If you stroll through the list of leading wicket-takers in the longest format of the game, you will feel the presence of two leg spinners, the pair of giants in the game, the late great Shane Keith Warne and Anil Kumble, among the top four. That could paint a false picture of how comfortable bowling leg spin is. But the story is far different from what potentially could be thought of.
You dodge Warne and Kumble, and then you keep on jogging almost for a minute or so in the list before getting the next name of the bowler, who delivers leg-spin. Alas! You will get hardly a name, certainly, an impatience person like me didn’t. Can you believe how hard the art of leg-spin can be to be successful in the red-ball format?
I suggest you march on the backyard cricket field near your house, where those kids spend some crazy summer afternoon with the bat and ball. Most of them look to bowl the off-spin or the left-arm spin. You ask them their favorite spinners, and I can guarantee you that one of Warne or Kumble will put their presence on the list. It’s that much certain.
But then they hardly try the leg spin. I, myself, always try to push the off-spin, while one of the friends of my younger brother displayed his left-arm spin to me the other day. I found it amazing how he told me a lot of stories of Warne that he had researched but never tried the leg spin. And then he told me something which I have experienced too. It’s the pain the day after you bowl leg spin.
Painful act of leg-spin- internal spin of the shoulder
This version of spin bowling is all about rhythm and feeling. Terry Jenner is the former leg spinner of Australia, who left us in 2011, and he was one of the early mentors of Warne when the later put his feet on the game. When the Victorian made his Test debut in 1992 against India in Sydney, Ravi Shastri tore his leg spin apart.
TJ was the guy Warne found, and both agreed on the first two parts- rhythm and feeling. In that past era, there were a lot of spin bowlers, but the game was shouldered very much towards fast bowling. Leg-spin bowling is about the angles, and it’s the wrist that does the job, but for the best accuracy, it’s the shoulder that comes into the scene. And then you push your shoulder to do something that it’s not born to do in your body. With fast bowling, the shoulder just takes a 360-degree round, except the slingers who get injured a lot, the same while you play tennis. That’s its real job.
Leg spin is far different. Your shoulder is asked to move internally from a very weird angle. That puts enormous pressure on the Glenohumeral joint (between the shoulder and your arm), the knee, and the back. And then, you are asked to release it from the back of your hand. Among all these, the focus remains on having some control trying to spin the ball and not embarrass yourself with huge full tosses. Then, you keep on doing that for a day, a month, a year, and the rest of your career. Geez!! Sounds painful, what about the art of leg spin then?
The art of leg-spin: it’s sweet and juicy to taste and beautiful to observe
At the end of the day, it’s the magic of the wrist. While you release the ball, it goes up in the air, and while it comes down, it cuts the airflow, getting more power in it. Now, once that heavy round article comes down with spin and more air power, it hits the ground and if the touch point happens with the seam, then it grips and goes bang in.
The googly, one of the magic tricks of the wrist, is exactly the opposite. It just goes the other way around. That’s why it’s all about coming to the pitch of the ball to adjust the spin. As a batter, you are not offering much air power into the ball and are also trying to smash it before it grips properly off the surface.
Happy birthday, Warnie.
A poetic tribute to the life and magic of Shane Keith Warne, as read by Australia Test captain Pat Cummins ⚡️⚡️⚡️ pic.twitter.com/PNqgIrgU7f
— cricket.com.au (@cricketcomau) September 13, 2024
It’s a sentence that I have stitched in my mind. Fast bowling scares you, spin bowling embarrasses you. As a batter, you are following the angle of the ball till its end, before it grips and sharply goes the other way. The Mike Gatting ‘Ball of the Century’ is the reflection of the same. With all due respect to the King, that delivery from Warne, without spin, would have been a dodgy type of ball, tickled down the leg side for a four. But Gatting moved his bat and eye with the angle of the ball, which gripped on the surface and crushed into the off-stump.
Quest for new modern-aged Test leg-spinner
The leg-spinners have gone down in my understanding. Well, I am not talking about the funny T20s. For me, the wonder is about the Tests. India have Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja, but both the finger spinners. Kuldeep Yadav, the chinaman or, in a way, the left-arm wrist spinner, is one of the rarest breeds of the current time in the red-ball format. Rashid Khan, one of the superstar bowlers of leg spin of the modern age, doesn’t play Tests a lot.
Keshav Maharaj (South Africa), Nathan Lyon (Australia), and Prabath Jayasuriya (Sri Lanka)– all of them are finger spinners. Mitchell Swepson and Ish Sodhi played a few but hardly had control. The last actual wrist spinner of the modern-aged Test cricket is Pakistan’s Yasir Shah, whose last red-ball game was back in 2022.
Leg spin is always beautiful with the craft and art. But it’s very hard to go through. It’s called leg spin, with the least work of the leg!! Funny nah? The quest is going on for the upcoming star leg-spinner in Tests! Time is flying, and perhaps waiting to see the new face. You, yes you, could be the one coming through. Pick up the ball and start bowling leg-spin!!
Author: That mAd wrIter
Someone who loves how Steve Smith from being Australia's future Shane Warne has become present Don Bradman, gets inspired by Anderson's longevity, gets awed with Kohli's drive and Southee's bowling action. Never gets excited with stats and records, and believes in instincts, and always questions spinners bowling with the new ball.
