Usually I help legspinners, but I’m in a good mood, so I thought I’d help out the lesser spinners.
If you’re a young kid with aspirations of playing for your country and tweaking the ball a bit, here is the 5 step plan on how to be an International offspinner.
Step 1:
Learn off spin, you don’t need to spin it sideways, but make sure you spin it enough that when it doesn’t spin it’s more noticeable than when it does.
Step 2:
Practice hitting the same spot outside off for hours on end. Learn flight, guile, drift, and all those other things Bishen Bedi likes.
Step 3:
Obtain a physical deformity in your arm. Get your older brother, that old dude you met from my space, or any school yard bully to beat your arm until you can’t straighten it. Under no circumstances should you ever be able to straighten your bowling arm. Ever.
Step 4:
Learn the Doosra, with your newly bent arm that should be pretty easy.
Step 5:
Now you know how to bowl off spin, you’ll need a thick skin for when you make the top level, so when you are practising your deliveries employ local kids to yell out chucker, cheating cunt, fucking poofter and no ball.
That should be enough.
You are now ready to be an international off spinner.
Good luck.
UJ,
Is there a similar process for young aspiring fast bowlers too? I would have thought the Australian Center for Excellence would have had released a document by now ( vide Brett Lee, Shaun Tait, Aaron Bird..)
Cheers,
Before you all get on your high horses, if I was in charge of finding chuckers, I would test Andrew Symonds in my top 5. And I think I have proved many a time I aint some embedded Australian journalist. This isn’t a problem that Australia has, it is a problem that cricket has.
Homer, the problem with fast bowlers chucking is quite different to offies chucking, someone like Aaron Bird/Trivedi/Gunn should be shot, but Tait, Ahktar, Lee etc aren’t bowling a ball that an International Finger spinner told me is virtually impossible not to chuck.
Jamie, I checked off that list within a few months of blogging.
Nick, cheers for that.
For those who think this is an Australian problem, Australia couldn’t pick or play, Afridi, Harris, or Mishra in recent times. Funny that they reported none of these players, and none of them bowl the doosra.
Murali? Chuck?
Botha? Chuck?
The fat leftie banga? Chuck?
No wonder Australia can’t produce a decent offie, they have not been coached correctly.
But seriously, after seeing Murali up close in the nets last year (or was it the year before?), I thought he was doing fielding practice by trying to run out the batsman at the strikers end.
Step 6:
Learn to bat. Easier than Step 3.
And unless you’ve got a physical deformity, you’re unlikely to make it as a spinner alone.
Aussies whiners? Of course they aren’t…
jrod,
Apart from adding that I wonder why England don’t have any doosra bowlers,
how to get lots of comments on your blog.
1) Call Murali a chucker
2) Call Harby a lying cheating racist wanker
3) Suggest that Sachin may not be the lovable, honest sort of bloke that everyone makes out.
4) Watch as webstats go up massively.
Sorry jamie64, you’re old school. Nowadays you can avoid the flamewars and all the mess they bring along by simply writing article after article on the Fake IPL Player. Make sure to put it in one of your tags, and if possible have a poser and a teaser. Works fantastically, its like putting a lot of money in the bank and living of the interest, I’ve stopped blogging and gone on vacation!
That guy who thought up the FIP blog is a genius, he gets more traffic than just about any cricket site other than cricinfo and iplt20.
achettup,
yep, that was a genius move.
And I have a sneaking admiration for Harby, I love watching him bat!
JRod and others, all offies have to chuck a little. Even the traditional turner has to be bowled with the arm slightly bent to get some bounce and turn. It is time the ICC learns to face the truth. Everyone chucks. Unless it kills you, it ain’t such a big problem. Give the bowlers some thing in today’s batsmen oriented games.
P.S.: The piches in UAE should be studied and clones of the same made everywhere.
Jrod,
Australian story has posted a two part series on Keith Miller which you can access here:
http://www.abc.net.au/austory/specials/miller/default.htm
Even the traditional turner has to be bowled with the arm slightly bent to get some bounce and turn.
Nonsense, you just have to grip the ball tight enough so that your middle finger starts bleeding.
@David Berry – Which is a very healthy habit and will lead to a twenty year long career:)
You have to put some effort in if you want to be a Test-class spinner. Cricket involves a player bowling to a batsman, not throwing.
Say that to 99% of all bowlers tested in 2004.
even st pigeon used to chuck…aussies get over it.
so aussies get flummoxed by botha and all of a sudden he gets reported. aussies can’t handle rookie pak offie, he gets reported. sounds pretty curious to me. next they will say junta tormentor is illegal because they can’t pick up the “finger”.
step 7:
avoid bowling against the aussies – once you humiliate them they try and ruin your career
seriously though, i have NEVER seen shoaib malik get the bowling figures he did yesterday. how is that even possible?
Dhananjay, I agree that a lot of bowlers chuck according to a 15-degree rule. I don’t expect the ICC to catch up with the science (or help fund future research into it), but there is good reason to believe that we should look at the maximum rate of elbow extension, and not total extension itself. A study by Ferdinands and Kersting showed that looking at the maximum rate picked out the chuckers (as determined by naked eye) from the non-chuckers much more effecitvely that total elbow extension. I wrote a summary of their results here.
Basically, the conclusion I would draw from that work is that we can’t always trust the naked eye, but it gets it right a lot of the time. And the naked eye shows most doosras to be dodgy.
sorry david, picking up with a naked eye is not a science. its a judgement call. usually can be affected by inherent bias.
Sunny, did you have a look at the graphs in the post I linked to? Maximum rate of elbow extension correlates strongly with obsevrers thinking it’s a chuck. I’m not saying that you can use the naked eye in every situation, but most of the time it is right.
But if you’re still unhappy, try this. Bruce Eliot: “But the guys who do bowl the doosra tend to live on the edge. Most who bowl it cannot do so under about 10 degrees, so it obviously doesn’t take much more for it to go over.”
You’ve got bowlers who are not the least bit suspect, and then they bowl a doosra and they’re close to the limit. If there’s one type of delivery that, for most bowlers, requires 0-5 degrees of straightening, and another type of delivery that requires at least 10, then surely there’s something structurally wrong with that second ball.
I’m not saying that ALL doosras are chucks (Saqlain’s action, for one, was clean), but a lot of them are.
@David – My issue is not with blatant chuck or visible chuck – I have a problem with not allowing chucking in bowling. People may consider my views a little too radical, but considering the mollycoddling that batsmen get, I am not against the degree rule going out.
P.S. – Are you on livejournal sixesandfour group? If yes, then we have had this debate there earlier.
Dhananjay, haha, that is indeed waaay too radical for me. Yes, I am on sixesandfours. I can’t remember specifically the discussion there but it doesn’t surprise me that it happened! I have the same arguments on chucking wherever I go on the Internet.
I had written a post explaining why I thought arm bending is a characteristic of front on action and that it can be prevented if coaches insist on side on action.
jrod, I dont think you are the typical aussie whiner, and you sure know that your country produces whiners in millions regularly. Next only to the POMS, But the best thing about aussies is they dominate the ICC and manage to call anyone succeeding against them illegal. If only Jeff Thomson didnt exist, Malinga would have been called a chucker too by your countrymen. But thankfully, Thomson existed and Malinga’s action resembled his – otherwise, your countrymen would have got him banned.
As Sunny says, even St Glenn was illegal. The question is whether a bowler is getting advantage and I’d imagine a fast bowler gets more advantage by chucking because that obviously helps them bowl faster while even spinning through chuck needs skill. Yet, Brett Lee et al will never be discussed by the likes of Barry, who will somehow hide behind pseudo scientific arguments – you’ll never catch them even vaguely commenting on the Aussie offenders – Lee, Tait et al.
We need to have a poll – What is the worst part about a typical blogger from a country-continent down under: a) Implicit assumption that all aussies are above board and saints while the English, NZ, SA, rest of the world other than Asians and Asians in that order are vile creatures who always braek rules b) Smug arrogance and fake concern for humanity and equality c) Passing of racist agenda in concealed form d) Raising reverse-racism bogey which doesnt exist just to create a nonexistent issue to beat Asians with e) pseudo scientific arguments to justify their racist stand. f) john davison, keeping with the honourable tradition of CWB polls.
(Needless to say, jrod will not be considered for the purpose of the poll because he doesnt fit in the above categories.)
afridi’s “doosra” (or googly) is a chuck. but everyone knows wrist spinners don’t chuck right?!
actually its pretty simple…the doosra is getting rampant…none of the australian offies can bowl it…so it must be illegal.
Sunny. thanks for the comment on Afridi chucking his wrong’un, as it proves my point that Australia don’t call all spinners they struggle against, or all subbie spinners. Maybe they just think the doosra is a chuck, a theory the ICC bowling testers have come up with in their research. Australian’s don’t rate offies, so the fact they haven’t produced someone who can bowl the doosra isn’t that surprising. Patel, Vettori, and Ojha (fuck i love watching him bowl) all seem to bowl pretty well without it. I personally don’t understand why chucking for extra pace is seen as worse by some people than chucking for extra spin.
Raj, I think Malinga and Thommo have pretty different actions, Taits is probably closer to Thommos. And perhaps cricket produces whiners, England, Australia and India seem to do whine at a superhuman level, especially about cricket. As for Aussie bloggers, 4 of them came out and called Aaron Bird a chucker, so i don’t think they had trouble calling Australian chuckers. Geoff Foley was a Queensland offie who many aussie cricket fans referred to as a chucker, and you will still find people who call Tait and Lee chuckers. I don’t think Lee or Tait are chuckers, but I also don’t think that Ahktar or Malinga are. And how come this is an Asian issue Raj, what Asian nation is Johan Botha from?
“none of the australian offies can bowl it…so it must be illegal.”
Brilliant Sunny. This just sums it up. As I said, the fact that Malinga is not questioned is further proof of this. Because that is equally freak, and it does give him an unfair advantage over other pace bowlers, that action of his. Yet, we dont see him questioned by Aussie Cricketers or officials, and he doesnt get banned? Why? Because unfortunately he resembles Jeff Thomson’s action. So, they know they cant question this. Otherwise, will they keep quiet about such a freaky action. This clearly proves your point sunny, that if they cant do it, then it is illegal. Since Thomson could do Malinga’s action, it proves that Malinga cannot be illegal. That seems to be the logic.
@raj – well said. i don’t see how batsmen are at an disadvantage because someone flexes by an extra degree. and especially if its a spinner? i would rather bowlers be given the doosra if the batsmen are allowed to bend the rules and switch-hit. also not everyone can be a genius like sachin and bowl off-breaks / leg-breaks with the same action.
@jrod – i think this IPL has shown that most offies can work wonders without having “the other one”. ojha has been a pleasure to watch with his flight, dip and all the sexiness in between. when ramesh powar was in the team he was never afraid to give it a bit of air. both have shown that offies don’t need a doosra to be effective.
but we shouldn’t restrict it because it exceeds some arbitrary standard. especially when it has been scientifically proven that the naked eye is not a very good confirmation of chucking.
jrod, is Johan Botha ‘pure’ white? Answer that.
well, you mean there are 4 Aussie bloggers who called Aaron Bird a chucker? So that proves Aussie bloggers arent whiners? I mean how many bloggers who write on cricket from Australia? 4 is what % of that? LOL!
Let me put it this way, I know only one Aussie blogger who has an unbiased mind and is fair to all, and that is you. Maybe there are some more but I guess they are not interesting enough that I have digged them, So, possibly you are the only interesting Aussie Blogger who is fair and has an unbiased mind :-)
jrod, and what if Johan Botha is the exception that proves the rule? What if he is targetted just to prove that it is not only Asians who are targetted? Is he really white? If not, then that only fuels my theory further – he is the convenient scapegoat who can be used to create an illusion that non-Asians are also targetted.
Raj, So what you are saying is that whether Botha is white or asian, he still proves you are right? If Botha (100% white as far as I know) proves the rule, what does Aaron Bird prove, is he the exception to the exception that proves the rule isn’t right?
have to agree with raj that jrod is really unbiased and usually right on about his opinions and ideas. that is why these comments by jrod surprise me a bit. common jrod – do you really believe that aussie fans, media, criocket officials etc do not target asians? I am shocked to see you agree with all these biased and spremacist countrymen of yours. i always thought of you as a voice of reason amongst these dumb biased fools. i still do. was surprised by your comments thats all.
Ah, the era of the asterix.
i dont quite understand what all the ruckus is caused about.
To keep it simpe, a bowler is supposed to be ‘bowl’ the ball at the batsman. Not chuck.
That being said, i believe a batsman is well within his rights to complain if he thinks a guy’s chucking at him.
The point is, after a biomechanics test gives the bowler an all clear. The batsman need to shut up and bat.
Murali,shoaib and Harbhajan have had to undergo tests, and after getting cleared, people have shut up
Botha might have to go through it for the second time, but that’s because his action is still a little dodgy, not because he is asian.
that theory of malinga’s action sounds nonsensical to say the least.
The whole thing about Australia vs The subcontinent sounds rubbish to me
Anon, is Asud Rauf one of the supremacists? He was one of the men who put Ajmal’s name forward, does that make he and I racist against Asians because we think Doosra’s are dubious? Funny how when I write about chucking, people assume its a slight against Asians. Biggest two chuckers I have seen in cricket of recent times, J Botha, A Bird, both white, one an offie, one a quick. One Australian. This was not a post against Asian spinners, this was a post about the fact that the PCB officials have already said that Ajmal has a physical deformity that means he can’t straighten his arm, and that Tony Greig said that the Doosra is easier to bowl if you arm is permanently bent.
As for this comment, “do you really believe that aussie fans, media, criocket officials etc do not target asians? ” which seems to have nothing to do with the rest of the comments. Australian’s target anyone they think is cheating, or can beat them. The average Indian and Australian cricket fans are dickheads. Both countries have poor mainstream media. And CA and BCCi are both run by complete fucken idiots who seem to get along fine when it means both of them can make money together (Champion’s league) but struggle to get on when they have a difference of opinion on how they would run cricket. No cricketer playing in Australia gets more standing ovations than Sachin gets, more than Warne did in India, or Australia probably. South and West Australia didn’t have a problem with Pakistanis when they picked Umar Gul, Sohail Tanvir or Younis Khan for domestic cricket last year. In my life in Australia, the two teams that got the most stick from aussies were saffas and poms, now India are getting it, before they were ignored. Think they are getting it because they are good now, or has Australia just suddenly decided to get a bit more racist?
Jrod – I never called you a racist. Also, one isolated incident where soem non Australian joins the “he is chucking” club does not explain years and years of Aussie cricket assholishness and supremacism. Also, do not get me wrong – I am not blaming the whole country of Australia. I apologize if I came off that way. Pat Rafter is Aussie and tennis never had a more gentlemanly individual. Also finally, Jrod – there is a no bigger fan of yours than me. Let me know if you need any fat Indian groupies!
All this talk of whinging Poms. None of us are whinging here. I see a lot of whine flowing from the subcontinent though.
Anon, You didn’t call me a racist, but you say I agreed with biased and supremacists.
This isn’t about Australia being arrogant, racist or even having an agenda, for once, it’s about their hatred for chuckers, even Australian ones.
Prafs, that comment seems to sensible for this thread.
Suave, your country is so fucken whiney you throw people in jail for having loud sex.
cricket’s gone to the dogs ever since they allowed overarm bowling, we should only allow round arm and lobs
Mate, I haven’t had any for six months, I don’t want to hear any other fuckers. Especially ugly fucking chavs.
Have you seen them? Jesus wept, it’s more the images that would put into your brain, than the noise.
Suave,
I’ve seen them and I can only assume the loud screams are very fake.
the neighbour who complained is partially deaf, and she hears them everynight. Being deaf in one ear, you’d have to be wailing like a banshee at full blast to wake me up, so they must be screaming bloody murder.
41 comments?
Told you the best way to get comments is to call someone a chucker.
By the way, saw Aaron Bird bowl in the seconds match a couple of seasons ago and there is no doubt he chucked. Also remember Foley, and he also chucked.
Aaron Bird was only reported because CA is run by Mexicans!
Seriously though, well said Jrod. Your last response to Raj was brilliance.
Why is Malinga dragged into it? The man’s elbow remains as straight or straighter than other fasties while bowling. Calling him a chucker only leads to doubts being raised of the accuser’s knowledge of cricket.
Why does discussing about chucking always leads to words like white supremacist being used?
Btw, doesn’t Kamran Khan’s action seem a little dodgy?
Mhatre, thank God Kamran Khan has Warne in his corner – no way in the hell he will suffer the same way as Murali. Warne is Aussie, and if he stands up for Kamran, ICC will turn a blind eye. Well, since India benefits in this case, I suppose we should be thanking Warnie :-)
BTW, I hear none of the sanctimonious ozzers who were incensed at the treatment of ICL crricketers now talking about the ICC crackdown on the US league players. Why? Because the BCCI cannot be blamed? Talk about double standards.
@raj – Cool down bhai. Am seeing too much “You Aussie we Asian” mentality in your tone. For all their supposed faults, Aussies have a fair track record when it comes to chucking. You do not find any doosra bowler there as he would not be allowed to even play grade cricket due to their “it aint bowling if it is bent” belief. They tend to get overboard at times but they are consistent about it. The purge carried out in the 60s by Bradman is ample evidence. And no brown skinned bowler was penalised then. So the racism thing does not hold water.
Malinga a chucker? Not in my book. Slinger, yes, but who in the world suggested he chucks?
As for Australian cricket, try to get through grade, or even juniors as a chucker and see where you end up. Even your team mates will be on your case.
Dhananjay Mhatre, bravo young man.
Lets stop all this “oooh we’re persecuted” bullshit.
Suave etc, fact remains that ICC is dominated by Aussies and Englishmen who punish Asian players for minor transgressions but let off Aussies and Englishmen for bigger transgressions. Broad got away with criticising umpires in WI – but even if someone as big as Sachin puts in one mild word against an umpiring decision, he will be in trouble with ICC. This is how the ICC works. Numerous recent examples of this discrimination can be quoted. If you cannot see it, doesnt mean that it doesnt exist. I dont buy that Aussie and English admins associated with the ICC are fair.
So, why is no one calling Kamran a chucker? Is it because Shane Warne endorses him?
As for fast bowlers vs spinners benefitting from chucking, consider this:
Any fast bowler who chucks gets that extra pace. You can experiment in your own backyard. Measure the speed when you bowl vs when you check. Repeat the experiment for all your family and friends. So, it is clear that a fast bowler benefits from chucking without skill coming into play at all. If I bowl 25kmph without chucking, it is always faster when I chuck.
On the other hand, bowling a doosra with or without chuckign takes skill. It is not as if if you allow a bolwer to chuck, he will immediately be able to bowl the Doosra. So, the skill element remains here. Maybe, for some men, it is easier to bowl a doosra chucking vs without chucking. Still, unlike fast bowlers, you cannot say that any human will be able to bowl a doosra when he chucks whereas you can say that anyone can bowl faster when he chucks.
Clearly, why dont we recognise the skill aspect here? If you can adopt reverse hit, why not this? The reverse hit brings in complexity about fielding rules yet it is not ruled illegal. why? because, that is a skill that has been mastered by a certain demographic it seems. But Doosra, even with chucking, it seems a certain demographic cannot simply do it. So, it becomes illegal even though given the current batsmen vs bowlers imbalance, a skill that enhances bowlers side is only beneficial for Cricket. Clearly, people must come out of their dogmatic stand here and address this issue in the context of giving bowlers an extra weapon even if it means changing Cricket rules. Whats wrong with that? Are Cricket rules laws of universe which cannot be changed. Shouldnt we keep addressing the batsman-bowler imbalance constantly, tinkering rules if required?
Why do people take a dogmatic stand that as per current rules, chucking is illegal so bowling a skillful doosra with chuckign is alos illegal? Why cant you take a bigger picture view and consider the bigger benefits for Cricket in terms of redressing the batsman-bowler imbalance? Why? Thats where you need to ask – which demographic has been the only demographic to demonstrate ability to bowl doosras, even if with chucking? Which demographiac has been unable to produce doosra bowlers, even if it is only because their system is so rigid on existing rules. Who benefits if spinners are emasculated in international cricket and so, rules should be kept in such a way that spinners dont get much advantage? Who benefits really? Ever thought on those lines?