Left arm spin bowlers find it harder to become strike bowlers?

[Pratters]

of course its not impossible, its just harder.

I think he was bowling around the wicket.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

IMO spinners are more effective when the ball is spinning away from the batsman, i think that all left-arm spinners should bowl around the wicket to right handers aswell, going over the wicket to right hand batsman is not the way to go i think, especially if your after wickets.

The ball spins away from the righthander no matter which side of the wicket you bowl.

 

[Mr Casson]

The ball spins away from the righthander no matter which side of the wicket you bowl.

Bowling a good line over the wicket means that it will spin into the right-handers.

Edit: There's not only one good line to bowl, but it's certainly tighter spinning into the right-handers.

 

[Mr Mxyzptlk]

Bowling a good line over the wicket means that it will spin into the right-handers.

Edit: There's not only one good line to bowl, but it's certainly tighter spinning into the right-handers.

Unless you're referring to a line outside legstump, it's spinning away. The left-arm spinner is a finger spinner/offspinner. The stock ball pitches and spins from the right-hander's legstump to offstump.

 

[SJS]

Most batsmen are right handed and I have this feeling its much more difficult for the left hand spin bowlers to become strike bowlers as they bowl a lot outside the leg stump or the batsmen pad to them.

If you think of it, not many great left arm spin bowlers comparing with other categories over the years.

What say?

Thats a very interesting debate.

First of all there are some plusses to being a left arm finger spinner.

You get to bowl the away going delivery (to the majority of the batsmen viz right handers) in the easier to master and more accurate finger spin type of bowling.

Off spin on the other hand was coming in to the batsmen and once the point-of-contact-within-the-stumps rule was made for the LBW decision, off break became easier to counter.

Leg spin, which got a big boost after the great South Africans 'invented' the googly, was more dificult to mastr though it too moved away.

But why doesnt a left arm spinner (LAS) turn the ball as much as a right hand off spinner(RAOS) although both are the same except for being the mirror image of the other. This is generally true although there will be some LAS who will turn the ball more than some RAOS's.

Noe, imparting spin requires a physical effort more than is normally appreciated. The viciousness of Harbhajan's and Murali's spin on almost any surface comes from the 'work' that their fingers do on the ball. This 'strength' is less in the case of left handers.

I am of the firm opinion that this is due to the fact that humans are by nature right handers and its the right hand side and the right side limbs which are physicaly stronger by nature. This, of course, has to do with the heart being on the left side. For the same reason, some of the fastest bowlers down history have ben right handers and the left arm new ball bowlers hav been medium to medium fast.

If the left arm spinners could turn the ball as much as a right hand off spinner (Murali and Harbhajan are prime examples) can do, hewould be much more devastating than the off spinner. The fact that Giles or Vettori are so successful has more to do with the fact that they take the ball away from the right hander than because theycan impart great spin.

 

[Pratters]

This, of course, has to do with the heart being on the left side.

The heart is at the centre. It is only tilted towards the left which is why it feels it is on the left side when one tries to hear the heart bit.

Bit of basic biology.

 

[SJS]

An interesting article on left handers in todays Indian Express

LONDON, DECEMBER 10: French scientists believe they may have discovered why left-handers are so common, despite suffering disadvantages when it comes to handling tools, disease risk and historical prejudice in predominantly right-handed societies against the ‘cackhanded’.
Because it is substantially inherited, and can be a disadvantage, scientists have puzzled for years over what it is about being left-handed that helps survival, or the ability to reproduce.
Now it seems that left-handers are more likely to thrive in a violent society. A team reported in Proceedings of the Royal Society Bulletin that because they are in the minority, left-handers have a strategic advantage in fights. The reason is not that they are innately superior but that their opponent is likely to be more used to combat with right-handers, according to Dr Charlotte Faurie and Dr. Michel Raymond of Universite Montpellier II, France. The team was inspired by the observation that left-handers have an advantage in sports such as fencing, tennis, cricket and baseball.
They reasoned that sports in western societies are special cases of fights, with strict rules. Thus it could be that being left-handed in a right-handed society may offer an advantage in fights. ‘‘If this is true, then the advantage of being left-handed should be greater in a more violent context, which should result in higher frequency of left-handers.’’
They decided to test their idea. Studies have shown the number of left-handers in the Kreyol people of Dominica, the Ntumu people of Cameroon, the Dioula-speaking people of Burkina Faso, Baka people of Gabon, Inuit people, and the Eipo people in Irian Jaya, New Guinea. When the team studied the rate of murder in each society, they found ‘‘a significant positive correlation between homicide rates and left-handedness frequencies.’’
In societies, being able to win fights meant more than killing opponents, enabling warriors to gain status, and impress women. The same forces are at work in sports. Athletes, particularly men, have more ***ual partners than their couch-potato peers. Because left-handers often have a competitive advantage in sports, they are more likely to enjoy this benefit. —Daily Telegraph

 

[a massive zebra]

Leg spin, which got a big boost after the great South Africans 'invented' the googly

Nope. A certain BJT Bosanquet invented the delivery. The 1907 South Africans mastered it and managed to control it.

 

[SJS]

Nope. A certain BJT Bosanquet invented the delivery. The 1907 South Africans mastered it and managed to control it.

I am aware of Bosanquet and the name 'bosie' given to the googly but it is an old , un resolved debate as to who really got it first. Its not important to get into that. Lets say when Bosanquet and his South African fellow cricketers....

 

[a massive zebra]

I am aware of Bosanquet and the name 'bosie' given to the googly but it is an old , un resolved debate as to who really got it first. Its not important to get into that. Lets say when Bosanquet and his South African fellow cricketers....

Bosanquet was born in Middlesex and played for England. It is widely believed that Bosanquet invented the googly in 1897, first used it in a match in 1900 to dismiss a batsman on 98 with a ball that bounced four times, he then managed to bamboozle Australia with it and win the Ashes back down under in 1903/04. Finally, then when Bosanquet went over to South Africa he showed it to Vogler, Faulkner and Schwartz who managed to control it better.

Bosanquet wrote: "Somewhere about the year 1897 I was playing a game with a tennis ball, known as ‘Twisti-Twosti.’ The object was to bounce the ball on a table so that your opponent sitting opposite could not catch it... After a little experimenting I managed to pitch the ball which broke in a certain direction; then with more or less the same delivery make the next ball go in the opposite direction! I practised the same thing with a soft ball at ‘Stump-cricket.’ From this I progressed to the cricket ball..."

 

[SJS]

Bosanquet was born in Middlesex and played for England. It is widely believed that Bosanquet invented the googly in 1897, first used it in a match in 1900 to dismiss a batsman on 98 with a ball that bounced four times, he then managed to bamboozle Australia with it and win the Ashes back down under in 1903/04. Finally, then when Bosanquet went over to South Africa he showed it to Vogler, Faulkner and Schwartz who managed to control it better.

Bosanquet wrote: "Somewhere about the year 1897 I was playing a game with a tennis ball, known as ‘Twisti-Twosti.’ The object was to bounce the ball on a table so that your opponent sitting opposite could not catch it... After a little experimenting I managed to pitch the ball which broke in a certain direction; then with more or less the same delivery make the next ball go in the opposite direction! I practised the same thing with a soft ball at ‘Stump-cricket.’ From this I progressed to the cricket ball..."

I agree.

Most sources accept Bosanquet as the 'inventor' and then credit the South African quartet of Vogler, Faulkner, Schwarz and White for perfecting it.

 

[Pratters]

http://ind.cricinfo.com/db/ARCHIVE/CRICKET_NEWS/2004/DEC/125671_COL-REWIND_11DEC2004.html

Some more stuff on Bosanquet put by cricinfo today..

 

[marc71178]

Worked for Giles alot this summer.

Erm, don't the West Indies have a fair few lefties?

 

[marc71178]

ahhh... memories of Giles v Sachin.

The stupid thing about this is that it worked, but England got slated.

 

[bryce]

The ball spins away from the righthander no matter which side of the wicket you bowl.

if you look at my post i mentioned spinners in general are more effective when it is spinning away from the batsman, i was not referring to left-arm spinners specifically.

 

[Tom Halsey]

Erm, don't the West Indies have a fair few lefties?

NZ were included in that statement too, and he got a few of the WI right handers out too, I hasten to add.

 

[Richard]

The viciousness of Harbhajan's and Murali's spin on almost any surface comes from the 'work' that their fingers do on the ball.

The viciousness of Murali's spin comes from his double-jointed wrist, not his fingers.
I've never seen any evidence that Harbhajan, no more than Saqlain, can turn the ball more than any other fingerspinner.
The difference with Saqlain and Harbhajan is their doosra.

 

[Richard]

Most batsmen are right handed and I have this feeling its much more difficult for the left hand spin bowlers to become strike bowlers as they bowl a lot outside the leg stump or the batsmen pad to them.

If you think of it, not many great left arm spin bowlers comparing with other categories over the years.

What say?

Left-arm fingerspinners (or read fingerspinners in general) can no longer be great bowlers.
The day of the fingerspinner being a great ended with covered wickets.
It's most pronounced in England, where rain is more common. In England before 1970, there were bowlers of the success of Rhodes, Verity, Lock, Laker, and Underwood - whose career straddled the two periods, and it's no coincidence at all that his average before summer '71 (there were no Tests in 1970) was in the mid-teens, and afterwards it was nearly 30 and two of his best series were in the subcontinent.
Of course, left-arm fingerspinners have the advantage of their stock-ball turning away from the right-hander (who is usually the most common batsman), so sucessful left-armers tend to be a bit more common than succesful right-armers. This is certainly borne-out in that 4 of the 5 I list above were left-armers.
It's been said a few times that the best way for left-armers to bowl is around-the-wicket if the ball is turning appreciably - Giles may be stereotyped as an over-the-wicket bowler but he's actually had quite a bit of success bowling around, too, most notably in Pakistan and Columbo, 2000\01. His success at Trent Bridge, Lord's and Edgbaston last summer was mostly bowling over, showing that both can be effective if you bowl them well.
It all comes down to what's best in individual circumstances, I guess.

 

[Tom Halsey]

I've never seen any evidence that Harbhajan, no more than Saqlain, can turn the ball more than any other fingerspinner.

In which case you haven't watched him bowl in the ICC Trophy.

 

[Richard]

One-day cricket - notice how I deliberately mentioned Tests only?
In one-dayers, Saqlain and Harbhajan are above average - you only need to look at Saqlain's ODI record to realise that.