Culture | The history of spin bowling

Cricket's revolutionaries

A wily and mysterious art

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Twirlymen: The Unlikely History of Cricket's Greatest Spin Bowlers. By Amol Rajan. Yellow Jersey Press; 400 pages; £16.99. Buy from Amazon.co.uk

FAST bowlers are cricket's showmen, eliciting gasps as they hurl down deliveries capable of snapping batsmen's ribs. But the game's most successful bowlers are its spinners. Appreciation of the spin bowler's art separates the cerebral fan from the bloodthirsty. Where fast bowlers are described as fearsome and snarling, spin bowlers attract adjectives such as wily or mysterious.

Or fat. This is a point to which Amol Rajan often returns in “Twirlymen”, a wonderful book tracing the history of spin bowling. Spinners need a contortionist's fingers, not the athleticism of a fast bowler, which is why it has thrown up some unlikely heroes. F.W. Lillywhite, an early pioneer, for example, “couldn't get his underarm past his belly”. Other misfits fill the book's pages. Muttiah Muralitharan, a Sri Lankan whose 800 Test wickets may never be exceeded, imparts fizz on the ball, in part, due to a congenital arm defect. Bhagwat Chandrasekhar gained extra whip thanks to an elbow withered by childhood polio.

Spin bowlers are the game's revolutionaries. Even their mysterious lexicon—googlies, Chinamen, flippers, doosras—suggests constant innovation. When the googly was first unleashed at the end of the 19th century, batsmen huffed that it wasn't in the spirit of the game because they couldn't tell which way the ball was about to spin.

As much as spinners have changed the game, the game has also changed them. Some ancient styles have died out. Sydney Barnes, who played for England from 1901, and is considered by Mr Rajan the most complete bowler of all time, was a spinner who bowled at medium pace, thought impossible today. Indeed, until recently many thought that all spin bowling was heading toward extinction. Covered wickets and short boundaries had turned them into batsmen's fodder. But then came Shane Warne, who spun the ball so viciously that he could pitch the ball outside leg stump and hit off. Today, Ajantha Mendis is perplexing batsmen with his “carrom” ball, which requires mind-boggling digital strength. Thank heavens. Cricket is more fascinating for their flourishing.

This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline "Cricket's revolutionaries"

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