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Where are all our leg spin bowlers?

8th July, 2013
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Former Australian cricketer Shane Warne
Roar Guru
8th July, 2013
12
2505 Reads

We were told when Shane Warne first burst on the scene in the 1990s that his success would generate a number of youngsters wanting to take up leg spin bowling.

But here we are nearly 20 years later and the tidal wave hasn’t happened.

Australia has always had a fascination with leg spin. It’s an aggressive, attacking type of bowling that suits the nature of how we play the game.

Growing up in the ’70s and ’80s the game was dominated by the Australian and West Indies fast bowlers and I can remember the late Bill O’Reilly, champion leg spinner and journalist, banging on continuously about the forgotten art of leg spin.

Australia always looked a better side with a leg spinner in its attack. Even back then in 1989 Trevor Hohns played an important role in the Ashes victory. Preceding this Peter Sleep was another who made cameo appearances.

The leg spinner is a much more potent weapon than the finger spinner, particularly in Australian conditions so when Warney burst on the scene his era was the most successful in Australian cricket history.

Fortunately or unfortunately, we also had another name in Stuart McGill who in another time would’ve been known as a truly great leg spinner, however was always in the shadow of Warne.

The proposal of the Australian hierarchy to push forward Fawad Ahmed eligibility to play Test cricket illustrates the lack of leg spinners currently in first class cricket. On the back of the Warne phenomena we have failed to harness the young leg spinner.

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In more recent seasons the Sheffield Shield sides have played without a recognised spinner.

This has a twofold effect. One is no flow on to the Australian team providing a lack of spin bowlers to select from and two the Australian batsmen do not get the opportunity to play spin bowling at a high-level. So when we go on a tour of India we are exposed.

What can be done to rectify this situation and make spin bowling more attractive to young players coming through and more attractive to state sides to select them and to give them an opportunity to ply their trade. Let’s start at the top.

– We need to get more professional and appoint a national spin bowling coach whose role is to travel round the states coaching, developing, identifying and bringing through spin bowlers. This role should be on a permanent basis not on an ad hoc basis as it is now.

– A radical solution may be in introducing spin bowling quotas into Sheffield Shield games. It could be mandatory to have in a bowling innings a nominated spin bowler who must bowl 10 overs minimum in the first eighty before the second new ball.

This way spinners would have to be introduced at the latest by the 60-over mark. It would also mean that state sides would have to select a minimum of one spin bowler. It would force state captains to use their spin bowlers. This will be a good thing to promote the art of captaincy.

It would also be necessary for curators around Australia to prepare pitches suitable to spin bowling. Too often the pitches are slanted towards fast bowling and games are completed within three days.

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You can still have a pitch with first day greenness that flattens out and breaks up by the fourth day to enable the spinner to come into the game. This would also have a flow on effect for the batsmen, as the batsmen would get match practice against first-class spinners which they do not get now.

We need to protect and promote the spinners. They are an important weapon in Australian cricket history and going forward one that we need to promote better.

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