So why do England play spin so abysmally now?

[wpdavid]

We haven't always been this bad. Not great, obviously, but recognisably competent on most occasions. In recent past, it's not hard to think of guys like Thorpe, Trescothick, Vaughan and others playing fine knocks against better attacks than this.

So why the decline? Rubbish county set-up that's now dominated by fitting in as much 2020 as possible? Pre-tour complacency on the part of this particular group of players? Other?

 

[Strike!]

Ajmal has mentally scarred them.

 

[sledger]

Lack of Nasser.

 

[unam]

theesra after effects

 

[Burgey]

Why do people think this is a recent phenomenon? England has mostly been **** against spin since the late 80s.

 

[GIMH]

No-one wants to hear about the 1880s

 

[benchmark00]

Why do people think this is a recent phenomenon? England has mostly been **** against spin since the late 80s.

Yeah this is exactly right. MacGill and Warne feasted on their carcus many times. I've never known England to be even remotely competent against spin.

 

[Viscount Tom]

We've never been this laughably poor.

Mind you of the past 5 years or so we've only had what Collingwood who was good against spin on most occasions, suppose you could add Vaughan on the odd occasions he lasted long enough to face spin.

 

[Burgey]

No-one wants to hear about the 1880s

Back when your nation was relevant?

 

[Burgey]

England remain one of, if not the best side to deal with conditions akin to their own and those in SA. Also to those we've seen recently here in our wetter summers. Not dissimilar to our side in the mid-90s which took a few years to begone winning on the SC.

I suppose they need to schedule more and more A tours to the SC to familiarize their young players with the conditions there.

 

[Turbinator]

Back when your nation was relevant?

 

[Cricketismylife]

England have always been poor players of spin; I dont think they have got any worse, it's just that there was no DRS before. Apart from Thorpe and Crawley (who had problems against pace outside off stump) I dont think I've seen many natural England players of spin. Trescothick I think is a bit overrated, but in his defence he made up for his lack of natural ability against spin, by devising a simple method to play against it.

The reason they are poor is lack of wristiness. Take Alastair Cook who has been out on 3 occasions this winter working the ball to the leg side; instead of using a straight bat and turning his wrists to the leg side at the last second, he is shovelling the ball which increases the chance of a leading edge. Mark Butcher was another one who seemed to shovel the ball off the front foot through the leg side, instead of working it with his wrists.

Then there were players like Alec Stewart, who was a very accomplished player and timer of pace bowling, but who looked clueless against spin. His movements always seemed out of sync and when he defended he either pushed forward with too hard hands or hid his bat behind his pad. Nasser Hussain was similar. With DRS these guys would have been even worse against spin.

As I have said before Trott is the best batsman on the England side and especially against spin. He has quite low hands and a technique suited to low bouncing pitches. I feel he may have a slight weakness on a very fast bouncy wicket, but of all the England batsman he has the least technical faults.

 

[Cabinet96]

England remain one of, if not the best side to deal with conditions akin to their own and those in SA. Also to those we've seen recently here in our wetter summers. Not dissimilar to our side in the mid-90s which took a few years to begone winning on the SC.

I suppose they need to schedule more and more A tours to the SC to familiarize their young players with the conditions there.

AWTA, tbf to them, they have started doing this.

 

[HeathDavisSpeed]

Yeah this is exactly right. MacGill and Warne feasted on their carcus many times. I've never known England to be even remotely competent against spin.

Pretty sure Tim May had a pretty good series against them in England in 1993 as well. Watched him bowl to them at Lords and (as I recall) he fairly matched Warne and massively outperformed Such and Tufnell.

 

[Furball]

Lack of familiarity with, and therefore lack of technique and mental approach to deal with, the challenge of facing spin from both ends on slower, lower wickets than they're accustomed to.

The same spinners tying England in knots this winter have toured England in the last 18 months and got belted - because in England, it was them dealing with unfamiliar conditions, often fighting a lone battle without the luxury of men round the bat.

 

[silentstriker]

Lack of familiarity with, and therefore lack of technique and mental approach to deal with, the challenge of facing spin from both ends on slower, lower wickets than they're accustomed to.

The same spinners tying England in knots this winter have toured England in the last 18 months and got belted - because in England, it was them dealing with unfamiliar conditions, often fighting a lone battle without the luxury of men round the bat.

I don't buy the conditions because England got destroyed on flat pitches in the UAE too. Wasn't much different to flat conditions in England. Yet they play it completely differently. I really don't think it's technique - I agree that it's mental - it has to be primarily so.

 

[Burgey]

I don't buy the conditions because England got destroyed on flat pitches in the UAE too. Wasn't much different to flat conditions in England. Yet they play it completely differently. I really don't think it's technique - I agree that it's mental - it has to be primarily so.

Don't disagree with this as a factor, and a major one. In the UAE they seemed bereft and were content to just decent and wait to get out. Then they tried a different mind set at times and went down slogging. They need to find a happy medium.

I think Pietersen is the. If disappointment in terms of playing spin. He played Warne and Murali pretty well a lot of the time, and now he is falling to lesser bowlers regularly, albeit they are bowling well. If he was scoring runs well, I think a lot of the problems for the team would fall away, frankly.

 

[Furball]

I don't buy the conditions because England got destroyed on flat pitches in the UAE too. Wasn't much different to flat conditions in England. Yet they play it completely differently. I really don't think it's technique - I agree that it's mental - it has to be primarily so.

I reckon it's more the mental challenge of spin from both ends with men camped round the bat. Subcontinental spinners don't get that luxury in England.

England struggle in general in really alien conditions. We had a similar discussion after they got blitzed in Perth in the last Ashes.

 

[Jono]

SS, flat and slow is different to flat and not slow. The slow tracks makes the England batsman feel that they can play back, but if they misread length and play back to a ball that you should be playing forward they get caught out.

The conditions are playing a part, which ****s with them mentally, which ****s with their technique etc. It's not just one thing.

 

[Andre]

It's a funny one. The teams that struggle against spin on a very regular basis are England, Australia, South Africa and NZ.

There is a pretty common trend there that all 4 countries really struggle to produce spinners too. They tend to use them to rest quicks or tie up an end, so there is no exposure to attacking spin bowling.

Hence, the habit is to rock back, don't do anything silly and see them off. You can't do that against really good quality attacking spinners - they adjust and come out on top.

It's no coincidence that the best players of spin in the world - Clarke, Younis etc - play with every positive intent, avoid the cross-bat shots to balls that will hit the wicket and use their feet to a high percentage of the balls to meet them down the wicket