Cricket- The Spinners

The Game Room
21

Thanks you raise several interesting points. On Qasim, I see your position (and am frankly surprised by the stats) and while he undoutedly was an asset and was a part of many famous victories; most notably Bangalore 1987, I really cannot add him in any greats list, though certainly I am sold that he was a very good bowler, possibly the best Chinaman of his day.

Another thing is that modern player play far less matches then the earlier generation and thes best concentrate on the Internationals. In earlier times, player played an insane amount of matches, First Class, club and of course for country so many of the put in many more workmanlike performances then they do today.

22

Aaand it doesn’t seem to work. The URI for the search is:

It seems to work if you C&P it into the address bar, but viglink doesn’t like it for some reason.

23

Merrick, your original link worked fine for me and it is very interesting.

No surprises for me in the list- some I had forgotten but none that I would be shocked about. I probably didn’t expect Danish Kaneira to be so high or Lock for that matter. (Lock was another spinner with a dubious action but he successfully altered it).

Swann is interesting in that he is arguably the number 1 spiiner in test cricket. However he has very average figures against Australia and India. It will be interesting to review this thread in 10 years to see where he sits.

One thing I guess that supports the theory of getting a top class spinner is that on your list there are about 24 spinners with an average of less than 30. Not a huge amount for almost 100 years.

Re your earlier comments about economy rates going up- that doesn’t surprise me as I believe so much is now in favour of the batsman. The strike rate improving is interesting- possibly the athleticism of the fielders now enables them to get catches that previously got away. That’s a pretty thin argument from me however.

24

Just a quick comment- I did a search the same as Merricks except it was on pace bowlers with the same qualifications. Same result.

That is strike rates have improved but economy rates have gone up.

I’ll need to think about that one.

25

No mention yet of the greatest spin bowler of all time, SF Barnes? Sure no-one else has been able to spin the ball at the pace he bowled but all his contemporaries considered him a spinner.

Barnes himself thought he was a spin bowler as he bowled both off-breaks and leg-breaks.

The Guardian

Wikipedia

Cricinfo

26

Barnes is one that falls into “What is he- pace or spin?” I’m not certain that what a player considers himself to be is any criteria. I may consider myself to be a lethal express bowler while you guys would (correctly) say I’m dreaming.

Cricinfo says he was a fast medium or medium bowler. On the same page Wilfred Rhodes says he was a fine medium pacer. (Howstat lists him as right arm medium fast)

Who knows? If he could bowl both how do you distinguish which style took his wickets?

That he was one of the very best of the early Test bowlers is without doubt.

27

Imran Khan had a lethal fast leg break. Wasim Akram did too. Does not make them spinners.

28

On the other hand Kerry O’Keefe was allegedly a spinner yet no one saw him turn a ball.

29

As an American who has married an Australian and is thus slowly learning about cricket, I have a question: isn’t it massively to the bowler’s disadvantage to be known as either a fast bowler or spin bowler? That is, if everyone knows you’re going to fast-bowl or spin-bowl every bowl, then the batsman can confidently anticipate at least approximately what the ball is going to do? Whereas if you could do both fast and spin bowls, even if you were much better at one than the other, then you could constantly keep the batsmen guessing?

I know that comparing cricket to baseball is the very height of American arrogance, but it’s hard not to compare bowlers to baseball pitchers, and almost all pitchers can throw both a fastball and a curveball, even if they’re much better at one than the other, and the fact that the batter never knows which one is coming is a key part of the game.

30

The equivalent of curveball in cricket is not spin, it’s swing bowling, which is the purview of fast bowlers. If you are a spinner, you fulfill a different tactical niche and are employed accordingly and differently from the quicks.

31

One key factor crucial to any bowler’s success is variation and being able to bowl a particular ball at a particular moment. Just because someone is designated a spinner, doesn’t mean that every ball they bowl is going to spin. Some go straight…either by design of due to interaction with the pitch. Some look like they are going one way but actually go the other.

Fact is, there is so much more variation open to the cricket bowler than the baseball pitcher because
a) the same ball is used for nearly a full day and deteriorates in predictable and unpredictable ways
b) the ball hits the pitch each time and reacts to that also in predictable and unpredictable ways.

And both of those variable interact with each other and with the atmospheric conditions, bowlers action, release speed, seam position, stage of the match etc…

So overall, within each rough bowling “category” (spin, fast, swing) there is ample opportunity for variation and bamboozlement of the batsman.

32

Max, most bowlers have some variation in pace regardless of type, and also typically have several alternative deliveries to choose from. For instance, a fast-medium bowler’s stock delivery might curve away from the batsman, but with little visible change in grip or action he could bowl one that doesn’t curve away through the air and also cuts back towards the batsman off the pitch. He’ll likely have either a rather slower ball (but still basically quick - perhaps 75mph instead of 85mph) or a still quicker one too. But fast and slow bowlers require the fielders to be placed differently for maximum effectiveness, and ditto for a curve one way versus the other.

One of the early internationals, Spofforth (Australia’s “Demon Bowler”) was renowned for his ability to change his pace all the way from fast to slow and back again. Most bowlers since, though, have found it more effective to change their pace in smaller increments - even those occasional bowlers well able to bowl fast-medium or quicker and spin as well.

33

Max, as has been said above regarding bowlers.

Just a couple more points to throw in as well.

The bowlers have a run up which can be as long or short as they like. Rule of thumb is that a longer run up will mean a faster bowler- spinners tend to have a shorter run up. Then the shoulder/ wrist/ finger action at delivery will be an indication to the batter what sort of delivery.

There have been several bowlers who could bowl both spin or pace at Test level more or less proficiently (Sobers, Mark Waugh, Colin Miller). And fast bowlers can put in a spinning delivery (Keith Miller). Spin bowlers will sometimes try a really fast delivery such as a bouncer but that is usually for surprise or comedy relief.

34

On the OP topic, and this may get shouted down, but one spin bowler that I always thought was the unluckiest around was MacGill. Granted he was no Warne, but if Warne wasn’t there, I’m confident that MacGill would have been Australia’s first choice spinner for a lot of years.

I would easily slot him into midwayish on that table. He’s easily a better spinner than Vettori, and maybe Kumble. Only problem of course, is that it won’t be possible to back that up with stats as he was firmly stuck behind arguably the best spinner of all time and so got limited opportunities at an international level.

35

No argument with me about MacGill- and his stats are pretty good. At times he was reported to have difficulties fitting into the side (being seen as a bit aloof) but he was certainly a very good bowler.

36

Seems Warne is a lock for best spinner of all time. Not bad for a man who considered cricket his #2 sport behind Australian football.

37

Its frightening though. If Oz went in with 3 seamers and two leggies during the Waugh era, instead of the 3 and 1 leggie (hey Gilchrist plays well at six), then we could see an even more dominant Australia and perhaps the MacGill ends up with 400 plus wickets.

[QUOTE=Cicero]
I probably didn’t expect Danish Kaneira to be so high
[/QUOTE]

Kaneria has always taken wickets, good wickets even (I remember a test in India where he got Tendulkar, Dravid and Laxman in both innings), but he gives away a lot of runs and bowls a lot. 50-10-150-5 are fairly common stats for him.

He is of course perhaps why modern players are so difficult to judge. You won’t honestly think of him when you think Pakistan spinners (hell Tauseef is someone I think of instead of Kaneria), but he has taken more wickets then anyone else and has performed well all over. How do you rate him?

38

I’ve been looking specifically at Warne v Kumble, as I have always had a pretty high opinion of Kumble (and Warne is acknowledged as perhaps the greatest spinner ever - at the very least you can point to him being one of Wisden’s 5 Cricketers of the 20th Century) and wondered whether my memory is playing tricks on me.

To an extent, Warne and Kumble’s figures are broadly comparable (similar numbers of overs bowled, similar number of matches, etc) - with Warne better in every major category (as you would expect). They are closest on econ rate (Warne going at 2.65 an over and Kumble at 2.69 - so close as to be virtually identical) but Warne took more wickets (and due to similar number of overs did so at a better strike rate), at an average of 4 runs better per wicket (25 v 29) and took more 5 wicket hauls in an innings and had more 10 wicket matches.

However, a lot of the numbers really point towards Kumble belonging in the discussion of the best spinners ever - until you look a little deeper.

The main point of differentiation is that Warne was much more consistent away from home than was Kumble. Their home/away average splits are Warne: 26.4/25.5 and Kumble 24.9/35.9. Kumble averaged above 35 in all other countries apart from SA, WI and Bangladesh (perversely Warne’s average in India is 43.1 - by far his worst mark).

Thinking about this further: it struck me that there are possibly two reasons for this though: first, Warne was a genius who was able to get wickets on pitches not suited for spin and Kumble didn’t have that same ability; and second, Australia were just much, much better than India away from home.

I think Warne benefited from playing in a team that routinely dominated the opposition with the bat, set large totals and, as a result, were able to attack at every opportunity in the field, making it more likely Warne would be able to get wickets. India’s current malaise away from home is not a new thing - they are markedly worse outside India and have traditionally been in fewer positions where they would be able to set similar attacking fields. This has a negative effect on Kumble’s figures. I also think Warne was simply better than Kumble - but I suspect the main differentiating factor could well be team-mates and match position.

The main thrust of my point is this: unlike pace bowlers, where attacking fields will be set at the start of every innings with very few exceptions, spinners are at the mercy of the match situation and thus the ability of their teams with the bat much more than are pace bowlers. This isn’t to say that this is not an instructive thread, nor that statistical analysis of spinners is worthless (I think the figures are broadly correct for what it is worth - the better bowlers generally have better figures and they provide decent pointers as to who was best). I do think though that the best analysis of jsut how good spinners were is probably best done with a tool more sophisticated than Statsguru that looks at more factors than blunt instruments like average, strike rate and econ rate.

All this by way of saying, I think Kumble belongs here, even though the numbers are not as great as people might wish for, for reasons that I think have less to do with his talent level and more to do with the team’s ability that he was in (though I concede that he is probably a second tier player in this sort of analysis - i.e. very good and great in his age but not an all time great). Others obviously differ within the thread and that is fair enough.

39

I think it is undeniable that Warne benefited from playing in a strong team but the best team in the world can’t elevate the good to the great. In fact, one could make the argument that he must’ve been exceptional to keep his place for so long in such a great team with so many options.

Anyhow, Cumbrian’s analysis seems to confirm my gut feeling that…wherever there was a potential for effective spin, Warne could exploit it. He could make the most of any situation and that’s what made him a great (the great?)

Gatting’s stunned reaction after “the ball of the century” is one of my favourite sporting moments.

40

Another Trumper anecdote I like is one about Arthur Mailey, Australia’s leggie before Grimmett and a complete contrast in style - think Warne’s extravagant turn, but without his accuracy. Early in his career Mailey’s bowling against Trumper, who was his boyhood idol, and first up he pings in a perfectly directed leg-break with huge spin on it, but Trumper whacks it to the boundary like it was a donkey-drop served up by your granny. Shortly after, Mailey’s just about been hit out of the attack by Trumper’s sheer genius and he fires his last bolt - the googly. Trumper doesn’t spot it, the spin takes it away from him in the air and he doesn’t even try to get back to save the stumping. Mailey’s reaction at getting Trumper out? “I felt like a boy who had killed a dove.”