Clueless Commentators

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GoldenArm

GoldenArm

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I'm sitting back watching the Test match highlights at the moment, England VS Pakistan. This series has a high level of interest from a spin point of view what with it including Swann and Ajmal and even Monty and Rehman. Especially with the supposed unveiling of Ajmal's much vaunted version of the 'Teesra'.

While I'm waiting for Ajmal to bowl one what I've noticed more than ever is just how poor the various commentators knowledge of spin actually is. Obviously many of us have spent hours poring over various leg spin videos and listening to people called anything that goes straight on a 'slider' and others who couldn't pick a genuine flipper from Flipper the bleedin dolphin. But if their understanding of leg spin is poor their knowledge of the dark arts of off spin is even more pathetic!

Nasser Hussain is easily the worst culprit, the man can't tell an off break from a doosra half the time, even when its been slowed down. He was trying to judge from the scrambled seam but a bowler like Ajmal scrambles the seam most of the time so its a pointless exercise.

He's also of this school of thought about spin that in terms of variation you can only have one that goes one way, one that goes the other and one that goes straight on. What a gross oversimplification. It ignores one plane completely, i.e. the height at which the ball arrives to the batsman off the pitch and ignores the effect different types of spin have on the ball as it moves through the air.

So to finish, its no wonder these guys got pounded by Warne, they're useless! and I've just seen a Teesra. Its slightly round armed...will need to see it slowed down behind the arm really before i pronounce judgement, but it looks very crooked! Looks like a complete chuck to me. How has this bloke not had his action investigated? that's never a legal ball.
 
Tres seemed to know his stuff to be fair, explained the difficulties of facing Ajmal/Murali really nicely. He and Willis had a nice chat about the modern seamers scrambling the seam and mimicking hand positions to throw batsmen off their variations. Regarding the 'Teesra' I thoroughly enjoyed Willis' rant about the changes to the rules to allow off spinners to bowl the doosra. A good laugh.
 
TheCat said:
Tres seemed to know his stuff to be fair, explained the difficulties of facing Ajmal/Murali really nicely. He and Willis had a nice chat about the modern seamers scrambling the seam and mimicking hand positions to throw batsmen off their variations. Regarding the 'Teesra' I thoroughly enjoyed Willis' rant about the changes to the rules to allow off spinners to bowl the doosra. A good laugh.
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Yeah Mark Butcher at the end said something along the lines of "Yeah - Shane Warne only had 3 balls - a leg break, a bigger leg break and a straight one". Did he ever face Warne I wonder?
 
someblokecalleddave said:
Yeah Mark Butcher at the end said something along the lines of "Yeah - Shane Warne only had 3 balls - a leg break, a bigger leg break and a straight one". Did he ever face Warne I wonder?
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To be fair, that's not far off the truth. Warne never really bowled the googly, so his three main deliveries were leg break with topspin, the leg break without topspin, and some kind of straight backspinner ( started off with the flipper, finished with the slider).
 
TheCat said:
Tres seemed to know his stuff to be fair, explained the difficulties of facing Ajmal/Murali really nicely. He and Willis had a nice chat about the modern seamers scrambling the seam and mimicking hand positions to throw batsmen off their variations. Regarding the 'Teesra' I thoroughly enjoyed Willis' rant about the changes to the rules to allow off spinners to bowl the doosra. A good laugh.
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haha yes i saw that too, they did demonstrate quite a bit more knowledge than the other lot. that stuff about mimicking hand positions was pretty fascinating. Ajmal is one tough guy to pick out of the hand, I had the pleasure of watching him bowl in the nets at Lords last summer. I had the nursery ground almost entirely to myself for about 15 mins as it was a rainy day and Ajmal rocked up with a batsman (didn't recognise him) and just bowled at him for ages. i stood right behind him for a good while before other people cottoned on who he was and what was going on and started muscling in. But I just marvelled at his accuracy and changes of pace. His action looks a lot less suspect in the flesh as well it has to be said. its only slowed down it starts to look illegal as hell!
 
As a general rule, commentators aren't really sure about spin variations. Warney obviously is clued up, and Benaud has a good idea as well (obvious reasons, again) but I find that even most of the Indian commentators don't have a scooby-doo what's going on! I've often sat there shouting at the TV when a commentator says Harbhajan's bowled a doosra "NO YOU T**T IT'S A DAMN TOPSPINNER YOU STUPID MORON!" It genuinely makes me cry. I think there is a niche for something akin to football/NFL, where you have a "color commentator" and a "play-by-play" commentator. Someone that knows the technicalities, and someone that just calls it as it is. That's why I think they need to use the 3rd man more wisely, give it to someone like Warne/Bumble/Holding, who (as mad as David Lloyd is) actually know their stuff! I'd love to see that. Ahh well, I don't know.
 
GoldenArm said:
I'm sitting back watching the Test match highlights at the moment, England VS Pakistan. This series has a high level of interest from a spin point of view what with it including Swann and Ajmal and even Monty and Rehman. Especially with the supposed unveiling of Ajmal's much vaunted version of the 'Teesra'.

While I'm waiting for Ajmal to bowl one what I've noticed more than ever is just how poor the various commentators knowledge of spin actually is. Obviously many of us have spent hours poring over various leg spin videos and listening to people called anything that goes straight on a 'slider' and others who couldn't pick a genuine flipper from Flipper the bleedin dolphin. But if their understanding of leg spin is poor their knowledge of the dark arts of off spin is even more pathetic!

Nasser Hussain is easily the worst culprit, the man can't tell an off break from a doosra half the time, even when its been slowed down. He was trying to judge from the scrambled seam but a bowler like Ajmal scrambles the seam most of the time so its a pointless exercise.

He's also of this school of thought about spin that in terms of variation you can only have one that goes one way, one that goes the other and one that goes straight on. What a gross oversimplification. It ignores one plane completely, i.e. the height at which the ball arrives to the batsman off the pitch and ignores the effect different types of spin have on the ball as it moves through the air.

So to finish, its no wonder these guys got pounded by Warne, they're useless! and I've just seen a Teesra. Its slightly round armed...will need to see it slowed down behind the arm really before i pronounce judgement, but it looks very crooked! Looks like a complete chuck to me. How has this bloke not had his action investigated? that's never a legal ball.
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What is this supposed "Teesra"?

Now there is (or was) footage on youtube of Saqlain bowling a teesra in the ICL and getting a wicket with it. It was a distinctively different delivery, a kind of badly disguised straight backspinner. Later on he described it as a "teesra", so that's what I understand a teesra to be.

Now is that what Ajmal bowled? If not, then surely he needs to come for another name for it as teesra already describes something else - also if its not a backspinner, then what is it? We already have a name for every other finger spinners delivery, whilst renaming something that already exists to make it sound more mysterious is good kidology, we spinners and coaches shouldn't be so gullible as to be taken in by it.
 
SLA said:
What is this supposed "Teesra"?

Now there is (or was) footage on youtube of Saqlain bowling a teesra in the ICL and getting a wicket with it. It was a distinctively different delivery, a kind of badly disguised straight backspinner. Later on he described it as a "teesra", so that's what I understand a teesra to be.

Now is that what Ajmal bowled? If not, then surely he needs to come for another name for it as teesra already describes something else - also if its not a backspinner, then what is it? We already have a name for every other finger spinners delivery, whilst renaming something that already exists to make it sound more mysterious is good kidology, we spinners and coaches shouldn't be so gullible as to be taken in by it.
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the only reason i'm calling it a Teesra is because he's calling it a Teesra, it just means 'third one' and there isn't a generally acknowledged delivery associated with that name at this stage. Ajmal only bowled two of whatever it is he's calling the teesra yesterday and they only showed one slowed down on sky and for some reason only from behind the batsman which I found very frustrating. But Ajmal said that he's going to bring it out more in later Tests so we'll have to see...Obviously all this is great kidology as you say SLA but i think he really does have something new in his repertoire regardless of how useful it ultimately is. I can't say whether its a new ball or what yet as we simply haven't seen it enough times yet BUT it did look a bit round arm and somewhat like Saqlains version. He is almost a carbon copy of Saqlain after all...

Here's the video of Saqqy bowling his 'jalebi' also know as the Teesra.

 
Kram81 said:
I've seen footage of that Ajmal delivery, if that's not a throw I don't know what is.
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Yeah initially I wasn't that bothered by this, but thinking about the fact that Murali has the disfigurment issue I can accept that the way he bowls is a result of that. But last night I saw Ajaml in slow mo and that looks a bit ropey to me, it's that Doosra action.
 
someblokecalleddave said:
Yeah initially I wasn't that bothered by this, but thinking about the fact that Murali has the disfigurment issue I can accept that the way he bowls is a result of that. But last night I saw Ajaml in slow mo and that looks a bit ropey to me, it's that Doosra action.
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I think perhaps fundamentally I'm opposed to the whole chucking debate. If it's not used to give you an unfair speed advantage I just don't really see the problem. I can't bowl a doosra, even if I throw the ball.
 
Here's a vid with the comical commentary and the teesra

Personally I think it's chucked badly. I think that the ICC will let him get away with it. I'm not saying that the ICC is racist and I'm not intending to be racist, but I think it's strange that they let Ajmal and Harbhajan bowl, while the Dutch Martin Jonkman gets suspended.
 
TheCat said:
Tres seemed to know his stuff to be fair, explained the difficulties of facing Ajmal/Murali really nicely. He and Willis had a nice chat about the modern seamers scrambling the seam and mimicking hand positions to throw batsmen off their variations. Regarding the 'Teesra' I thoroughly enjoyed Willis' rant about the changes to the rules to allow off spinners to bowl the doosra. A good laugh.
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They aren't only clueless when it comes to spin... When AB de Villiers bowled an over with his medium pacers that barely get to 110 kph, he bowled 5 outswingers then a conventional inswinger. The commentators went crazy about the "reverse swing" that he got.

They also talked about the difficulty of playing seam bowling. I quote "The ball reaches you in barely half a second, and then moves sideways at the very last minute" Genius!

Ajmal bowls with a scrambled seam but I don't see why that makes it impossible to pick his doosra. I can pick it without even seeing the replays. His thumb clearly comes off the ball and it is possible to pick it by watching the rotation! Imran Tahir telegraphs his googly sometimes by bowling very wide outside the off stump, and he does a different arm movement when he bowls the googly in his run-up.

Ashwin has a pretty obvious carrom ball, even South Africas spin dyslexic batsmen can pick it. Commentators can't pick it though:D Shane Warne shouted "googly!" When a leg spinner from Sri Lanka was bowling only to see that it was an everyday, regulation leg break in the replay! Can you believe it?
 
That's one for SLA I reckon, but yeah - potentially if they bowl with the seam angled forwards or backward so that it doesn't make contact with the wicket, the ball's not going to grip anywhere near as much and will slide on although it's still spinning massively? Or maybe they too bowl the 'Slider' where by they simply don't give it a flick using their usual grip, and the ball comes down without any spin and goes straight on?
 
someblokecalleddave said:
That's one for SLA I reckon, but yeah - potentially if they bowl with the seam angled forwards or backward so that it doesn't make contact with the wicket, the ball's not going to grip anywhere near as much and will slide on although it's still spinning massively? Or maybe they too bowl the 'Slider' where by they simply don't give it a flick using their usual grip, and the ball comes down without any spin and goes straight on?
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Yes and of course anything that goes straight is an "arm ball" "straighter one" "slider" and "other one" to a commentator! It probably doesn't matter what they call it, but they could provide some more details. Robin Peterson bowled a few carrom balls today against India and none of the commentators mentioned something. When he got a wicket with one they suddenly knew all about it and even said it was the first one of the day. He bowled lots of other carrom balls before the wicket-taking one.
 
Lyon was going around the wickets right? Lots of his off breaks skid on from around even though he doesn't want them to. It's not an intentional slider, it's just natural variation and not something you can control. There are spots on the pitch which don't allow as much turn, and sometimes you bowl slightly quicker unintentionally which makes the ball grip less. Cricket is a science, but not a precise science. There are too many variables to assure turn, not everything that skids on is a slider.
 
someblokecalleddave said:
That's one for SLA I reckon, but yeah - potentially if they bowl with the seam angled forwards or backward so that it doesn't make contact with the wicket, the ball's not going to grip anywhere near as much and will slide on although it's still spinning massively? Or maybe they too bowl the 'Slider' where by they simply don't give it a flick using their usual grip, and the ball comes down without any spin and goes straight on?
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Cheers for the reply, Dave. I have to say I really don't understand what a slider (wrist spinning delivery) is and can't make any sense of it. Some say it's a backspinner, others say it "slides out between the second and third fingers", Warne says it's the same action and release as a leg break but you "turn your wrist around even further"... I can not make sense out of any of it. I'm as clueless as a clueless commentator.
 
Darth Spin said:
Cheers for the reply, Dave. I have to say I really don't understand what a slider (wrist spinning delivery) is and can't make any sense of it. Some say it's a backspinner, others say it "slides out between the second and third fingers", Warne says it's the same action and release as a leg break but you "turn your wrist around even further"... I can not make sense out of any of it. I'm as clueless as a clueless commentator.
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Well a slider is a ball (in wrist spin) in which the ball is spinning on the seam, the seam being perpendicular to the trajectory of the ball and that delivery will "slide" on. Batsmen often misjudge it for a leg break.
 
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