A small boy entered the Pizza shop today and said
“Hey Unkie J, I want to be a leg spinner just like you”.
And I said
“Well I am hybrid Bubby/club legspinner”.
The little boy ran out confused.
That left me worried about the state of education in our schools.
Are kiddies not taught about the variants of leg spinning.
Maybe some on my blog are confused also.
Leg Spinning types and brief descriptions, by Unkie J.
The Aussie ripper leg spinner
Practised by Peter McIntyre, Sutart MacGill, and Shane Warne.
The main art of this leg spinner is the actual side spin imparted on the ball, which is done with a slightly rounder arm action and wrists made of steel. The objective is to spin the ball sideways on glass whilst maintaining a fairly consistent length and line. In a lesser hands it can go horribly wrong, in the hands of a master, can be combined with subtler straighter balls and gentle over spin to keep the batsman guessing. Mostly a leg stump line, can be less effective against a cack hander.
Signature move, the ball the spins past the outside edge.
The Bubbly Pakistani leg spinner
Practised by Mushtaq Ahmed and Abdul Qadir.
This is legspin with a touch of aerobics. It requires lots of hopping, arm whipping and an offstump line. This is the one form of leg spin that best encapsulates everything there is about legspinning, as all delivery’s are available from a straighter arm action whilst still spinning the ball. The objective is to trick the batsmen with a variant of balls so devishly devised that he regulary plays for a ball that spins one way whilst it spins the other way. Because the ball spins both ways it is effective against all batsmen, but the offstump line means a good length is every important.
Signature move, the wrong’un that cuts the batsman in two halves.
The Absurdist straight breaker
Practised By Tiger Bill O’Reilly, Anil Kumble, Shahid Afridi, Chris Harris, Cameron White and Piyush Chawla.
This is leg spin without the legspin. It is deception of the highest order. It is also almost impossible to make a living on. You must have the ability to sell the spin, whilst delivering the straight one. You can bowl any delivery you want with this style, but it doesn’t really matter, because you won’t be spinning the ball anyway, but if you are good at it, you will be aggressively accurate and steady like a train. The objective is to penetrate the mind of the batsmen through repetition and absurdity.
Signature move, the straight one.
The club leg spinner
Practised by Richie Benaud, Bryce McGain, & every West Indian Legspinner ever.
Not a huge spinner of the ball, has variation but mostly works on the fact that if they can land every leg spinner in the same place for a day wickets will come. The arm action is usually somewhere between straight arm and round arm, and this particular style comes in many wonderfully different actions. The objective is to beat you with subtle flight, spin and speed changes.
Signature move, the batsman losing patience and swinging across the line, but hitting it straight up in the air.
The Paul Adams leg spinner
Practised by Paul Adams, and me in the backyard, until I hurt my back.
Was once described as a frog in a blender. I like to think of it as a midget, wearing a bunny suit, trying to fling its head at you with a shoulder jerk so savage that it could kill the average ostrich. The objective seems to be not to fling your head at the batsman, but to make him think you are while you get him with your badly disguised wrong one.
Signature move, unknown.
