Bowlers: cricket’s ever-changing survivors

Sunil Narine of the West Indies delivers a ball during the first match of the Tri-Nation series at the Sabina Park stadium in Kingston on June 28, 2013. The spinner has bamboozled batsmen would over with remarkable consistency. (Getty Images)

Spinners bowling with New Ball:

If reverse swing has brought the pacers back into the game during the middle overs, spinners have given themselves a new lease of life by being just as effective with the new ball. There was a time when it was believed that spinners find it difficult to grip the ball properly when it is hard and shiny, and consequently they don’t get maximum purchase with the new cherry.

There are some opening batsmen, who are not very comfortable to use their feet against a spinner early on in their innings. A spinner can prove to be their nemesis in the opening overs. We have seen spinners exploiting this chink in the armour of explosive batsmen like David Warner and Chris Gayle.

Similarly in Tests, when the track offers slow turn and low bounce, spinners bowl with the new ball to extract maximum dividends. Graeme Swann turned the second Test against Sri Lanka in England’s favour by picking up two wickets with a fairly new (nine overs old) ball last year in Colombo.

Carrom spin:

It can be considered a third category of spin bowling after leg spin and off spin, as the middle finger and thumb flick oddly resembles a player flicking the striker in the indoor game of carrom.

While over use of the same can prove to be detrimental – as was the case with Ajanta Mendis – a judicious use of the same along with the traditional stock deliveries of a spinner can yield rich dividends. India’s R Ashwin and Sunil Narine of the West Indies are two torch bearers of carom spin at the moment.

Ken Ravizza, one of the world’s most renowned sports psychologists, had once stated, ‘Adversity is the fertilizer of growth’. In cricket, the bowlers have proved him right.