Turning the Tide
Text: Ami Kapilevich. Article from the January 2012 issue of Sports Illustrated Magazine.
Spin bowling has traditionally been perceived as a problem in South African cricket. Sports Illustrated takes a closer look at the issue, and uncovers some interesting developments.
It’s 30 overs into the second Australian innings at the Wanderers. Ricky Ponting is on 39 and young Usman Khawaja is on the brink of his maiden half century. Morné Morkel has been ineffective. So Smith tosses the ball to Imran Tahir.
Spare thought for the spinner at this time. The batsmen are so settled, Dale Steyn may as well be bowling balloons from the other end.
Tahir’s second ball is a full toss, and ends up at the long-on boundary. But in his fourth over, Tahir produces a bewildering googly that moves away from the left-handed Khawaja, and the ball ends up in Kallis’ enormous hands at first slip. (Kallis really does have huge hands. I once saw him walking around a shopping centre with his girlfriend. She was holding onto his pinky.)
It’s a massive wicket, just before the end of play, and makes the final day a mouth-watering prospect. But it also highlights the fact that Tahir is as close to an attacking spinner as we’ve had in South Africa in a very long time. Which raises a few interesting questions. Among them: why, exactly? We ran the question past Tahir himself.
“I think that the South African conditions have not generally been favourable to spin bowling,” the Pakistani import told Sports Illustrated. “You are more likely to find green wickets that allow pace and bounce than wickets that suit a spinner.”
It’s an easy explanation – blame it on the pitches. But with huge amounts of respect to Tahir, who learnt his sly trade on the spin-friendly surfaces of the subcontinent, it’s the tip of an iceberg.
Veteran spinner Nicky Boje hints at a much deeper root of the problem: “It was the way our teams were set up,” he muses. “It was our whole mentality, and the way we picked our teams. When I played international cricket and we went to the subcontinent there was myself and Paul Adams and that was about it. The opposition sides always picked about three or four spinners against us. But nowadays spinners play quite a big role in domestic setups and also internationally. Today if we go on a tour to the subcontinent we will also be in a position to pick three spinners.”
Proteas bowling coach Allan Donald concurs: “In the days when I played, we hardly focused on spin bowling. A spinner was a little bit of a luxury, but we also knew that we didn’t have spinners (and that’s no disrespect to them). Paul Adams was something different. We got so excited about him, and then, all of a sudden, bang, Adams was gone. (Pat) Symcox was good, but he wasn’t going to win you games. We just felt that we never had that penetration; we never had that guy who could lock a door from the one side. Harris did a fantastic job when he first started playing for South Africa. But it is … I wouldn’t say it’s a huge issue, but that’s just the way it’s been in South African cricket: we just haven’t had a world class spinner who could bowl teams out.”
But if the sport’s brains trusts had identified this as a problem, then they’d have implemented development programs and emphasized the need for a wicket-taking spinner in the national setup some time ago, right? According to spin guru Dr. Paul Botha (who co-owns spininfo.co.za), it’s not that simple.
“How do you develop quality slow bowlers? You can’t,” scoffs Botha. “They pop up when you least expect it. Mostly eccentric personalities with a dogged determination to succeed in spite of the advice from those who hand out coaching tips and strategies related to this most noble of cricketing arts. (Spin bowlers) are the thinkers of the game – they depend on guile and skill and a knowledge of the game that easily transcends most fast bowlers of the day.
“You can’t teach someone to be a spin bowler. You need to provide the surroundings for them to develop and blossom in. This includes captains who promote spin bowling and understand the role the spin bowler can play in the game plan. It involves coaches who should not try to over coach the young spin bowler but should encourage him to spin the bowl at a young age – this might sacrifice accuracy and is a delicate balancing act as the young bowler might regress to becoming a containing accurate bowler and sacrifice the spin he could be getting for a place in the first team.”
“Mostly eccentric personalities with a dogged determination to succeed in spite of the advice from those who hand out coaching tips and strategies related to this most noble of cricketing arts.” – Paul Botha
Let’s separate two important points from Botha’s statements above: first of all, the teaching and development of spin bowling, and secondly the accommodation and nurturing of the role in a team environment.
On the first point, while there is certainly evidence to support the notion that coaching stifles spin, (eg Paul Adams) there is also some evidence to the contrary (ironically, Botha himself is a case in point.) For instance, Sunil Subramaniam of the Tamil Nadu Cricket Academy in India is on a crusade to correct young off-spinners before they develop too much muscle memory to make their bowling styles problematic later on. Many wrist-spinners are accused of chucking when they become successful enough to warrant attention, as Johan Botha and Muttiah Muralitharan found out when they started taking wickets with their doosras. (For the record, Muralitharan’s action prompted the ICC to slacken their rules regarding what constitutes a legal bowling action. Botha doesn’t bowl doosras any more.) Subramaniam’s cricket academy is responsible for producing Ravichandran Ashwin, who recently took a six-wicket haul on debut for India against the West Indies.
On the second point, is an attacking spinner something of a mollycoddled maverick? Evidently, yes. We’re not going to discuss Muttiah Muralitharan or Shane Warne here. That would be like using Mohammad Ali to illustrate the effectiveness of pre-match hype in boxing, or Jonah Lomu in discussing the benefits of beefy wings. They are outliers, geniuses – freaks of nature who are so exceptional that they mainly just prove the rule.
But note how some of the best spinners playing cricket to day – the ones that are able to generate a buzz with their fizz – enjoy a very particular support from their teammates. There is Graeme Swann, who can wallow in the confidence of the best Test side in the world at the moment. And it shows. Then there’s Daniel Vettori, dubbed by more than one television commentator as “the best left arm slow bowler in the word”, who is so experienced that he probably plans his over depending on what the batsman had for breakfast.
So now that they have imported an asset in the form of Imran Tahir, do the Proteas have the wherewithal to allow him to flourish in a side that has traditionally treated a spinner as someone to prop up an end?
“There’s a pretty gaping hole in the top structures when it comes to helping spinners out,” admits Proteas spinner Paul Harris. “Most bowling coaches are seam bowling coaches, and it’s very hard unless you’ve done it to move another player’s game forward. I would love to see a guy like Anil Kumble come over here and maybe choose our top six or seven spinners and have a clinic with them. I know that England have got Mushtaq Ahmed as their spin bowling coach. I do think we need to look outside of South Africa for that guy. Maybe one of the Indian greats, get them to come out here now and then. Even if it is just around the thinking – spin bowlers think differently to seam bowlers.”
All eyes on Allan Donald after that comment. “At the moment, I just want to find out what they’re about,” Donald says. “I’m asking questions every single day. Tahir’s got so many variations. I want to know why he’s doing it, and when he’s doing it, on different surfaces. Same with Johan Botha. I’ve seen some nice young spinners out there. But I do think massive attention needs to be paid to it. For instance, do we get in more specialist coaches to help them? I know England have a barrage of technical staff who come in before a Test match – just to spend time with the spinners – and then clear off.”
“A spinner thrives on confidence,” adds Botha. “Do we ever allow our spinners to bowl with confidence? It always seems that whenever our spinners come on they are bowling for their place in the team – can this be fertile ground to operate in?”
Certainly not. But this too is changing, and according to Nicky Boje it has to do with the art of managing spin on the field of play: “The main role is that of the captain. In the older days, a spinner got the opportunity to bowl, he got hit for a couple of fours and then he got taken off and they put the seamers back on. Hansie Cronje knew exactly how to captain spinners. You normally want to give your spinner some time to settle before setting a more attacking field for them. But you can also defend well with a spinner. A captain plays a massive role in developing spinners, and making sure that they get the opportunity at the right times.”
“Graeme got better and better as he got to know me,” says Harris. “The kind of guy that I am, I asked for the field that I wanted. When that started working, he realized that that was the field that we needed. If you look at the fields that (Smith) has been setting for Imran Tahir in those (Australian) Tests, I think he’s been absolutely brilliant. He set him a leggie in case he bowled a bad ball now and again. He gave him the cover on the boundary. So I think Graeme has come to terms with bowling spin.”
There are two indications that the South African spin revolution is turning the tide of seam domination. The first is the fact that Gary Kirsten will have gleaned a lot of knowledge about spin bowling while coaching India. India’s bowling attack is built on their spinners, and they must have developed some interesting strategies to cope with spin-resistant wickets which Kirsten will have been privy to.
The second indication happened on the last day of the second Test against Australia, who were on 305-8, needing 5 runs to win the match and level the series. Test debutant Pat Cummins (replacing Ryan Harris from the first Test) has joined Mitchell Johnson in the middle, and has just missed every single ball that Dale Steyn has bowled at him.
Smith tosses the ball to Tahir.
Johnson takes a single off the second ball of Tahir’s over. Tahir’s third ball traps Cummins leg-before and Ian Gould’s not-out is referred. The ball is hitting the wickets but because the ball had hit Cummins a fraction outside the line of off stump, the umpire’s decision stands. Very, very close. Two balls later, Tahir pitches the ball short and Cummins slaps it for four.
The match is lost. The series is drawn. But – for the future of spin bowling in South Africa – the writing is on the ball.
The 100 Club By Paul Botha
The first player to take 100 Test wickets in SA history and the highest wicket taker is Hugh Tayfield, who was an off spinner. He played in the 1950s when their were still uncovered wickets which you can imagine played a big role in his success. Three other players have taken 100 Test wickets for SA. These are Paul Adams, Nicky Boje and Paul Harris most recently.
If we look at the two slow left arm orthodox bowlers Nicky Boje and Paul Harris then you see two sets of Test records which virtually mirror each other and when you compare these results to the ones of two of Englands successful slow left arm orthodox bowlers in the form of Phil Tufnell and Ashley Giles then the similarities are once again evident.
The point is that at Test level a successful slow left arm orthodox bowler is only capable of a certain amount, no matter who he plays for! So, the eternal cynics and so-called experts who pile the criticism on Paul Harris should do so after scrutinizing the statistics and not on a hunch or after watching the bowler toil away unsuccessfully on a batsman-friendly southern hemisphere wicket for a single session.
So, Nicky Boje (picture right) and Paul Harris have both plied their trade as successfully as can be expected from any slow left arm orthodox bowler at Test level. As mentioned Hugh Tayfiled had the advantage of the wickets way back then and Paul ’Gogga’ Adams had something different which only comes along every now and then. He was given a chance to express himself with his unique uncoachable style and was successful.
*Note: A bowling average is how many runs a bowler gives away per wicket he takes. An economy rate is how many runs he gives away per over. A strike rate is how many balls he balls before taking a wicket.
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