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Old February 27, 2014, 03:50 AM
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RazabQ RazabQ is offline
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Shakibrulz, you are taking one meaning of the phrase "turn the ball" which is to cause it to deviate from it's original path. I've been watching the guy from day one and of course he has bowled his share of unplayable deliveries. I should have been more precise about "turn the ball" - in spin parlance it often refers to the RPMs you impart on the ball, aka the rip. When you impart a lot of rip on the ball you may still not get a lot of deviation off the pitch but you will get drift and dip during flight and the ball, on a sporting surface would spit off the pitch. Big turners of the ball amongst finger spinners of recent times: Swann, Harbhajan and Murali. Leggies because they get to use the whole wrist, in general, get more of a rip. Naturally Warne would come to mind but watch even an Ish Sodhi (who is 1/10th the spinner Shak is) and you'll notice the ball comes out of his hand with more of a rip. The highlights you show have some lovely delivery but I'd argue (and I just went and checked the Willow highlights for the last 2 seasons) that he's lost whatever little explosiveness he had on his deliveries after his shin injury. For further proof, ask yourself how many of his recent deliveries has the keeper collected above the waist?

Now can you be a successful international spinner if you don't give the ball a huge rip? Well Anil Kumble is living proof that disproves that. More recently Rangana Herath has had a decent run as Sri Lanka's lead bowler and he probably rips the ball the same degree as Shak. But would you call Herath a match-changing kind of bowler?

Look Shak is the best thing we've got now but facing him on a flat pitch will not scare a good batsman.
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