The State of Spin Part One

A batsman in touch smashing down the ground, sweeping and switch-hitting is a rush of blood to the head. A fast bowler loping in like a timber wolf with eyes hungrily fixed on the top of off stump or banging them in short on that terrifying deodorant length are arguably the most thrilling sights in a great game of cricket. But nothing, nothing quite compares to a truly great spinner weaving his web of deception and guile.

Shane Warne is gone, it is time we just accepted it. He returned to the Ashes only in commentator form, something that really as Englishmen we should be thankful for. Had he been present at the Oval it is highly likely things would not have gone so well. We were only treated to the briefest of cameos on the pitch when he coached some of the young academy spinners but there was no keeping Shane out of the game even if he was not an active participant. His contributions to the commentary box were easily one of the more fascinating elements of the 2009 Ashes series. His insights were refreshing, witty and very welcome. But if you, like me, find spin bowling to be THE sight of cricket then understandably you were disappointed. Through the course of the series we saw Swann, Panesar and Hauritz giving the ball a flick. To a lesser extent we also had Katich, Clarke and North to satiate our appetite for twirlers. But did any of them really provide the same kind of banquet we have come to expect from an Ashes series? Of course not. The haute cuisine Warne has provided in both the fast food format of 20/20 and the decadent twelve course Roman feasts we have glutted upon in both Tests and previous Ashes encounters has spoiled us utterly. It is unfair to expect this current crop of spinners to provide the same levels of skill and entertainment.

Unfortunately Warne’s best days are now behind him and we’ll never see him on the international circuit again. It was a privilege to see his all too brief cameos during the IPL and I am sure every Australian and cricket fan alike wishes he would come back for just one more series. Alas it is not to be, despite the premature talk some months ago of million dollar deals. Warney has found solace in all those activities, notably poker at which he excels, that he has been unable to pursue due to the gruelling international schedules. It makes perfect sense that his spinners mentality should so suit a game based around cunning and deception. So if Shane is away spinning his web on the Texas hold em tables who do the Aussies have to step into his sizeable boots.

The truth is that they have relied on Warne, MacGill and Hogg for far too long. After the exodus of aging genius’ from the international side they are inexplicably left with some journeymen off spinners and three unreliable leg break bowlers. The names you will recognise in the leg break department are Bryce McGain and Cameron White. Neither name would fill you with hope as an Australian nor fear as an Englishman. McGain was unceremoniously hammered out of the park at Cape Town earlier this year, recording disastrous figures of 0-149, and White’s bowling has been inexorably dwindling for some time now. In India he had ideal conditions but seems to be going through the classic leg spinners nightmare of having lost his leg break. At least he has his batting to fall back on; the same cannot be said for McGain who I doubt we shall ever see gracing a Test Match again.

We have come to expect quality wrist spin from the Aussies so it has come as something of a shock to see them come over here this summer with an assuredly underwhelming spin department. Before the series I would have argued that the Australian Captain and selectors would have been wiser to play the less reliable but infinitely more exciting Jason Krenzja; who during the Chappell-Gavaskar Series bowled some of the most uneven spells of off spin you might ever see in the professional game of cricket. His match figures of 12 for 250 were a nightmarish blend of obvious talent and a lack of control that must have sent Ricky Ponting’s head reeling. He did himself no favours when they returned home against New Zealand and was promptly dropped in favour of Nathan Hauritz. But he is exactly the kind of spinner I would pay money to see, he gets rapacious revolutions on the ball and his larrikin nature is comparable to the outgoing Warne.

However, Hauritz was the man of choice for the Ashes. He offered the control that Krenzja does not but he relies on a favourable pitch to give him bigger turn. That said at the beginning of the series his confidence must have been at an all time low after the battering he has taken in both the English and Australian press and he rose to the occasion beautifully. He had as much to prove as any other man in the Ashes and one must have respect for the way he came through such a tough time. Kevin Pietersen obligingly playing ridiculously adventurous shots in the first test might have helped as well. Clearly he was not the pathetic figure the media had painted him to be and it was sheer insanity on the part of the Australian Captain and selectors that he was not chosen for the final test. He may not be the most thrilling spinner we will ever watch but undoubtedly he has earned his baggy green.

Hauritz, however, is only part of a group of young Aussie spinners who have been around for some time in State cricket and have regularly been tipped to progress from rising stars to burning suns. Such illumination unfortunately has been sucked into a black hole as they have now ceased orbiting at the very highest level. Some have said it is an exciting time to be a young Australian spinner but Dan Cullen (Off spin), Cullen Bailey (Leg Spin), Beau Casson (Chinaman) and Hauritz have all been through the mill on their journeys to the harsh universe of international cricket. Many of them made their international debuts with totally unrealistic hopes pinned upon them.

Beau Casson debuted in the West Indies over a year ago following the shock retirement of Stuart MacGill. He was solid at the Kensington Oval if somewhat unremarkable. His action is uncomplicated (rather like Katich’s in fact) and he demonstrated a very hard to pick wrong ‘un. Mysteriously the selectors decided not to take him to India. He then promptly disappeared back to State cricket and has since been plagued by injuries and a thoroughly chaotic 2008/9 resulted in banishment to the fringes of the NSW side after a season that yielded just seven wickets at 91.00 in eight matches.

The two Cullen’s are easily the most gifted of the four and as well as sounding like a Dickensian law firm oddly both play for same state team. They fulfil my own criteria for a spinner in that they give the ball an almighty flick and have both a googly and a doosra in their respective sac des ruses. Most of the truly great spinners of the modern age have these weapons at their disposal and it is only the truly brilliant who can play at this level without them. Dan Cullen made his one-day debut way back in 2006 and then disappeared from sight but then was South Australia's leading one-day wicket-taker in 2007-08 with 13 at 28.30. This boded well for the future until a bad run in the Pura Cup (18 victims at the high price of 49.44) coincided with a time when the selectors decided to give Cameron White his opportunity. Since then he has not featured in the reckoning.

Cullen Bailey is the only right arm wrist spinner of the quartet and the natural successor to the Warne mantle. He is one of the Warne Kids of the early nineties who grew up inspired by his idols 7-50 at the SGC against the West Indies and of course THAT ball to Gatting back in ’93. Just like Warne he was taken under the wing of Terry Jenner, as sober and realistic a mentor as he could hope to have. When Warne had an inauspicious start to his career it was Jenner who kept a wise and enthusiastic eye upon him. Bailey of course originally modelled his action on Warne’s, arms languidly down by his side, a deceptive amble to the popping crease followed by a perfectly powerful rotation propelled by those mysterious hips, wrists and shoulders. But as he grew older and taller he found he had to alter this and so looked to another legend, Richie Benaud. His action still has traces of Warne about it in terms of its dynamism but his action really is a carbon copy of Benaud’s.

All of this should stand him in good stead but he too has had a tough time breaking through after yet another promising start. Cricket Australia obviously rated him when they awarded him a central contract but his performances have been typically up and down, as one might expect from a young leg spinner. After a debut in the final Pura Cup game of 2004-05 the next summer he bowled the Redbacks to victory over Tasmania with 5 for 146, earning 18 wickets at 47.55 in six matches including a memorable stumping of Michael Bevan. But his pairing with Dan Cullen has hurt his cause somewhat, whenever the club choose to play only the single spinner inevitably the leg spinner suffers, perhaps he will have to shift his allegiances to escape the drawbacks of being second choice.

So it would seem that even in the spiritual home of leg spin the art is still overlooked and abused; a common curse that occurs right from schools and club level up to the international game. Leg spin whilst supreme in its deadliness is also easily the most humbling skill in cricket for a young man. But at only 24 years of age Bailey still has plenty of time to get it back together and state his case for a place in the rich annals of Australian leggies. Many ex-players such as Peter Philpott, Jenner and Warne himself believe that a leggie only really comes to maturity in his late twenties and early thirties. So despite the harsh realities of being a struggling leg spinner he should remember that four of the top Australian bowlers of all time are leg spinners; theirs is a country simply dying to embrace the genius of yet another.

Even Don Bradman himself rated leg spin as the greatest bowling art of them all, he bowled it himself part time and picked Bill O’Reilly as the most difficult bowler he ever faced (Though arguably he may have chosen Clarrie Grimmett had their not been such animosity between the pair). It was ironically an English leg spinner who ended his hopes of finishing his career with a 100 average. Eric Hollies of Warwickshire served up the googly that sent Bradman, with eyes clouded over with tears, back to the pavilion. Afterwards Bradman was quoted as saying: "No ball bowled is as difficult as one which leaves the bat and goes towards the slips. The really good leg-break beats them all.” Never was there a truer sentence uttered.

Check back next week for part 2...