Let there be flight

From Apoorv Singhal, India
With a great wrong 'un, comes a great responsibility The true test of spinners shall come, when at the gates of heaven, God shall ask them each to bowl an over, and not bowl a single variation. Saqlain Mushtaq discovered radium but suffered the consequences of his own ingenuity. The incessant use of his wrong 'un started to make him intent on getting the batsman out purely by deceiving him through different variations, and not by the merit of the delivery itself.

The loop, the deviation, the dip, the bounce, the tempting flight that brought the confident batsman out of his crease started to look more ordinary by the match. Of course, the selectors in his part of the world do not really help the cause. And of course, he was not the only one to catch the disease. Both Harbhajan Singh and Anil Kumble in their prime (yes, in the past tense) used the old trick of getting batsman out. Flight the ball. Let the batsman become instinctive in playing late. And then bowl a slider to trap him in front of the stumps. One little weapon that defended the great Indian fortress for decades, against the best, time and again. At the moment, the spin duo, far from leading the spinners' pack in the world, is struggling to contain run rates on turning wickets.

Perhaps some credit should be given to the Australians for the aggressive and positive manner in which they have played spinners in different parts of the world in the last few years, most prominent performances against quality spin bowling being the Test series wins on their last tours to India and Sri Lanka. If Hayden does not pick Mendis' first delivery, if the tempting contest takes place, I am willing to bet my writing hand that he sweeps every ball after that. The sweep, or slog-sweep in most Australian batsmen's case, is their way of putting off a spinner off his line and length, and it was a great surprise that Indian batting line-up did not use the sweep shot often enough against Murali and Mendes on their recent tour.

Coming back to the use of variations, there are, however, exceptions such as Daniel Vettori, who have made exemplary use of variations, and has in fact styled his variations to suit his own bowling style and bowling action. He experiments with his pace well, his exceedingly slower off-breaks ensuring the batsman plants his front foot forward much before the ball pitches, and often failing to adjust to exceptional turn thereafter. He has never really been heralded as a leading spinner in the world, but if your life depends on getting a wicket and not concede many runs in the process, he would definitely make a favorable choice.

The exponential increase in one-day cricket, and now 20-20, can be attributed much of the blame for robbing a lot of spinners of their confidence to throw the ball up, and the somewhat deliberate shortening of ground diameter on most grounds in IPL sets a dangerous precedent. Spinners are in fact being paid hefty sums for bowling 24 flat and quick deliveries in the 20-20 format. The purist's worst nightmare. As an average ever-optimistic Indian cricket fan, I can only hope that the Australian tour this October is not a seal on this fact, and a stain on the yet untarnished memories of match-winning spells by Kumble and Harbhajan, which seems like an eternity ago. Let there be flight.