Sydney Barnes - The Bradman of Bowling?

[wellAlbidarned]

Originally Posted by Migara

Backspinners don't spin and jump. They just slides and deviates only little.

Example carrom ball vs doosra

think a few blokes would disagree with you, hitting the seam definitely makes the ball jump.

[Spooony]

Hitting the seam makes it deviate. Backspinners and topspinners are used to fool the batsman with flight. ^What said up there agrees especially Anil Kumble would

[Migara]

Originally Posted by wellAlbidarned

think a few blokes would disagree with you, hitting the seam definitely makes the ball jump.

Hitting the seam with pace, ball will bounce a lot yeah. But then it will not spin. If it swings then it has to be back spin. When it is back spin, it does not turn. And when it does not hit the seam (which is the most likely case) it will slide off the pitch. Simply spin and swing, does not occur together.

[Migara]

The most likelihood is that Barnes bowled two kinds of deliveries off two grips. First one is the orthodox seamer. Since he was a strong man, would have been fast medium with the pace. Other one would have been the leg roller, which is rolled of the back of the hand to get some spin, but bowled with a medium pacers action (poor man's example is Chris Harris). Now this would have been lot slower than his seamer, but it's still possible to be little quicker than an orthodox spinner. Any batsman of substance, would have been able to pick the difference of pace if Barnes bowled the former in high pace. Being a shrewd operator, he would have bowled his seamers little slower, so the change of speed is not apparent. With new ball, he must have bowled close to full speed with swing and seam, with one or two leg rollers to intervene. When ball got older he would have gone to leg roller mode, and with slowed down seamer to make it un-noticable. One in a while he would have let it rip with full pace. I think the cricket vocabulary during Barnes' time was very poor, and what the writers meant with certain phrases may not be the same thing used today

[watson]

Originally Posted by Migara

The most likelihood is that Barnes bowled two kinds of deliveries off two grips. First one is the orthodox seamer. Since he was a strong man, would have been fast medium with the pace. Other one would have been the leg roller, which is rolled of the back of the hand to get some spin, but bowled with a medium pacers action (poor man's example is Chris Harris). Now this would have been lot slower than his seamer, but it's still possible to be little quicker than an orthodox spinner. Any batsman of substance, would have been able to pick the difference of pace if Barnes bowled the former in high pace. Being a shrewd operator, he would have bowled his seamers little slower, so the change of speed is not apparent. With new ball, he must have bowled close to full speed with swing and seam, with one or two leg rollers to intervene. When ball got older he would have gone to leg roller mode, and with slowed down seamer to make it un-noticable. One in a while he would have let it rip with full pace. I think the cricket vocabulary during Barnes' time was very poor, and what the writers meant with certain phrases may not be the same thing used today

I thought that Barnes combined finger spin (he flicked his third finger against the ball) with wrist-spin (he twisted his wrist as though he were 'unscrewing a light bulb') rather than bowl a mere 'leg-roller'. To perform this complicated procedure the ball would have to leave the front of the hand as the following photo and article imply;

....These days medium pace and spin bowling are two distinct schools, one incompatible with the other. But there has never been a more successful style of bowling than fast-medium spin, as purveyed by Barnes in particular. He was, John Arlott wrote, "a right-arm fast-medium bowler with the accuracy, spin and resource of a slow bowler".

Barnes, "square shouldered as a tailor's model" as Alan Ross put it in his poem, is said to be by men who saw them both to have been around the same speed as Alec Bedser, which suggests he was bowling between 70 and 80mph. These days Swann is reckoned to bowl quickly for a spinner, and his average speed is around 60mph. Barnes's stock delivery was a fast leg break that swerved one way in the air and then span back the other off the pitch. He married this with a fast off break that did the exact reverse, a ball he was taught by the Australian Monty Noble, another early master of spin-swerve bowling. Barnes's particular release meant that the two were difficult to distinguish. He did not unfurl the wrist for his leg break, but rather cocked it backwards and rotated it, as though he was, as Rajan says, "unscrewing a light bulb". If you want a more technical explanation, you can find one in Bob Woolmer's Art and Science of Cricket.


This method brought Barnes 189 Test wickets at 16.43 each, and universal recognition from his contemporaries as the greatest bowler of his era. It was the swerve that did it, movement akin to the drift you still see now in good spin bowling, only faster through the air. But this was genuine spin bowling – Barnes was outraged when David Frith once had the temerity to ask him if he cut the ball? "'Cut it?' He glared, and again I wondered if he might hurl something at me. 'I spun the ball!'" The great Australian batsmen Clem Hill remembered how a "ball pitched outside my leg-stump, safe to the push off my pads, I thought. Before I could 'pick up' my bat, my off-stump was knocked silly".

The Spin | Rejoicing in the Twirlymen and the forgotten art of medium-paced spin | Andy Bull | Sport | guardian.co.uk

[Spooony]

He took wickets against Australia and SA. SA played 11 tests before their first win and played their first test in 1879 12 years after Australia and England. SA won their first test match in 1906. So was he really awesome or was there the lack of quality batsman in that era batting with bats with a sweetspot smaller than a squash ball

[Migara]

Originally Posted by watson

I thought that Barnes combined finger spin (he flicked his third finger against the ball) with wrist-spin (he twisted his wrist as though he were 'unscrewing a light bulb') rather than bowl a mere 'leg-roller'. To perform this complicated procedure the ball would have to leave the front of the hand as the following photo and article imply;

Good observation. Then he would be the first of the kind of finger flickers consisting of Iverson, Gleeson, Herath, Mendis and Ashwin. But to bowl front of the wrist, using fingerflick, he'd must have use the fourth finger, insted of third. Now this will produce forward spin, not backward spin. And from all accounts, such deliveries will dip and drift in, but won't swing at all. Still my theory of swing and spin in the same delivery cannot happen stands.

[watson]

Originally Posted by Migara

Good observation. Then he would be the first of the kind of finger flickers consisting of Iverson, Gleeson, Herath, Mendis and Ashwin. But to bowl front of the wrist, using fingerflick, he'd must have use the fourth finger, insted of third. Now this will produce forward spin, not backward spin. And from all accounts, such deliveries will dip and drift in, but won't swing at all. Still my theory of swing and spin in the same delivery cannot happen stands.

Dip and drift may not be swing from a technical point of view. But from a practical point of view I can't see the difference.

For example;

Shane Warne - Ball Of The Century - YouTube

[Spooony]

^ball of the century lol think a few quickies might disagree with that as beating a guy lie Tendulkar or Lara reflexes with pure pace is also a outstanding achievement by itself

[Migara]

Originally Posted by watson

Dip and drift may not be swing from a technical point of view. But from a practical point of view I can't see the difference.

For example;

Shane Warne - Ball Of The Century - YouTube

Drift and swing are different. Swing occurs perpendicular to the axis of rotation while drift occurs towards it. And swing has minimal impact with change of speed, while drift disappears when bowled quicker.

And that "ball of the century" is grossly overrated. Warne's ball to Basit Ali and Murali's to Sandagopan Ramesh are bigger jaffas easily.