Finger spinners are still Test match winners

Australia’s Nathan Hauritz appeals for the wicket of England’s Paul Collingwood during the final day of the first cricket test match between England and Australia in Cardiff, Wales, Sunday, July 12, 2009. AP Photo/Tom Hevezi

Durban and Melbourne are thousands of miles apart with a couple of things in common, namely they both host Boxing Day Test matches and that they are both considerably warmer than where I am.

However, in the past week both cities, or being more precise the Kingsmead and Melbourne Cricket Grounds, have witnessed events that have put a significant dent in a widely held theory that finger spinners don’t win matches in the modern age.

The old-fashioned art of finger spin has long been deemed to be a barely breathing relic in a game that has moved on. Bigger bats, smaller boundaries, 20-over games, covered pitches, have all surfaced as causes of the slow death of the slow bowler.

Unless you bowled leg-spin or were able to produce unorthodox deliveries on demand, then you might have well been perfecting your drinks carrying skills because that was all you were good for. This theory was based on some fact, after all the leading spin bowlers in the world over the past decade have been Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan, Anil Kumble and Harbajan Singh, all of whom dished up a form of the art that was the
antithesis of the traditional spinner.

Aside from the persevering New Zealander Daniel Vettori, spin had to be wrist-based if it was to have any chance of playing its part in winning games.

As recently as a couple of weeks ago, I read a column by Nasser Hussain that highlighted the need for wrist spin or extreme pace if wickets are to be taken on good batting pitches.

And that leads us nicely back to Durban and Melbourne.

England thumped South Africa and Australia hammered Pakistan and the two victories were inspired by, you guessed it, finger spinners. The off-spinning pair of Graeme Swann and Nathan Hauritz took nine and six
wickets respectively and proved that old-fashioned skill can operate and
prosper in the hurly-burly of the modern cricketing world.

Just because it lacks glamour, and isn’t the first choice on any youngster’s list of skills to learn, doesn’t make it any less valuable.

Australia’s massive gaffe in omitting Hauritz from the decisive Oval Test in the summer – it has looked more and more short-sighted with time – and Swann’s match-winning performance in the same game showed that spin, when delivered thoughtfully and accurately, will do more than its fair share of damage.

And when the added bonus of runs to be played with is on their side, any spinner worth their salt can influence the course of a contest.

Warne, although revitalising spin bowling in the international game, has a lot to answer for in that every side, and England were suckers for this, felt that they had to have a leg-spinner in their ranks.

Nonsense of course, but it isn’t difficult to see why that was the case given the scale of the Australian’s influence throughout his career.

Well Warne’s day has passed and while the word waits for the next great leg-spinner, Swann and Hauritz are doing their best to show that, while the game may have progressed in certain areas, modern thinking isn’t necessarily an improvement on what has gone before.