Are Spinners drifting towards variations and forgot the classical art of spin?

India
May 30, 2012 4:25am CST
hi friends. recently i heard one of those cricket expert speak in one of those TV shows. they were talking about something and then shifted towards harbhajan singh. they say he lost the side-spin which made him a deadly bowler during the early part of his career. he concentrated too much on his variations like top-spinner and doosra that he lost touch with the traditional offspin. for example they quoted saqlain mushtaq. according to them,saqlain mesmerised the batsmen with his doosra and other variations that during the final stages of his career,he lost the art of bowling off-spin. we leave that to the expert. but what do we see here.ashwin concentartes more on the carrom bal and the straight one. narain thinks if he keeps bowling only offspinner,they wil read him and so every over he make sure there were atleast 2 doosra deliveries. then there is ajmal who thought doosra as old news and came with teesra. i dont how long before swann discovered the charsa.lol. the spin wizard prasanna on an interview said that any batsmen ,even to players like gayle who hits six for fun,can be beaten if the spinner has enough spin and guile to deceive the batsmen. seems the bowlers only understands the deceiving part.lol. now they are getting wickets but how long before they run out of variation and try returning to off-spin but find it doesn't work for them anymore?
2 people like this
4 responses
• Chennai, India
31 May 12
With fielding restrictions in PowerPlay, they are compelled to make variations. May be they can show their style in Test matches.
• India
31 May 12
Wow.its been month since i have seen one of your comments.welcome back. just hope the T20 doesnt make them just another variation bowler even in test matches.
@ram_cv (16513)
• India
1 Jun 12
I think the advent of the ODIs already started variations in the spin bowling. The doosra was one such innovation and of course the faster deliveries also made it to a spinner's arsenal. With the advent of the T20s there are many innovations that are coming into the game as it is with the spinning department as well. Things like carrom ball and now a teesra being talked about. The run-ups are also changing with the stop over run-up also coming into the bowler's arsenal. So yes, there are variations that are entering into the classical art of spin. Cheers! Ram
@sweety_81 (2124)
• India
30 May 12
People want high scoring matches, big shots. The pitches all over the world with the exception of Australia and to some extent some wickets in West Indies and South Africa are being more suited (or tailored! ) to the batsmen. So, it is no surprise that the bowlers- whether fast or spinners are suffering and their game becoming more to restrict the batsmen; rather than play carefree like the players of yore.
@venkit (2955)
• India
31 May 12
surely variation is very much needed in this era of cricket. In the time of Prasanna, it was not this much batsman favor game. Now the rules, power plays,batting power play, bowling power play,free-hit all these forced the current era spin bowlers to include variation as a necessary thing to sustain in the spin bowling. As you pointed saqlain also tried or implemented doosra towards the end of his career,so he too felt the necessacity of variation to deceive batsman(during the shift of cricket as more batsman oriented game). A good spinner can surely deceive batsman with his spin, but it become more easy if have good variations. so i feel there is nothing wrong in having variation and a good spinning ball as their masterpiece.