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This page represents only my own views, and not those of any university or other body. Posted Sunday 29th January 2012 at 11.42pm My two-penneth on England's travails against spin I have some advice for England's cricketers! They haven't been doing very well against Pakistan. "But Matt," I hear you say, "you scored two runs in three innings in the Pirates of the Saint Lawrence Snow Cricket World Cup, what makes you think you could do better?" Well, you have a very good point, but I spent half of Friday night awake watching that wretched performance and now it's payback time. (And besides, even if I wouldn't have done better, I couldn't have done much worse, right?)  First of all, Ajmal's doosra is a bit of a red herring. Of course it's useful to be able to pick it, but that's not the biggest issue for England's batters. Ajmal doesn't turn the ball a huge amount. The difference between his regulation off-spinner and the doosra is probably less than the difference between Graeme Swann's off-spinner and his arm ball. The key is the pace at which they bowl. On pitches like the ones in the UAE, the turn is very slow, and batters can predominantly play back to Swann, watching the turn off the pitch. Pakistan's spinners bowl much quicker, giving the batters less chance to react to changes in trajectory after the ball bounces - and regardless of whether you can pick the doosra, there are natural variations in the amount of turn, depending on whether the seam or the leather hits the pitch, whether the ball lands on a crack or a divot, and so on. So in effect it's impossible to "pick" Pakistan's spinners. If they pitch the ball up, then there's just not enough time between the ball bouncing and reaching the stumps for you to be able to accurately read the amount of turn. So how do you play them? The key is to judge length early. The pace at which they bowl also makes it difficult to dance down the pitch, so you need to see quickly whether you can get your foot to the point at which the ball will bounce - thus meeting it before it has time to turn - or whether it's too short for that, in which case you get right back in your crease and watch the turn off the pitch. From what I've seen several of England's players have premeditated which of these two approaches they will use: for example Pietersen has been plunging his front foot down the track every ball, which invites the Pakistani bowlers to bowl slightly shorter so that he can't reach the ball before it bounces. Strauss, on the other hand, plays back every time, so the bowlers just bowl fuller, decreasing the available reaction time. So that's my view: don't premeditate, but make an early judgement on length. Easier said than done of course, but we're talking about some of the best players in the world. And if they want evidence that it can be done, they should watch footage of Kumar Sangakkara during Sri Lanka's tour of the UAE last year. A master at work. On the plus side, it was great to see Monty back in the side! Return to blog Comments Write a new comment: |
