Clueless Commentators

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Darth, I don't know if you've seen my account of the slider on my blog, but as far as I'm concerned it's one of those deliveries that's not ever been verified and it sits in a grey area of reality and bluffing. If you do some research, you'll find all sorts of people using the term for a range of different deliveries and as far as I can make out - no one has ever described it anywhere in a form where it could be described as a genuine delivery. Commentators love it, as it gives them a term to use when any delivery doesn't turn.

By my reckoning it's ripe for being christened, but it needs someone who's a recognised master of the art to either produce a video or a an explicit description in hard-copy form e.g an edited book to once and for all say "This is a slider" and then describe it and make it clear to the spin bowling fraternity that it is massively different to the Orthodox back-spinner. To be honest there's two or three slider-esque deliveries out there, that are distinctly different in their delivery method that could be christened.
 
Thanks Dave. Yeah I've read your blog on back spinning deliveries and the slider and have come to the same conclusion as you've stated above. I know I definitely can't bowl it, but I'm not that fussed as I'm in love with the backspinning flipper and I don't see the need to have both.
 
someblokecalleddave said:
Uh? Who said he was?
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If you are talking to me.......
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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and
DutchGuy said:
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.
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Ajmal is just someone who has practiced and practices to get that delivery right.
 
Darth Spin, you might want to try the 45 degree OBS, it's my "slider" and it works better than any other variation I've ever bowled in my life. It's so good that I can even use it as a stock ball sometimes. You bowl it similar to a leg break, the same grip and use of the wrist and ring finger, but your wrist position is different. In the 45 degree leg break the front of your hand will face leg slip, the seam will spin towards the slip cordon. The 90 degree leg break is further around the loop, so the entire back of your palm faces yourself. The 45 degree OBS is slightly further around the loop, so your palm will face the slip cordon. It requires a ridiculous amount of wrist flexibilitywhich some people (including me) are born with. However if you don't have it you can gain it by doing wrist excersises. Don't get frustrated if you don't get it right immediately, it took me a long time to discover it and learn how to bowl it. I'd recommend learning the karate chop OBS first and then lessening the backspin and adding more side spin by changing your wrist position that helps you get used to spinning the ball in this abnormal fashion. Keep the rough side of the ball on the inside of your palm so you can get some swing which should help disguise it and make it skid on. If your a big drifter of the ball it will most certainly skid on. The only con it has is that it doesn't skid on on every type of surface. A real dustbowl or Bunsen Burner will make it keep very low but still turn a little bit.
 
macca said:
Just a joke name gazza came up for his straight one.
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Most of his off breaks look like "straight ones" to me:D there has been something on my mind for some time now, and I'm not sure if anyone here knows the answer but I hope so. If you can spin the ball much more than anyone at your level and you get drift, dip etc. Will you be able to get the same amount of turn on international cricket pitches? (If you ever play international cricket) Almost none of the spinners I have seen bowling on them have done anything with the ball, the fast bowlers get more cut off the seam than the spinners get turn with spin. The commentators don't explain this a lot, so I keep wondering if I was just watching the wrong pitch at the wrong time. There are spinnners that got lots of turn on flat ODI decks, like Shane Warne or Murali. But on some occasions even they couldn't turn the ball. So how many revs do you need to assure turn on any pitch? Can a pitch actually be so flat that a Warne delivery doesn't grip at all? Most people don't spin the ball a fraction as much as he did, that really troubles me:confused:
 
Jacques Voigt said:
Can a pitch actually be so flat that a Warne delivery doesn't grip at all? Most people don't spin the ball a fraction as much as he did, that really troubles me:confused:
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I've bowled on a few FC decks that were made for 50 over games and what struck me was how that term 'flat' rung true, if you ran your finger across the surface and closed your eyes you could almost imagine that you were doing it on a kitchen floor! What you tend to get in shorter versions is that pitch remains in a flat hard state while the ball also remains fairly hard as well meaning that you get the bounce but there's no 'give' with the ball to allow greater spin (you still tend to spin it but not nearly as much as you would on other pitches).

The rule of thumb I use with pitches and spin is a hard pitch requires a soft/old ball to spin a lot and a soft pitch requires a hard ball to spin a lot. No doubt others will dispute this but it seems to work for me.
 
A slider is just a word for a normal off break or leg break that is deliberately allowed to slide out with a mixture of backspin and sidespin rather than just sidespin (or sidespin and topspin). It might turn a bit and it might drift a bit, but compared to a normal stock ball it will seem like its skidding straight on. Its basically a stock ball gone wrong. Its as old a variation as the art of spin bowling itself.
 
leftie600 said:
The rule of thumb I use with pitches and spin is a hard pitch requires a soft/old ball to spin a lot and a soft pitch requires a hard ball to spin a lot. No doubt others will dispute this but it seems to work for me.
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As a general rule I wouldn't dispute that.
 
Spin Lizard said:
Richie wasn't clueless on this one:




This clip gives great analysis of the slider (side by side comparison with a leggie at 6:00):

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The Bell delivery actually looks to me like a topspinner if you look closely. Topspinners when bowled quicker don't always get extra bounce - there is a clip on youtube of Brag Hogg bowling a quick topspinner that everyone claims is a flipper.

Just goes to show, you don't need huge variations, just constant small variations in pace and angle of spin is more than enough to fool anyone.
 
The IPL commentators are even more clueless than normal. I think its fair to say there are 5-6 posters on this site that would offer more informed opinion than those bunch of buffoons. How on earth did they get the job?
 
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