Johan Botha’s doosra is illegal.
He is forbidden, with penalty of ass slapping, if he bowls it anymore.
Mickey Arthur seems to believe that this will not affect him much as it is not a ball he uses all that often.
Mickey Arthur also believes then when he dies he will send his skull to the raelians so that they can one day clone him and he can move to the Aliens home planet.
Ofcourse it will affect him, his change of pace and his doosra are what make him hard to score from, even though he still never gets wickets.
Anytime Botha flights the ball to a right hander he is now in danger of losing the ball.
Perhaps he will adapt.
But it will affect him.
There must be a few other offspinners around the world getting out the long sleeves, just in case theirs is next.
In other news, the wrong’un is still awesome, legal and beautiful.
Take that you dirty offies.
even bhajji and murali were told not to bowl their doosra, but they have continued with gay abandon!
well said Q, they are so gay for each other – bhajji and murali.
Xenu loves the offies,
and the cock.
if chucking is so fucking obvious to the naked eye, why can’t batmen pick the doosra?
I’m sure they can pick it Sunny.. picking is one thing, playing it a totally different one.
All the top order batsmen now pick up the doosras from bhajji and murali.. even the Aussies started picking Ajmal after the 1st game… tailenders have a bigger problem though.
@Q – come on now…if they can pick it, they should be able to score off it. after facing a few you should know how much the bowler is able to turn his doosra. most doosras are just straight. only murali is able to extract some turn. haven’t seen ajmal bowl.
@jrod – i guess its bad news for offies but bhajji took the news rather well last nite. bowled a lot of nice, loopy, off-breaks around the wicket. sanga thought he was facing grenades.
Sunny: Ajmal’s turns like a leg break.. but both Murali and Akmal bowl the doosra with a lot of variation, i.e. the amount of turn is not the same for each doosra.. some turn a mile away, while some just a little.. so it is a difficult delivery to play..
Just cos a batsman can pick up a delivery does not mean its easy for him to play it – otherwise Shane Warne’s leggies wud not have picked up so many wickets.
@Q – Like I said before, I haven’t seen anyone bowl variations with the doosra apart from Murali. That is different from the Sheik who has half a dozen variations in his stable. And that’s just the leg break.
And maybe its an australian thing…maybe they play spin like amateurs.
Sunny: The Sheikh did not have half a dozen variations – He just bowled the leggies and the faster straighter ones. Change of pace yes.. and maybe a variation in the leggies – one that turned a mile and the other that just turned a bit..
But the point remains.. all batsmen can tell if its going to be an inswinger or an outswinger, a leggie or a googly, an offie or a doosra – but playing is just another thing altogether.
@Q – by that logic every ball would be hard to score from! what makes the doosra so special?
if you can vary the line, length, turn, dip, flight on your stock ball at will, it keeps the batsmen guessing. the sixth is over-spin. all of those are variations of the sheik’s leg break.
last time i checked there were two permutations of the doosra: no to moderate turn for murali, straight ball for bhajji.
maybe the aussie batsmen are getting weak.
Sunny: You are forgetting the creator of the doosra: saqlain mushtaq. His used to turn like a leg spinner and he used to vary the amount of turn as well.. Murali’s does too.. he varies the turn with each doosra.. As does Ajmal, which is why he’s difficult to pick. Bhajji’s goes straight on.
Aussies are getting weaker at spin no doubt and thats cos of the dearth of quality spinners in the domestic circuit.. they used to practice against the likes of Warne, McGill, Hogg before – no one now so they find these int’l ones harder to play.
@Q – I missed much of saqlain’s good years as well. but even he admits he got too predictable towards the end until God put him out of his misery.
and yeah its not just an aussie problem. the indian youngsters are getting worse as well. forget the saffers and angrez.
one thing i have noticed in the IPL is how well dhoni picks up the doosra keeping to murali. maybe they use some signal?
Dhoni def picks it up well, though he didn’t when he batted against Murali in the initial days. Maybr a signal, i dont know. Saqlain used to use one with Moin Khan so maybe Dhoni and Murali do as well.
Its good to have a lot of variations but the art is really knowing when and how to use them – Warne, Kumble, and Murali have been very good at this. Saqlain suffered cos he started using the doosra way too much so the surprise element was gone. We are also witnessing the same with Mendis – he may regain his form if he starts using his variations more smartly.
About time some chuckers were stopped. It really is that simple.
On the lighter side, let’s have Aaron ‘Straight Arm’ Bird opening the bowling for Australia.
An insider told me that Botha’s doosra tested greater than 27 degrees bent.
That’s a big chuck.