Leading Oz coaches refuse to teach doosra

[BoyBrumby]

I know what you are getting at, but Ponting actually bowls his mediums and some off spinners as well.

I'm not sure if he is pace only, but I know he used to bowl off spinners.

Don't wanna derail the thread too much, but I reckon he coulda been very useful if he'd worked more on his bowling (only ever seen him seam-up myself). When he brought himself on in 2005 (picked up his opposite number if memory serves) he swung it at over 80mph. Think his back mitigated against him bowling more too, or so I read once.

 

[Matt79]

Early days Taylor used him a few times in the role Ponting himself has tried to use Hussey occasionally. Except being Taylor, it often seemed to result in an immediate wicket.

 

[GIMH]

Don't wanna derail the thread too much, but I reckon he coulda been very useful if he'd worked more on his bowling (only ever seen him seam-up myself). When he brought himself on in 2005 (picked up his opposite number if memory serves) he swung it at over 80mph. Think his back mitigated against him bowling more too, or so I read once.

Flintoff said it was the most difficult bowling he faced all summer. I think it was Flintoff, anyway, someone did (not Vaughan, I don't think, who he did get out)

 

[Richard]

Great spinners are not taught how to bowl, Murali for instance was not the creation of coaches teaching him how to bowl and the same with Warne. These players had something that was special and the coaches job was to teach them how to play the game using their talent. Warne was mentored by Jenner who encouraged him to have the confidence to do what he does best. Jenner didnt say here this is how you bowl it was more of a talk about what he needs to do to succeed. Murali was the same it was not a coach that came along and said here Murali you should bowl like this or do it this way it is more of a mentor role to help them deal with the mental side of playing cricket.

Mendis is another, nobody taught him how to bowl he just had the talent and needed to be mentored on how best to use that talent. Bowling coaches identify talent then teach the bowler how best to use what talent they have. Most fast bowlers that adjust their action at the request of coaches end up failing miserably. Coaches dont teach players how to bowl, they may suggest some minor adjustments but very little.

This idea that a coach has to be able to bowl the doosra before they can coach a player is poppycock and shows the lack of understanding some people have of what a coaches role is.

To teach someone who does not know how to bowl something how to bowl it requires the knowledge of how to bowl it. Simple as.

No-one taught Warne to bowl a Flipper - that is, no-one demonstrated the techniques and gave him run-throughs. He just watched other people do it and learned it.

Different players require different coaching. Some require to be shown how to bowl entire deliveries; some just need a bit of mentoring and occasional guidance about what to do under certain circumstances. There is no way a coach has one concrete role - an outstanding coach must be able to do it all, as well as recognise what they need to do with which players.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Streetwise brings up a lot of good points.

One of the overriding problems is that accuracy is a little too highly rated amongst the junior bowlers. You end up with a lot of players who have come through juniors getting out lots of batsmen by frustrating them out, or being more patient than the bowler. That gets you selected for representative teams.

Once you reach senior cricket, you need to start spinning the ball. I remember having a session with Jenner, and he told me how so often a young spinner tells him how their best asset is their accuracy, and how they come to him to learn how to spin the ball. Maybe pick these "accurate" kids in your representative sides if that's what they need, but they need to keep on helping these kids who can spin the ball to develop as well.

 

[vic_orthdox]

No-one taught Warne to bowl a Flipper - that is, no-one demonstrated the techniques and gave him run-throughs. He just watched other people do it and learned it.

Was always sure that Benaud passed it onto him...

 

[Richard]

Flintoff said it was the most difficult bowling he faced all summer. I think it was Flintoff, anyway, someone did (not Vaughan, I don't think, who he did get out)

A decent-ish part-timer who hardly bowls for whatever reason can sometimes have that effect. Not totally sure it was Flintoff who said that as I can't remember whether he faced him or not.

Certainly on the precious rare occasions I saw Ponting bowl his seam (his spin was always filthy) he looked decent. Had his back allowed, I reckon he could've been in the Symonds category - very useful fifth\sixth seamer, crap fingerspinner.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Warne was mentored by Jenner who encouraged him to have the confidence to do what he does best. Jenner didnt say here this is how you bowl it was more of a talk about what he needs to do to succeed.

Actually, with Jenner, it's "you must bowl in this manner", which happened to perfectly suit Warne, and helped Jenner make a very comfortable living off the back of that.

 

[Richard]

Was always sure that Benaud passed it onto him...

He might've done TBH - was just a throwaway line. Could as easily have said no-one taught Qadir to bowl the Flipper.

 

[vic_orthdox]

A decent-ish part-timer who hardly bowls for whatever reason can sometimes have that effect. Not totally sure it was Flintoff who said that as I can't remember whether he faced him or not.

Certainly on the precious rare occasions I saw Ponting bowl his seam (his spin was always filthy) he looked decent. Had his back allowed, I reckon he could've been in the Symonds category - very useful fifth\sixth seamer, crap fingerspinner.

There's also the, "Oh my, I really can't get out to this guy" mentality of it. Then if he starts bowling well and builds some pressure, it only gets worse.

 

[GIMH]

A decent-ish part-timer who hardly bowls for whatever reason can sometimes have that effect. Not totally sure it was Flintoff who said that as I can't remember whether he faced him or not.

Certainly on the precious rare occasions I saw Ponting bowl his seam (his spin was always filthy) he looked decent. Had his back allowed, I reckon he could've been in the Symonds category - very useful fifth\sixth seamer, crap fingerspinner.

Yeah, I don't remember him facing him but I'm sure I read it in Being Freddie

 

[Richard]

Would be rather odd if he said that without facing Ponting TBH so there's a couple of possibilities: 1) he wrote that someone else said it in Being Freddie or 2) someone else said it somewhere else and you mixed that up with Being Freddie.

 

[BoyBrumby]

There's also the, "Oh my, I really can't get out to this guy" mentality of it. Then if he starts bowling well and builds some pressure, it only gets worse.

Pity Fat Bob didn't have that mentality. Remember him spunking away a good start (had made 50 IIRC) to Martyn's (Damien not Corrin) gentle little seamers. WACA in 02/03, maybe?

 

[Pup Clarke]

Memory and a half!

 

[TT Boy]

Surely an SLA bowler could bowl a doosra? Whatever you might like to call it, the delivery would just be the mirror image of an off-spinner's version. Pretty sure Panesar has spoken about practicing one in the nets at least. Chinamen bowlers' wrong 'uns are called just that, so I guess their orthodox brethren's ball that goes the other way might just as welll be called a doosra.

Regardless, my point still stands, it is possible for finger spinners to make a go of things without the delivery.

He bowled one before in a 20/20 game in Aus. Straight up chuck.

 

[Richard]

Pity Fat Bob didn't have that mentality. Remember him spunking away a good start (had made 50 IIRC) to Martyn's (Damien not Corrin) gentle little seamers. WACA in 02/03, maybe?

Memory and a half!

Had made 47 TBH - can tell you that without looking it up. Also got out to Stephen Waugh in the SCG first-innings, for some form of single-figure score (not sure what).

 

[vicky]

In re the SLA bowling the Doosra:

My feeling (as an orthodox finger spinner) has always been that the Doosra is less necessary to the SLA...

The reason being that an SLA bowling around the wicket to a right handed batsman has the advantage in that his straighter ball will invariably be angling back into the batsman thereby effectively making it a change of direction akin to the doosra.

As far as what vic_orthodox was saying re the types of spinners being selected... I have to admit that I was (am) one of those accurate spinners who doesn't turn the ball a great deal... one of the reasons I stopped playing grade and went to park cricket was the knowledge that I was not gonna get very far for that very reason...

edit: need to add the reason i mention this is that it supports the proposition that non-spinning accurate bowlers are being selected ahead of more attacking bigger turners... even without really turning the ball I was able to conistently take hatfuls of wickets... I also noticed that it resulted in a lot of batsman struggling when it came to a wicket that offered a little bit of assistance to the spinners as they are all so used to facing "spinners" who don't turn the ball...

 

[pup11]

Great spinners are not taught how to bowl, Murali for instance was not the creation of coaches teaching him how to bowl and the same with Warne. These players had something that was special and the coaches job was to teach them how to play the game using their talent. Warne was mentored by Jenner who encouraged him to have the confidence to do what he does best. Jenner didnt say here this is how you bowl it was more of a talk about what he needs to do to succeed. Murali was the same it was not a coach that came along and said here Murali you should bowl like this or do it this way it is more of a mentor role to help them deal with the mental side of playing cricket.

Mendis is another, nobody taught him how to bowl he just had the talent and needed to be mentored on how best to use that talent. Bowling coaches identify talent then teach the bowler how best to use what talent they have. Most fast bowlers that adjust their action at the request of coaches end up failing miserably. Coaches dont teach players how to bowl, they may suggest some minor adjustments but very little.


This idea that a coach has to be able to bowl the doosra before they can coach a player is poppycock and shows the lack of understanding some people have of what a coaches role is.

Likes of Mendis and Murali are naturally gifted cricketers, and their techniques and style of bowling are more self developed then anything else, the same too could be said about Warney, and in his case the guidance he got from Jenner only helped him further develop strong points of his bowling.

Though I don't think any of these spinners would have been effective had their individuality not been respected, when I look at most of current Australian spinners, I don't see that to be the case.

The things at the coaching level just don't seem to be going right because from what I have seen and read about this, every spinner in Australia is being taught to follow the same set of stereotypical rules while learning how to bowl spin, without taking into account what their strong and weak points are, and as a result lot of current Aussie spinners are pretty similar to each other in the way they operate.

The spin coaches have also failed to iron out some basic technical problems that the spinners are having, White is a good example, there was a time when he was working hard on developing his bowling with Jenner, but he failed to do so, because with a bowling action like his, its virtually impossible to bowl accurately or get any sidespin, and it pretty baffling a spin coach couldn't help him correct such a obvious error.

 

[Streetwise]

Likes of Mendis and Murali are naturally gifted cricketers, and their techniques and style of bowling are more self developed then anything else, the same too could be said about Warney, and in his case the guidance he got from Jenner only helped him further develop strong points of his bowling.

Though I don't think any of these spinners would have been effective had their individuality not been respected, when I look at most of current Australian spinners, I don't see that to be the case.

The things at the coaching level just don't seem to be going right because from what I have seen and read about this, every spinner in Australia is being taught to follow the same set of stereotypical rules while learning how to bowl spin, without taking into account what their strong and weak points are, and as a result lot of current Aussie spinners are pretty similar to each other in the way they operate.

The spin coaches have also failed to iron out some basic technical problems that the spinners are having, White is a good example, there was a time when he was working hard on developing his bowling with Jenner, but he failed to do so, because with a bowling action like his, its virtually impossible to bowl accurately or get any sidespin, and it pretty baffling a spin coach couldn't help him correct such a obvious error.

This is what I'm talking about, White does not have the talent that Warne or Mendis has and there is nothing you can do to make him a Warne or Mendis. If it was that simple every team would have a Warne and a Murali along with a McGrath and Ambrose in their team. Coaching is indentifying the talent then developing it which are skills that Jenner and Mallett both have.

 

[Richard]

Debateable that Jenner has it TBH. Many people have commented that he's not really much of a coach who just happened to work well as a personal mentor to Warne.