"Attacking" \ "Defensive" fingerspin

[tooextracool]

as far as this thread is concerned, finger spinners only become attacking when they get conditions that suit them. bar warne and murali, there is no spinner in international cricket that is or can be attacking in all conditions. if he is, hes quite likely to go for a hell of a lot of runs while attempting it.

 

[Richard]

what makes you think hes any better? an average of 92 is probably flattering him a little bit IMO.

Did Dawson and Batty get chances on turners? Yes, they did (Dawson Motera '01\02 and The SCG '02\03; Batty Galle and Kandy '03\04). Udal, so far, hasn't, he's played on 3 pancake-flat pitches where he was never going to have a cat-in-hell's chance of taking wickets.

 

[Richard]

in other words Udal is an off spinner who doesnt use loop or drift, 2 of the most important attributes of finger spin bowling. so all he does is turn the ball then? thats about as good as any off spinner whos ever set foot in county cricket.

I didn't say Udal doesn't use loop and drift, he's just not as obviously good at bowling them as Croft is.
Udal is better than most fingerspinners who've ever set foot in county cricket because he's far more accurate than the Dawson\Batty types and also spins the ball a bit more. And, of course, neither are up to much in the loop\drift department.

 

[tooextracool]

Did Dawson and Batty get chances on turners? Yes, they did (Dawson Motera '01\02 and The SCG '02\03; Batty Galle and Kandy '03\04).

to call motera a turner is about as ridiculous as calling nagpur a seamers paradise. England were never going to bowl India out in that last innings even with an extra day, and if England hadnt tried to score quickly in their 2nd innings they too would have batted a very very long time.

Udal, so far, hasn't, he's played on 3 pancake-flat pitches where he was never going to have a cat-in-hell's chance of taking wickets.

Udal is hopeless and has no variety in his bowling. when playing alongside blackwell and panesar in the warm up games, he was clearly the worst of the 3, which says something. I honestly dont think the wickets in pakistan in 2005/06 were any flatter than the ones that we see in the 00/01 series when giles took 17 wickets.

 

[tooextracool]

I didn't say Udal doesn't use loop and drift, he's just not as obviously good at bowling them as Croft is.
Udal is better than most fingerspinners who've ever set foot in county cricket because he's far more accurate than the Dawson\Batty types and also spins the ball a bit more. And, of course, neither are up to much in the loop\drift department.

Based on what ive seen, Udal is just as bad as the other 2 if not worse. Honestly i dont know where you get the turns the ball more than batty and dawson from, because i really doubt thats true, and im fairly sure he isnt any more accurate than batty.

 

[Richard]

to call motera a turner is about as ridiculous as calling nagpur a seamers paradise. England were never going to bowl India out in that last innings even with an extra day, and if England hadnt tried to score quickly in their 2nd innings they too would have batted a very very long time.

The ball turned - it just turned slowly. The pitch was better for bowling on on days 1, 2 and 3 than it was on days 4 and 5 because it lost bounce and pace as the match progressed. It always turned, though.
And IMO England could've come closer to victory than they did had Giles bowled round-the-wicket more on the final day.
The pitch at Nagpur neither turned nor seamed other than the occasional ball - and it was slow as a snail, too.

Udal is hopeless and has no variety in his bowling. when playing alongside blackwell and panesar in the warm up games, he was clearly the worst of the 3, which says something. I honestly dont think the wickets in pakistan in 2005/06 were any flatter than the ones that we see in the 00/01 series when giles took 17 wickets.

You're kidding, right? Giles never remotely turned a ball in 2005\06, he turned the ball plenty on all 3 pitches in 2000\01.
All you can say about Udal is that he had no (or not much) variety when you saw him in Pakistan in the Tests. I doubt you've seen him aside from them.
And I'd say being worried about using variety (not like it'd have done much good anyway) on those pitches against batting of that mercilessness was pretty understandible.

 

[Tom Halsey]

Gahhhh!!!

Doesn't anyone understand what i'm saying?

I wish conditions didn't matter in cricket, i couldn't care less if they played every game on a specially prepared pitch indoors, sport shouldn't be about what conditions you play in.

Variable conditions are what make the game what it is - it would be might repetetive without it.

 

[Tom Halsey]

You're kidding, right? Giles never remotely turned a ball in 2005\06, he turned the ball plenty on all 3 pitches in 2000\01.

Giles wasn't playing while injured in 2000/01, however.

 

[tooextracool]

The ball turned - it just turned slowly. The pitch was better for bowling on on days 1, 2 and 3 than it was on days 4 and 5 because it lost bounce and pace as the match progressed. It always turned, though.
And IMO England could've come closer to victory than they did had Giles bowled round-the-wicket more on the final day.
The pitch at Nagpur neither turned nor seamed other than the occasional ball - and it was slow as a snail, too.

err firstly slow turn is hardly going to help anyone. good players can adjust to handle slow turn, even if they dont read the ball out of the hand. and if you watched nagpur, the ball swung especially reversed, but because the pitch was so slow most players could adjust to it quite easily. that motera pitch was about as flat as any pitch you'll ever see IMO.

You're kidding, right? Giles never remotely turned a ball in 2005\06, he turned the ball plenty on all 3 pitches in 2000\01.
All you can say about Udal is that he had no (or not much) variety when you saw him in Pakistan in the Tests. I doubt you've seen him aside from them.
And I'd say being worried about using variety (not like it'd have done much good anyway) on those pitches against batting of that mercilessness was pretty understandible.

thats ridiculous, giles barely turned a ball considerably in any of the 3 tests against pakistan in 00/01, except occasionally on the last couple of days of each test match and even then it was really slow turn. in 05/06 there was no difference, except that giles bowled a lot worse due to carrying an injury, while udal was just disgraceful. and variety always helps, especially if you can use drift,flight and loop. you might not destroy batting lineups with that but it would at least help you get a couple of wickets per test and not average 92.

 

[Richard]

Giles wasn't playing while injured in 2000/01, however.

Like I say - I don't really think that made any difference. Even Kaneria struggled to turn the ball of times.

 

[Richard]

err firstly slow turn is hardly going to help anyone. good players can adjust to handle slow turn, even if they dont read the ball out of the hand. and if you watched nagpur, the ball swung especially reversed, but because the pitch was so slow most players could adjust to it quite easily. that motera pitch was about as flat as any pitch you'll ever see IMO.

Now THAT's ridiculous. Like I say - the pitch turned. At the start of the game it had enough pace and bounce to make batting far from easy - hence Kumble and Giles took wickets.
Talking about swing is hardly comparable, as swing is movement through the air, it has nothing to do with the pitch. An inswinging Yorker takes the pitch out of the equation completely.
Later on in the Motera 2001\02 Test the pitch became so slow that any movement was fairly easily negatable. There's no two ways about the fact that it offered plenty to the spinners earlier on, though.

thats ridiculous, giles barely turned a ball considerably in any of the 3 tests against pakistan in 00/01, except occasionally on the last couple of days of each test match and even then it was really slow turn. in 05/06 there was no difference, except that giles bowled a lot worse due to carrying an injury, while udal was just disgraceful.

There was plenty of difference. The pitches in 2000\01 turned from the first session, for all fingerspinners. Giles got the ball off the straight regularly on all occasions except the first day at Karachi. There was a huge difference in 2005\06, and like I say - I don't really think Giles being injury-free would have helped him much.

 

[tooextracool]

Now THAT's ridiculous. Like I say - the pitch turned. At the start of the game it had enough pace and bounce to make batting far from easy - hence Kumble and Giles took wickets.

and they took a combined 94.3 overs to take them in one inning. you'd think that if it were a turner with pace and bounce those wickets would have fallen a lot faster.

Talking about swing is hardly comparable, as swing is movement through the air, it has nothing to do with the pitch. An inswinging Yorker takes the pitch out of the equation completely..

and often do you see those? fact is quite rarely because as you'd expect bowlers land the ball on the pitch more often than not. if the ball lands on the wicket, i dont care how much it swings before or after that, its still going to slow down off the pitch.

Later on in the Motera 2001\02 Test the pitch became so slow that any movement was fairly easily negatable. There's no two ways about the fact that it offered plenty to the spinners earlier on, though.

and yet both sides batted for more than 260 overs in the first innings(with bowlers like harbhajan and kumble at one end). quite the turner, apparently batsmen kept batting on and on and on despite the fact that it was turning square.

There was plenty of difference. The pitches in 2000\01 turned from the first session, for all fingerspinners. Giles got the ball off the straight regularly on all occasions except the first day at Karachi. There was a huge difference in 2005\06, and like I say - I don't really think Giles being injury-free would have helped him much.

err did you even watch the game? from the first session, come now, you're really stretching it.

 

[tooextracool]

Like I say - I don't really think that made any difference. Even Kaneria struggled to turn the ball of times.

because kaneria is such a big turner of the ball isnt he? the fact that he was actually turning the ball in the 2nd innings of all games emphasises the fact that there was some help for the spinners out there.

 

[Tom Halsey]

Like I say - I don't really think that made any difference. Even Kaneria struggled to turn the ball of times.

He's not a big turner of the ball in general.

 

[Richard]

and they took a combined 94.3 overs to take them in one inning. you'd think that if it were a turner with pace and bounce those wickets would have fallen a lot faster.

You would, and they probably would - it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work-out that the more pace and bounce, the more dangerous any turn becomes. Nonetheless, pace and bounce aren't a do\don't scenario - they're a continuum. The pitch at the start had enough turn to make wicket-taking perfectly possible, even if it took longer than at, say a typical Chennai or Mumbai wicket. By the last 2 days, though, it was so low and slow as to make wicket-taking very difficult.
And I'll say it again - had India not dropped so many catches, England would've been bowled-out cheaper.

and often do you see those? fact is quite rarely because as you'd expect bowlers land the ball on the pitch more often than not. if the ball lands on the wicket, i dont care how much it swings before or after that, its still going to slow down off the pitch.

Rarely indeed, but that's not the point. The point is swing, on a full length, doesn't really have much affect from the pitch, whereas turn and seam, from shorter lengths (as they need to be to have effect) do have their potency decreased notably on slower pitches.
Good swing bowling, though, takes the pitch out of the equation and that's the whole point of it. A ball of full length won't give the batsman enough time to adjust even to the slowest of pitches, because he'll already have decided on his stroke almost before the ball pitches.

and yet both sides batted for more than 260 overs in the first innings(with bowlers like harbhajan and kumble at one end). quite the turner, apparently batsmen kept batting on and on and on despite the fact that it was turning square.

Dropped catches made a huge contribution to that. It wasn't exactly turning square, but clearly it was turning enough, because both Giles and Kumble took wickets with good deliveries.

err did you even watch the game? from the first session, come now, you're really stretching it.

Certainly at Lahore and Faisalabad, I've got the games on tape and on both occasions Saqlain and Giles respectively were turning the ball on the first morning (so was Mushtaq in the first instance - don't know if Salisbury was even trusted in the first session at Faisalabad - but they're both wristspinners). The ball turned throughout the game, and certainly at Karachi it was turning by the second day, too.

 

[Richard]

because kaneria is such a big turner of the ball isnt he? the fact that he was actually turning the ball in the 2nd innings of all games emphasises the fact that there was some help for the spinners out there.

Kaneria certainly isn't a lesser spinner than Giles - not as much as most conventional wristspinners, of course, I've said that often enough - but clearly a bigger spinner than Giles and any fingerspinner. I find it near enough inconceivable that any fingerspinner (or Kumble for that matter) would have presented any threat on those pitches for those 3 Tests.

 

[tooextracool]

Kaneria certainly isn't a lesser spinner than Giles - not as much as most conventional wristspinners, of course, I've said that often enough - but clearly a bigger spinner than Giles and any fingerspinner. I find it near enough inconceivable that any fingerspinner (or Kumble for that matter) would have presented any threat on those pitches for those 3 Tests.

kaneria turned the ball in the 2nd innings of every game, and he turned it a fair bit. udal and giles turned it a bit as well. AFAIC the amount of turn in both series was not too much different.

 

[tooextracool]

You would, and they probably would - it doesn't take a rocket scientist to work-out that the more pace and bounce, the more dangerous any turn becomes. Nonetheless, pace and bounce aren't a do\don't scenario - they're a continuum. The pitch at the start had enough turn to make wicket-taking perfectly possible, even if it took longer than at, say a typical Chennai or Mumbai wicket. By the last 2 days, though, it was so low and slow as to make wicket-taking very difficult.
And I'll say it again - had India not dropped so many catches, England would've been bowled-out cheaper..

hardly relevant. the fact of the matter is the game was a draw and probably would have been even if they batted for several more days. if a game is a draw and all the overs were bowled there certainly wasnt enough assistance in the wicket for the bowlers, and thats quite obvious.

Dropped catches made a huge contribution to that. It wasn't exactly turning square, but clearly it was turning enough, because both Giles and Kumble took wickets with good deliveries.

as said earlier slow turn is useless. and we've been through this before, everyone bowls the odd good delivery but the fact that all of those players batted that long only goes to show that they were few and far between.

Certainly at Lahore and Faisalabad, I've got the games on tape and on both occasions Saqlain and Giles respectively were turning the ball on the first morning (so was Mushtaq in the first instance - don't know if Salisbury was even trusted in the first session at Faisalabad - but they're both wristspinners). The ball turned throughout the game, and certainly at Karachi it was turning by the second day, too.

reality check- it wasnt. you need to look at those tapes closely. if the ball was turning on the first morning you'd think we would have had more results than in just 1 test, and even that would have been a draw were it not for a panicy last day.

 

[Richard]

hardly relevant. the fact of the matter is the game was a draw and probably would have been even if they batted for several more days. if a game is a draw and all the overs were bowled there certainly wasnt enough assistance in the wicket for the bowlers, and thats quite obvious.

Some wickets do change, you know. This was one. If it'd stayed as it was for the first 3 days I'm willing to bet there'd have been a result.

as said earlier slow turn is useless. and we've been through this before, everyone bowls the odd good delivery but the fact that all of those players batted that long only goes to show that they were few and far between.

Slow turn is not totally useless, but the turn wasn't sufficiently slow on the first 3 days to be useless at all. There was more than the odd good delivery, and no-one would've batted so long if a) there'd been more than 3 quality spinners on show and b) there were fewer dropped catches.

reality check- it wasnt. you need to look at those tapes closely. if the ball was turning on the first morning you'd think we would have had more results than in just 1 test, and even that would have been a draw were it not for a panicy last day.

Like the Motera game - the wickets got slower as the games went on, but bowling spin at the start of each one it was perfectly possible to take wickets.
It's no coincidence that the rules of spin-bowling are being re-written. Look carefully at the records of modern-day fingerspinners - it used to always be the case that wicket-taking was easier in the second-innings, towards the end of the match, because pitches used to start as non-turners and become turners later. Now that is exceptionally rare. If a pitch turns, it turns from the start. And almost invariably, turners become slower, so wicket-taking becomes harder as the game progresses.
You simply cannot say that a lack of a result precludes a pitch from being a dangerous turner earlier in a game.