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What happened to big spinners of the ball?

Starfighter

Starfighter

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Anyhow, it's amazing how many people have run off into theories without asking if the OP's premise was true (and I don't think it is).
 
Starfighter

Starfighter

Cricket Web: All-Time Legend
Prince EWS said:
I do think leggies coming through are more likely to rely on variations and deceit than big ripping leg breaks, which is probably due to a mix of DRS and that style being more useful in T20 cricket...
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While I agree current leg spinners rely a lot on variation - and they are nearly absent from tests - as for the 'big ripping leg break' some months ago I watched a very famous performance that rather confirmed a view I'd been building for some time.

Benaud's 6/70 at Old Trafford in 1961 was for many years the archetypal example of a legspinner going around the wicket and bowling into the rough. Someone recently uploaded highlights for the whole match, which unlike previous ones were much longer and not distorted and blurry.

On an obviously worn pitch where puffs of dust had been coming off early, it was astonishing how little Benaud was turning the ball - or any of the other spinners where visible (the wrong way camera is an obstacle). And that's despite bowling quite slowly. Only a few deliveries even seem to turn more than the width of the stumps.

And to be honest that seems to be common with many spinners up to very recently. Having had a decade of watching Lyon generally give them a big tweak (unfortunately not so much recently) I often wonder how it was possible for some bowlers to turn the ball so little.
 
Migara

Migara

Cricketer Of The Year
Big ripping leg breaks is a rarity to start with. From the past i can only think of Grimmet and Gupte who spun it big.

However 80s and 90s produced Qadir, Mushtaq, Warne, MacGill and Chandana all spun it pretty sharply. That is more than the grand total.

And among finger spinners Rajesh Chauhan spun it the most. He was rivalling Murali some times.
 
Immenso

Immenso

International Vice-Captain
I dont recall Chandana being a big turner, unless I'm mixing up in my head with Asoka de Silva, who was the king of the straight leg rollers.
 
B

Blenkinsop

U19 Cricketer
The few Test wrist-spinners from the 2000s have spun it pretty hard, from memory. Danish Kaneria, Devendra Bishoo, Kuldeep Yadav for example. They just weren't all that successful, I guess mainly because they lacked Warne's consistency and/or bowled too slowly.
 
Coronis

Coronis

Cricketer Of The Year
Migara said:
Big ripping leg breaks is a rarity to start with. From the past i can only think of Grimmet and Gupte who spun it big.

However 80s and 90s produced Qadir, Mushtaq, Warne, MacGill and Chandana all spun it pretty sharply. That is more than the grand total.

And among finger spinners Rajesh Chauhan spun it the most. He was rivalling Murali some times.
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Have never heard this about Grimmett. From all accounts he didn’t spin the ball anywhere near as much as Mailey and took most of his wickets with a straighter ball bowled with unerring accuracy.
 
Migara

Migara

Cricketer Of The Year
Immenso said:
I dont recall Chandana being a big turner, unless I'm mixing up in my head with Asoka de Silva, who was the king of the straight leg rollers.
Click to expand...
Chandana spun it square in test matches when he slowed it and looped it. In ODIs he bowled wicket to wicket, but did bowl some gems. The on in Singer cup to Bevan was one of the best. Asoka de Silva was Kumble like, and bit slower too.

This is another one. When Chandana got in to classic leg breaks mode, he produced balls like this

 
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Migara

Migara

Cricketer Of The Year
Coronis said:
Have never heard this about Grimmett. From all accounts he didn’t spin the ball anywhere near as much as Mailey and took most of his wickets with a straighter ball bowled with unerring accuracy.
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Anecdotes mention that the non striker could hear the hum of the ball spinning when Grimmett bowled. Only Murali and Warne has been associated with such feat since. It is difficult to fathom when a bowler spins it that hard it goes straight, unless he preferentially bowled top spin deliveries. That is unlikely because Grimmet is said to have a very good flipper. Flipper will not be effective unless your stock ball spins appreciably (like Warne or Qadir), or tops 10-15k speed as Kumble's.
 
P

peterhrt

U19 Cricketer
Ray Robinson comparing Mailey and Grimmett:

In Australia I believe Mailey was more dangerous, because his flight was more deceptive in the light atmosphere and he screwed a snappier break from the granite-like turf. Grimmett got more turn on the Adelaide pitch than other Australian grounds. Too wise to wear his fingers to the bone for little gain, he often bowled more straight ones than anything else on the first two days, and relied on wily changes of pace and flight.....

In England Grimmett was the better. In the denser atmosphere he could make the ball dip and duck, and he turned it enough on the less-laundered wickets to bowl some of the greatest batsmen behind their legs. On dead pitches which robbed the keenest breaks of sting and made other slow right-handers ineffective Grimmett's control enabled him to bowl away steadily and wheedle the batsmen out.
 
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