Sunil Narine: a loss to Test cricket

Sunil Narine is a limited overs bowler. That he will remain, for the rest of his career. He hasn’t played a First Class game for five years and he won’t play one ever again. Instead, he bowls four overs a game in the IPL, the CPL, the PSL, the BPL, the BBL; all over the…

Amelia Kerr, leg-spin is more important

Amelia Kerr first came to notice as a 14-year-old leg-spinner. That in and of itself is quite something. The video on YouTube has over 135,000 views and shows a precocious talent, flighting her leg-breaks, and ripping a few googlies in the domestic T20 final in New Zealand. Three years later, she was a 17-year-old starting…

England ODI spin ladder

As we reach the end of a well deserved and thoroughly entertaining ODI series between England and Australia, it’s easy for English thoughts (such as my own) to fixate on the batting. Bairstow, Roy, Hales, Morgan, Buttler, and more were superb over the series, but England’s spin was just as good. How good? Well, Rashid…

Rashid Khan’s grip

Let’s talk about Rashid Khan’s grip. Maybe I haven’t been paying attention, but from most of the commentary and media coverage of the young leg-spinner, it seems that he’s an orthodox leggie who bowls quickly and with a well-disguised googly. Not so. I clipped this screenshot off TV coverage of Afghanistan’s maiden Test match, and…

Adil Rashid’s sisyphean task

In Ancient Greek mythology, Sisyphus was said to have been punished by the gods for his craftiness to roll a rock up a hill forever, only when he reached the top to see it roll back down again. Adil Rashid did more than roll the ball on his first two days of Test cricket, but…

Ajmal is a genius

The 90s and the first half of the 00s were dominated, spin wise, by two geniuses. One was a genius of the mind, all smoke and mirrors. The other was a genius of the body, with a super flexing shoulder and wrist that fizzed and turned the ball more than any other before him. If…

Ashton Agar is a symbol of panicked thinking

Ashton Agar might be a decent spinner. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’s a decent spinner. If he hadn’t played today, he would still have made it into the Australian team in the fullness of time, but once he was put in as a 19 year old in the first Ashes Test, he was set…

Australia want the one they can’t have

Australia want the one they can’t have Nearly six years after Shane Warne retired from Test cricket, Australia are still desperately searching for his replacement. Just look at Fawad Ahmed, a Pakistani asylum seeker to Australia who, soon after gaining asylum had a BBL contract with the Melbourne Renegades. Why? Because he’s a leg-spinner. Never…

The new spin kings of the Caribbean

It’s six years since England last toured the West Indies for a Test series and since then the ongoing development in West Indies regional cricket has continued to be towards the spinners. Thirty years ago every regional team had two or three decent pacers, now each plays at least two spinners. Times have changed. In…

Borthwick’s chance to bring a new balance to England

2014 will be a year of transition for England. As many as three players may make their Test debuts at Sydney in the Fifth Ashes Test, and it’s likely Scott Borthwick will be one of them. Borthwick looks on the surface to be the multi-dimensional cricketer perfect to replace a man as pivotal as Swann,…