1. Cricket is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy (Stephen Fry)
2. FOOTBALL offers the world clichés; RUGBY produces facial deformity; HOCKEY provides an acceptable outlet for psychotic violence; CRICKET alone breeds myths. More quotes here.


Spin..

On being asked by Fletch what his bowling actually is (ie pathetically slow right hander, occasionally gets it to spin in from off stumpo towards leg, Rodders kindly explained

What you describe is off spin (ie spins from off to leg). When delivered by right handers, normally done as "finger spin" and spun with the fingers (normally 1st and 2nd) coming across the ball (Embury, Croft, etc).
A leg spinner - almost always right arm wrist spin - moves the ball from leg to off as his stock or usual ball. (eg Shane Warne, Mustaq Ahmed, Anil Kumble).
"Wrist spin" is done with fingers (normally 1st and 3rd) and wrist giving the ball a hard "tweak" When off spin is delivered by a left hander its mostly done as wrist spin. (eg Edmonds, Ashley Giles, Tufnell). Wrist spin is more agressive but also more expensive not because of the direction, but because the tweaking spins the ball more, but also makes it more difficult to control. Finger spin is safer but less attacking.
There are also some odd ones like Muralitharan who is a right arm wrist spinner but has a stock ball that moves from off to leg (an offspinner), but thats very unusual.
So a RH legspinner's stock ball goes from leg to off. The one that goes the other way is the "wrong-un", "googly" or "Bosie" in Aus (after Reginald Bosanquet's father). A RH offspinner usually only spins one way - off to leg. A LH Offspinner's stock ball goes from off to leg and his wrong-un goes from leg to off and is called a "chinaman".
A topspinner is normally bowled by wrist spinners only and Murali's is called his "Dhoorsa".
Finally a leg-break bowled by a fast bowler (ie leaves the batsman) is called a leg-cutter. Gough bowls them when he cant get bounce, swing or seam; Andy Bush bowls them all the time cause he can't hold the ball properly; and Tim Bingham used to bowl one as a variation. It involves holding the ball across the seam not up and down and it acts like an inswinger and then cuts away.
Hope this helps, Rodders


 

 

 

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