The Changing Role of Spin Bowlers

[Richard]

I have divided the 130 years of test cricket into six era according to the year in which they made their Test debuts. They are colour coded in the graphs.

• Turn of the century (19th/20th) and before : Maroon
• End of WW1 to 1950 : Lemon green
• 1950's : Blue
• 1960's & 70's :Dark Green
• 1980's & after : Yellow

There are specific reasons for the way these are divided.

• - The first era was predominantly that os under prepared wickets, poorer batting and thereby better (relativerly speaking) bowling figures
• - The second era which I like to call the Bradman era was a time of great run scoring, generally very good batting wickets and aggressive batting.
• - The 50's (upto the mid sixties) is a special era when after the war, we found batsmen going off to sleep. Batting was painfully slow, batsmen prefered to play as often with their pads as with their bats.
• - From the mid sixties onwards, authotities started worrting about the dullness that had crept into the game affecting attendences and a change started sweeping over the game. It also started an era of more and more players from abroad playing in the English domestic season and overall standards world wide (particularly in Pakistan and West Indies saw a big improvement).
• - Finally from 1980 onwards when the limited overs game had been in existence for a decade or more, batsmen started becoming more aggressive than probably any other time earlier in the game.

...to be continued

SJS, if you could also do one for, involving the UK and West Indies only (it'd work differently in Australia):
19th-century
1900-1930
1930-1949
1950-1969
1970-1990
1990-current day
For Australia perhaps:
19th-century
1900-1919
1920-1954
1955-1990
1990-current-day

 

[SJS]

Leg Spin

- The first great leg spinner in this list is Grimmett and he made his debut only in 1925 ! Thus n maroon columns here. Since then the strike rates have almost entirely remained between 60 and 68. Not such a great deviation really.

- The two bowlers who had a strike rate above 70 are both from the sub-continent - Subhash Gupte (75.7) and Abdul Qadir with 71.4. I sugest that this is because of the lack of any great bowling support (spin and even more importantly even pace) from the other end, particularly in the case of Gupte. This is not to decry the Indian bowlers of those times but to compare with the attacks the more successful leg spinners have bowled in.

- The two bowlers with strike rates under 60 are both from Australia and both from recent times - Warne (57.5) and MacGill (53.1). Theu both were part of great Australian attacks in a time of near complete dominance of their side in world cricket. I dare say, MacGill has benefitted also from Warne staying away from some of the easier series.

- At the risk of being condemned I would also suggest that this is not a time of batsmen greatly skiled in playing spin. The best of such players have come from India and the fabulous stats (including strike rates) of the leading spinners of our times are considerably more modest when its the Indians who are batting.​

 

[honestbharani]

This wonderful piece of literature.

lol... not exactly proud of the way I put it, but yeah, I do think NZ were over rated, and I guess I have been vindicated since then.

 

[SJS]

Off Spiners

- Most spinners in the first era were finger spinners and of these, the best of the right handed ones, took to bowling fast or medium pace. Most fast bowling was off break or break-back as it was often called. Hence we see only one really successful tight hand off spinner - Hugh Trumble.

- Starting from Trumble till the modern times, the strike rates of off spinners are not too dramatically different from leg spinners. The off spinners take about five more deliveries (or so it appears) to take a Test wicket. Hence other than Trumble's 60.9, all other low strike rates are between 65 and 73.

- The fifties present a different picture altogether. Ramadhin, Titmus, Illingworth and Gibbs who all made their debuts in the fifties have strike rates between 81.7 and 93.1. I think the negative batting of the fifties and sixties had a lot to do with it. Gibbs who debuted in 1958 and went on till the mid 70's has the best strike rate of the lot. Illingworth who spans the same period in not that good because he just wasnt as good a bowler The leg spinners are not very adversely affected by this tactic.

- There are two bowlers almost at the two extreme ends of this list of off spinners who have lower strike rates. Laker (59.5) and Murali (54.5). We have to accept that they are both the best off spinners of all time and hence they also have the best strike rates of all.

- Murali's figures are strikingly better. I feel because of his doosra and the higher chance of getting an LBW decision when a batsman playing forward id hit on his front pad.​

 

[SJS]

Left arm spinners

- As suggested earlier, the bulk of the great spinners of the 19th and early 20th century were left arm spinners, hence the four here, Peels, Briggs, Rhodes and Blythe have strike rates much lower than all left arm spinners who followed them.

- There is a big gap between Blythe (debut 1901) and Blythe (1931). Infact there is no great spinner of any kind between them except Grimmett (1925). Thats another story for another day.

- While off spinners need five balls more than the leg spinner per wicket, it would appear that the left arm spinners need between 5-10 deliveries more than right off spinners. Between Verity and today all left arm spinners strike at between 70 and 93 balls per wicket. Panesar at 65 is too early in his career to make a good case for comparison. There is no trend in this over time although you do have individual variations eg between Verity and Mankad (who follows the Englishman as next in line) of 18 balls which can only be attributed to the difference in class. or between Edmonds and Qasim for the same reason.​

 

[Prince EWS]

I've been proud of it for ages TBH, full credit to Manraj for displaying it for all to see mind.

What's more interesting is when you bring a game against Bangladesh into a selection debate a few posts later in that thread...

 

[Richard]

I do? Have to check that out...

 

[Manee]

I do? Have to check that out...

Richard, could you stop using my real name on the forums, please. Haven't had an issue with it in the past, but something has happened which has changed my mind.

Thanks

Manee.

 

[Richard]

Oh, okeydokey.

BTW, confound you - I've just read down that thread for the first time in ages, and was reminded that once I could say this

I am 18 years of age

Dammit. How I miss those days.