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The history of innovations in cricket

Dissector

International Debutant
For this thread I am thinking of innovations in batting,bowling and fielding rather than things like ODI's ,covered pitches etc.

For instance Ranji is generally credited with pioneering the fine glance and perhaps the late cut. It doesn't necessarily have to be the absolute first player to play something but just someone who has established it as an integral part of the game.

Other examples include the reverse sweep which is generally credited to Hanif Mohammed, the doosra which was invented by Saqlain and perfected by Murali, reverse swing which was pioneered by Safraz Nawaz and perfected by Waqar and Wasim. (Interesting to see so many Pakistanis in there incidentally).

Are there any other such examples? Did someone pioneer the yorker, googly, slower ball etc.?

What about fielding? One of the interesting innovation of recent years is the relay throw and the sliding stop. Which fielders or teams first used this?
 

Robertinho

Cricketer Of The Year
Warne and the flipper. (Maybe not the first to use it, but the flipper would be NOTHING without Warne :laugh: )

The "shot over the head" by Ryan Campbell.
 

Dissector

International Debutant
"Douglas Marillier. That amazing shot of his!!"
Never heard of it. Can you describe it?

The flipper was firmly established by the likes of Benaud long before Warne was even born. From what I gather from a bit of surfing, it appears that Clarrie Grimmett may have pioneered the flipper in the 30's. Can anyone confirm this?
 

Pratters

Cricket, Lovely Cricket
From cricinfo profile on Marillier -

He also showed outstanding improvisational skills in the one-day game, and gained great kudos in Zimbabwe in February 2001 by twice lapping low off-side full-tosses from Glenn McGrath over his shoulder for four in the final over of a Perth one-dayer when 14 were needed (Zimbabwe lost by one run). He repeated the shot with devastating effect in a famous one-day victory over India at Faridabad in 2001-0.

:)
 

Dissector

International Debutant
BTW I googled Bosanquet and it turns out he is the leggie credited with the googly. However the doosra is different since it's bowled by off-spinners. I don't think anyone bowled it before Saqlain. I remember watching a Pakistan game when a distinctly skeptical Benaud was going on about how he had known many off-spinners and not one could turn the ball the other way. So it was definitely a huge innovation when Saqlain pulled it off .
 
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Tom Halsey

International Coach
Dissector said:
"Douglas Marillier. That amazing shot of his!!"
Never heard of it. Can you describe it?

The flipper was firmly established by the likes of Benaud long before Warne was even born. From what I gather from a bit of surfing, it appears that Clarrie Grimmett may have pioneered the flipper in the 30's. Can anyone confirm this?
Grimmett invented it (there is a story about Bradman complaining Grimmett was inventing so many new deliveries that he didn't know how to bowl a leggie anymore. Grimmett came up against Bradman not long after, bowled him off stump straight away with one that turned a mile, and shouted "That'll teach him I can bowl a leggie!")

Bosanquet invented the googly, and at first the Aussies all complained it was cheating! He didn't have much success at test level though because he was quite inaccurate.
 

a massive zebra

International Captain
Tom Halsey said:
Bosanquet invented the googly, and at first the Aussies all complained it was cheating! He didn't have much success at test level though because he was quite inaccurate.
Only won a test series with it. 8-)
 

a massive zebra

International Captain
K.S. Ranjitsinhji on W.G. Grace in The Jubile Book of Cricket:

"He revolutionised cricket, turning it from an accomplishment into a science; he united in his masterly self all the good points of all the good players and made utility the criterion of style... He turned the old one-stringed instrument into a many chorded lyre, a wand. But in addition he made his execution equal his invention. Possibly Grace's most far reaching achievement was to master both forward and back play and draw on both with equal dexterity. Until his time, a man was either a back player like Carpenter or a forward player like Pilch, a hitter like E.H. Budd or a sticker like Harry Jupp. But W.G. Grace was each and all at once."
 

Autobahn

State 12th Man
I think Mushtaq Mohammed had a big hand in the development and popularisation of the reverse-sweep along with Javed Miandad, andy flower and mike gatting even though he bungled it sometimes. :D
 

BoyBrumby

Englishman
Warne for inventing "ghost" deliveries, like his "zooter". I personally doubt it ever existed, but him announcing he's got yet another ball in his armoury always seemed to confuse our more credulous batsmen.

& the fact it never existed didn't stop Benaud being able to call it during play either! :D
 

Tom Halsey

International Coach
a massive zebra said:
Only won a test series with it. 8-)
He had one or two good matches no doubt, but became such a liability with his economy rate (somethign like 3.5 an over, which was fairly collosal for those days) that he was soon dropped and never played again.
 

Tom Halsey

International Coach
BoyBrumby said:
Warne for inventing "ghost" deliveries, like his "zooter". I personally doubt it ever existed, but him announcing he's got yet another ball in his armoury always seemed to confuse our more credulous batsmen.

& the fact it never existed didn't stop Benaud being able to call it during play either! :D
He bowled it a fair bit in The Ashes, and got it mistaken for the slider. According to Warne, the slider is a leggie but not spun as hardly, so it doesn't turn, and the zooter is a backspinner, in effect, out of the front of the hand. Everything that didn't spin seemed to be called a slider, but only some were, others were the zooter (I've based this on watching replays of the ball spinning as it's going through the air).
 

LongHopCassidy

International Captain
Can't really go past Imran and Sarfraz Nawaz for inventing reverse swing.

Also Steve Waugh for popularising the slower ball.
 

Dissector

International Debutant
"Sonny Ramadin was bowling the doosra, or something to the same effect, in the late 1940s."
Cricinfo says:"He bowled right-arm offbreaks and legbreaks with no discernible change of action.". That sounds very much like a doosra but for whatever reason it didn't catch on and it was left for Saqlain to re-invent the delivery fifty years later.

Incidentally has a left-arm orthodox bowler ever developed a doosra? I have heard that Vettori has the ball but isn't yet proficient enough to use it in matches.
 

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