of cricket, and especially when we are talking specifically about the best spinners in the history of the game, are not equal skill matchups. I think that's one of the reasons why we see so many right arm offspinners successfully come through the ranks and take tons of wickets in FC and Test cricket. There are other factors too of course - lefties obviously are rarer to find and wrist spin is a tougher skill to master. But this is a factor that's often overlooked as well.

 

[Starfighter]

It's because you spend more time typing your reply than reading the post you're responding too.

If there's a clear skill gap between players - say a frontline bowler to a lower order bat - it makes sense to attack the stumps as your stock ball. We're talking red ball cricket, not white ball stuff where the hitting arc favours the legside (tho yes, that is changing). A lower skilled batter won't be as competent as protecting their stumps/pads and generally also more willing to leave the ball. So a bowler who spins/swings/seams it in is a better wicket taking option.

In terms of equal skill matchups, yes you want the ball moving away with the variation going on with the arm. But most of cricket, and especially when we are talking specifically about the best spinners in the history of the game, are not equal skill matchups. I think that's one of the reasons why we see so many right arm offspinners successfully come through the ranks and take tons of wickets in FC and Test cricket. There are other factors too of course - lefties obviously are rarer to find and wrist spin is a tougher skill to master. But this is a factor that's often overlooked as well.

No, I read your post pretty carefully.

The stock ball needs to dismiss specialist batsmen. You've caveated your idea to a situation that outside of severe mismatches is maybe three to four of ten potential dismissals. As to your hitting arc statement - here's a reason straying onto the pads is thought a problem - e.g. Australia's bowling to Crawley in the Ashes. Yet you're suggesting a bowler focus their stock ball exactly there. And the step-away-and-swing tailender is not all that common, especially these days, many are competent at defending and can keep out someone obviously aiming at the stumps.

Most spin bowlers aren't 'best in history' unless you're using a wider definition than usual. Despite the conspicuous success of Ashwin and Jadeja, spinners overall still average more than pace bowlers. (And no I don't have the time or data to produce a breakdown of that pair's wickets by type of movement). I don't see where you're getting your idea that 'usually it isn't an equal skill matchup'.

Where these 'so many' offspinners cleaning up, compared to say pre-1900 when almost every right armer was an offspinner due to the difficulty of moving the ball from leg? You avoided my point about many spinners being better against batsmen they turn the ball away from. If there's one thing favouring offpsinners in the modern game, it's the greater proportion of left-handed batsmen than previously.

 

[Starfighter]

Also saying that low-skilled batsmen are more willing to leave the ball is a really odd statement. If anything, low-skilled batsmen are more likely to chase the ball.

 

[cnerd123]

Da **** is this word salad. Where did i talk about seamers bowling into batters pads being a good idea, or spin being more effective than seam at all. You pick some really weird spirals to down off some innocuous posts. Maybe take a breath.

I would be interested in stats of ball spinning in vs away for lower order batters. Cut off from whatever year the legbreak became widely practiced. I'm just going off intuition from what I've seen both on TV and IRL.

I disagree that there is a skill mismatch in only 3-4 dismissals in a game. Whenever sides tour India, Ashwin and Jadeja are clearly too good for at least 7, if not 8 or 9 of the batters in each team. The skill discrepancies are even more pronounced in this era with only 3 consistently good Test sides and 3-4 middling sides with the rest being pretty crap outside of home.

 

[Starfighter]

Da **** is this word salad. Where did i talk about seamers bowling into batters pads being a good idea, or spin being more effective than seam at all. You pick some really weird spirals to down off some innocuous posts. Maybe take a breath.

I would be interested in stats of ball spinning in vs away for lower order batters. Cut off from whatever year the legbreak became widely practiced. I'm just going off intuition from what I've seen both on TV and IRL.

I disagree that there is a skill mismatch in only 3-4 dismissals in a game. Whenever sides tour India, Ashwin and Jadeja are clearly too good for at least 7, if not 8 or 9 of the batters in each team. The skill discrepancies are even more pronounced in this era with only 3 consistently good Test sides and 3-4 middling sides with the rest being pretty crap outside of home.

You claimed that a skills mismatch occurs in 'most of cricket'. Ashwin and Jadeja at home are just two bowlers, and clearly far better than the average test spinner. By trying it limit it to either a case of two great bowlers amongst many less good or to the tail you're creating a caveat that didn't exist in your original premise, which I had pointed out some of the flaws in. I think you can judge the overall skill comparison by the average. To judge truly you'd need a record not only of what hand the batsman was but also how the ball moved. For example, Wisden Magazine cited an average of ten less against left handers for Ashwin but that doesn't say how many he took with straight ones. Maybe you could ask CricViz.

You say in your first post that moving it away is the accepted wisdom, and then admit above that you've intuited your opposing conclusion off your own experience. We all have our own cricket watching and playing experience. Mine says that things can vary across levels. But if we stick to a high level, my experience concords with the accepted wisdom and says you're wrong.

 

[reyrey]

SLA. They'll always have more bowler footmarks to assist them.

Swann an Lyon always speak about how they loved having Sidebottom and Starc in their respective teams for the footmarks they created. Imagine how much the would have loved having the footmarks of 5 or more quick bowlers to work with like a SLA usually does.

 

[TheJediBrah]

Spinning the ball away from the bat is, if anything, more of a benefit against a lower-skilled batsman. More likely to slide out of the crease for a stumping when one spins past the edge. More likely to misread a straight one and get plonked on the pads (or bowled with a poor technique). They generally have stronger leg side shots as well which are helped by an in-spinning stock ball.

While the whole "spin the ball away" tactic is overused today IMO it has good reason for its use.

 

[Prince EWS]

Spinning the ball away from the bat is, if anything, more of a benefit against a lower-skilled batsman. More likely to slide out of the crease for a stumping when one spins past the edge. More likely to misread a straight one and get plonked on the pads (or bowled with a poor technique). They generally have stronger leg side shots as well which are helped by an in-spinning stock ball.

While the whole "spin the ball away" tactic is overused today IMO it has good reason for its use.

I think it's more important in limited overs cricket, and also from crap/part-time bowlers. I don't really think Lyon would be much better in Tests against right handers if we went and got the left handed version from the mirror dimension. Mirror dimension Head and Maxwell would be much better limited overs spoiler bowlers against RHBs though.

 

[TheJediBrah]

I don't really think Lyon would be much better in Tests against right handers if we went and got the left handed version from the mirror dimension.

You don't think? He has a much better record against left-hand batsmen doesn't he?

 

[cnerd123]

You claimed that a skills mismatch occurs in 'most of cricket'.

Very true.

Gun players dominating in domestic cricket
Visiting players getting outclassed in foreign conditions
Weak teams vs strong teams
Batters vs part-timers and bowlers vs tail-enders

I reckon the majority of cricket is either batters trying to survive against bowlers too good for them, or smashing around bowlers too **** for them.

By trying it limit it to either a case of two great bowlers amongst many less good or to the tail you're creating a caveat that didn't exist in your original premise

I literally used the phrase "a highly skilled bowler" in my premise.

You say in your first post that moving it away is the accepted wisdom, and then admit above that you've intuited your opposing conclusion off your own experience. We all have our own cricket watching and playing experience. Mine says that things can vary across levels. But if we stick to a high level, my experience concords with the accepted wisdom and says you're wrong.

Yes, that is my stance. I think a bowler attacking the stumps is generally a better wicket taking threat in most of cricket, even if conventional wisdom suggests you rather be moving the ball away. It's fine if you disagree, that's cool.

What we all agree on is that even if a bowler moves their stock ball away, they need a variation that goes straight on in order to be a real wicket taking threat.

 

[Starfighter]

Very true.

Gun players dominating in domestic cricket
Visiting players getting outclassed in foreign conditions
Weak teams vs strong teams
Batters vs part-timers and bowlers vs tail-enders

I reckon the majority of cricket is either batters trying to survive against bowlers too good for them, or smashing around bowlers too **** for them.

I think you need to watch more cricket. I'd be more inclined to say it's more often a battle of mediocrities, with not so good batsmen mainly getting themselves out due to lack of discipline and ability against bowlers who aren't especially accurate, skilled or smart.

I literally used the phrase "a highly skilled bowler" in my premise.

and to make it work your definition needs to be so strict it only applies to all time greats in certain conditions. If we use a broader definition of, say, professional level, it doesn't.

Yes, that is my stance. I think a bowler attacking the stumps is generally a better wicket taking threat in most of cricket, even if conventional wisdom suggests you rather be moving the ball away. It's fine if you disagree, that's cool.

It's not just that I disagree, it's also that cricket's collective knowledge and what statistical evidence there is says you're wrong.

What we all agree on is that even if a bowler moves their stock ball away, they need a variation that goes straight on in order to be a real wicket taking threat.

Nathan Lyon has taken 496 test wickets without one, and has a vastly better record against left handers. And offspinners can aim to have straighter deliveries take a right handers outside edge. Guys with lots of FC wickets (eg Titmus) did this.