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…
Tag: featured
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…
Round-Up 26/06/2018 or How Bess repaid Cook
The ongoing Test match between West Indies and Sri Lanka may be a tightly fought low scoring tussle with plenty of excitement but to this point, only two of the 29 wickets to fall has gone to a spinner (as I write), so let’s turn our attention to the County Championship. It was the first…
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…
Round-up 20/06/2018 or ODI spin twins love runs on the board
While all the focus is on England’s phenomenal white ball batting, a couple of interesting performances from spinners on both sides could slide under the radar. That’s where I come in. While England were bludgeoning their way to nearly 500, Ashton Agar took 1 for 70 to be one of the main reasons they didn’t…
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…
Is Keshav Maharaj South Africa’s long term spinner?
In the five years since Paul Harris retired, South Africa have tried out six frontline spinners (seven if you include JP Duminy – which I don’t). Imran Tahir was the great white hope, and flamed out at Adelaide. Robin Peterson was steady and little more, after four years out of the team. Dane Piedt scythed…
Dominic Bess is just… there.
Walking in from further away than the average spinner, a la Shane Warne, stalking his prey, but instead of the smooth rip, he bustles through the crease, at his best culminating in a hard side-spun ball looping towards the batsman. Everything’s in the explosion at the crease. Graeme Swann – who he will have to…
Dip and Drift 