Spin In The World Cup

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shrek

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Thought I'd create a new thread to collate all the observations about spin bowlers and tactics being employed in the world cup going on right now. Firstly, I'll go with one spinner who's had us all excited (and for good reason) - Imran Tahir -

I've been trying in vain to figure out how exactly Tahir has been bowling, but the coverage has left me with a lot to be desired- Close-up of the ball in flight is shown very rarely, and the lesser be said about commentary on air about spin tactics the better.
From what I gathered in that innings vs WI is that he has a decent action, no braced front knee, no tucking of the elbow (two things we have discussed extensively here) - and the seam is scrambled most of the time Haven't seen him get any drift - some amount of dip but that is expected. I think the lack of drift will cause him problems against lefties - as DM Bravo showed. After that inital tonking, he didn't really bowl leg breaks to chanderpaul and smith preferring to deal in googlies and topspinners.
The wicket I liked the best was that of Thomas - the wicketkeeper. Last ball of his spell, batsman looking to play him out defending 5 balls in the 45th over, but the last one had an inviting loop outside the off inviting the slog - and game over!

He should be back in action against the Dutch day after tomorrow.

Another spinner that I have been impressed with is George Dockerell (Hope I got the spelling right). He is a teenager slow left arm spinner for the Irish and he should be in action tomorrow against the England. His action was smooth, nice pivot and follow through at the end and he always seemed to be tossing it up, challenging batsmen to take him on.

Graeme Swann took a bit of a pasting from Sachin, but good signs were that even when hit, he didn't drop short or bowl flat. On the other hand, things look bleak for Piyush Chawla, who bowled a series of long hops and (will most probably) be relegated to carrying drinks for the rest of the tournament as India plan on playing only one spinner in Harbhajan.
 
Yeah it's good to see so many spinners getting air time even on the highlight packages. Like you I'm excited at the prospects of seeing Tahir bowling again. Can't say that I'm that fussed on analysing the actions of each bowler, I think there's been a handful of people on the spin threads over the last year or so that have warned against modelling your own bowling on the bowling of international first class players. If you look at the different bowlers their approaches to what they do are very different and whether one is more 'correct' than any of the others is disputable, but having said that, Tahir's bowling does look smooth and in a different league than the others. It was great seeing Ray Price last night take a couple of wickets, I love that blokes enthusiasm, passion and determination. Zimbabwe are always good to watch as they're ram packed with spinners.

Dockerell I know nothing about and couldn't tell whether he was bowling finger spin or Chinaman, it did look a little like Chinaman bowling, but yeah he was good as well. With regards the commentary, yeah they're pretty clueless, but I think that's generally recognised as being the case anyway. But I'm with you the pick of the bunch and the man to watch is Tahir.
 
i´ve seen dockerell (or docktrelle....) in the last T20 world cup ( i think it was the worldcup). as far as i remember he was 16 during that time and performed quite good.
 
Kaos said:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Dockrell
and here, right at the start:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Dockrell
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Left arm Orthodox means he's a finger spinner?

Ireland beating England today makes the game against South Africa a little more fraught and now turns Tahir into a bogey man, rather than a potential wrist spin icon!
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Dockrell is left arm orthodox meaning a left arm finger spinner, even though he got hit in the match against England, I was still impressed with the intent he showed. Of course the defeat against Irish means Tahir is doubly dangerous for them now, but I think there is one ray of hope - It seemed to me that Tahir is getting wickets only with the googly - More than a leg break bowler, he's becoming a googly bowler - This might set off Mushtaq Ahmed like career graph. I know the Indians will find that much more reassuring, but not sure if Trott and Bell pick up googlies well. Both had trouble with chawla's googlies, and Tahir bowls them with a lot more nip.

On the other hand Afridi! what can you say about him - 14 wickets in three matches.
 
So these Orthodox spinners being left armed and being fingers spinners, does that mean that they turn the ball away from the edge of the RH bat like a Leg break if bowled on the off-stump?
 
someblokecalleddave said:
So these Orthodox spinners being left armed and being fingers spinners, does that mean that they turn the ball away from the edge of the RH bat like a Leg break if bowled on the off-stump?
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Yep, Provided ofcourse they can impart enough revs on it. Most of the left arm spinners barely turn it past the outside edge - ray price(ZIM), Rangana Herath (SL), Peterson, P Harris(SA), Abdur Rehman(PAK), yardy(ENG), yuvraj singh(IND), Daniel Vettori (NZ), SJ Benn(WI), S Al Hasan, Abdur Razzak(BAN) are the other sla(slow left arm) orthodox bowlers playing in this world cup.(Hope I haven't missed out anyone else).

Daniel vettori has been the best sla for quite some time, but he doesnt get as many wickets anymore. Tomorrow's matches WI vs BAN and NZ vs ZIM should be fun- it is a battle of left arm spinners.
 
Vettori's potency has been negated by the fact that bar Shane Bond, Tim Southee and (occasionally) Kyle Mills, he's had no support, so the batsmen can afford to see out Vettori, and then go wild on the other bowlers. Price is class though. Anyone with that intensity deserves to do well.
On a side note, I hate Shahid Afridi. He's a joke of a cricketer. I don't rate his bowling or his batting. Or his fielding. OR his captaincy.

Rant over.
 
Tumo said:
Vettori's potency has been negated by the fact that bar Shane Bond, Tim Southee and (occasionally) Kyle Mills, he's had no support, so the batsmen can afford to see out Vettori, and then go wild on the other bowlers. Price is class though. Anyone with that intensity deserves to do well.
On a side note, I hate Shahid Afridi. He's a joke of a cricketer. I don't rate his bowling or his batting. Or his fielding. OR his captaincy.

Rant over.
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Yeah he's a bit inconsistent to say the least but he'd doing well in this comp with his bowling. But Ray Price is one of my favourites to watch, he's so up for it.
 
cracking watching Tahir so far. Yesterday he bowled beautifully to the Dutch. Got one chap tied up in knots with just about the perfect wrong un and then he bowled a terrific flipper to trap another LBW. And here I was thinking we'd never see another decent bowler of flippers again! He's not quite in the Warne league of flippers circa 1994/5 but its not far off. Thank god for this peripatetic wonder. Also after seeing how other nations have deployed their spin for this tournament England are starting to look a little silly bringing only Yardy along with Swann. I think Tredwell might be there too but he's bloody useless so i don't count him. Honestly Rashid would have been some use I think, doesn't matter if he goes for a few if he takes wickets. certainly can't be any worse than Jimmy Anderson getting spunked for almost a ton!
 
GoldenArm said:
cracking watching Tahir so far. Yesterday he bowled beautifully to the Dutch. Got one chap tied up in knots with just about the perfect wrong un and then he bowled a terrific flipper to trap another LBW. And here I was thinking we'd never see another decent bowler of flippers again! He's not quite in the Warne league of flippers circa 1994/5 but its not far off. Thank god for this peripatetic wonder. Also after seeing how other nations have deployed their spin for this tournament England are starting to look a little silly bringing only Yardy along with Swann. I think Tredwell might be there too but he's bloody useless so i don't count him. Honestly Rashid would have been some use I think, doesn't matter if he goes for a few if he takes wickets. certainly can't be any worse than Jimmy Anderson getting spunked for almost a ton!
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Yeah Anderson looks knackered and despondent and Broard looks as though he needs to get some food down his neck as well. Maybe get rid of them and get Panesar and Rashid back? The whole team have that look about them where they've just conquered Everest and now someones asking them to quickly rush up K2 and do that as well, they just don't look that fussed.

I haven't caught up with last nights Tahir exploits, I'll try and catch that tonight, but your reaction is similar to mine, when I saw him in the game a few days ago I very impressed, he looks like the real deal in part due to his age, he just looks like he's got some self belief, he's kind of like Ray Price in that respect. Whereas many of the other Wrist Spinners come across as chancers with no self belief with the exception of Alfridi - but he's different again. It'll be interesting to see how Tahir handles being smashed and whether he maintains his composure and responds with some skill and maturity.
 
GoldenArm said:
cracking watching Tahir so far. Yesterday he bowled beautifully to the Dutch. Got one chap tied up in knots with just about the perfect wrong un and then he bowled a terrific flipper to trap another LBW. And here I was thinking we'd never see another decent bowler of flippers again! He's not quite in the Warne league of flippers circa 1994/5 but its not far off. Thank god for this peripatetic wonder. Also after seeing how other nations have deployed their spin for this tournament England are starting to look a little silly bringing only Yardy along with Swann. I think Tredwell might be there too but he's bloody useless so i don't count him. Honestly Rashid would have been some use I think, doesn't matter if he goes for a few if he takes wickets. certainly can't be any worse than Jimmy Anderson getting spunked for almost a ton!
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Right you are! but I still feel that for a good leggie, tahir relies too much on his googly to get the wickets - of the 7 wickets he's got so far only 1 (afaik) is from a legbreak. The flipper was a treat to watch though. But the idiots didn't even try to show a closeup.
 
shrek said:
Right you are! but I still feel that for a good leggie, tahir relies too much on his googly to get the wickets - of the 7 wickets he's got so far only 1 (afaik) is from a legbreak. The flipper was a treat to watch though. But the idiots didn't even try to show a closeup.
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Did the commentators note that it was a Flipper and did it do all the things that a Flipper does? I noticed that watching the highlights (They were very brief) he looked like he was bowling a lot faster as well in this game.
 
Tumo said:
Vettori's potency has been negated by the fact that bar Shane Bond, Tim Southee and (occasionally) Kyle Mills, he's had no support, so the batsmen can afford to see out Vettori, and then go wild on the other bowlers. Price is class though. Anyone with that intensity deserves to do well.
On a side note, I hate Shahid Afridi. He's a joke of a cricketer. I don't rate his bowling or his batting. Or his fielding. OR his captaincy.

Rant over.
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I'm no fan of Afridi either- cue the ball biting incident and all the shenanigans that accompanied it (Testing the ball apparently!)
But, he is one tough gangster who has managed to get the Pak team together.

Did the commentators note that it was a Flipper and did it do all the things that a Flipper does? I noticed that watching the highlights (They were very brief) he looked like he was bowling a lot faster as well in this game.
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That is the funny thing. In the entire spell if there was one really inspirational ball, it was that flipper- We all know how difficult it is to bowl one, but the commentators on air seem to think that there is no difference between a flipper and a "faster one". (That which danish kaneria calls a flipper is basically straighter one of top of hand).

Check out the part 5. here http://www.mycrickethighlights.com/south-africa-vs-netherlands-highlights-world-cup-2011/ The 9th wicket was a flipper( behaved exactly as we know it does), all the commentator could say was 'quicker one, kept a little low as well)
 
Weekend was fun- Low scoring matches at last! The pitch reports were biased- no one seems to want to predict a low scoring pitch. The lowest "par score" predicted was 240 in the ENG vs SA match on which both teams found the going really really tough. I loved it, and after looking at the amount of turn petersen got on the first ball, I thought that 190 would be a par score on that wicket. Turns out SA managed only 165.

SL tactic of playing 3 spinners vs AUS probably shows how crap they are at playing spin (or at least how crap others think they are at it). Hussey coming in might change that assessment a little though. That also means ENG vs AUS for quarters looks a likely prospect. How ENG must be ruing the fact that they didn't bring a second spinner! (don't know about tredwell but yardy is pedestrian).And Chawla is definitely out of reckoning for the world cup now (after even the Irish got stuck into him), so we might see two offies from IND.

So, Tahir is undoubtedly the best leggie in the world right now, and I'm eagerly awaiting how he might perform against IND this saturday. Afridi has more wickets, but doesn't have the class(IMHO).
 
shrek said:
I'm no fan of Afridi either- cue the ball biting incident and all the shenanigans that accompanied it (Testing the ball apparently!) But, he is one tough gangster who has managed to get the Pak team together.
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I'm developing a real soft spot for Afridi, I just love the way he is so obviously desperate to win. I know he takes it too far at times but you've got to say no game is ever dull if he's batting or bowling, and unlike some Pakistan players you're never in any doubt that he's trying his best. He's probably the fastest, flattest leggie around, probably alot like Doug Wright was before and after the war, and I think it's good to have more than one flavour of leggie to look at.
 
Tumo said:
Yup, shoulda brought Adil or Monty!
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Rashid next time, Monty this time, he was improving last year wasn't he? Rashid is a better prospect in the longer term as he bats a bit and being a wrist spinner adds a different dimention. Thing is now that Jenner is off the scene the worlds wrist spinners need Warne to take over Jenners role and travel the world teaching.
 
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