Best Slow-Left-Arm Bowler?

[Gowza]

Originally Posted by King13
I agree Vettori for some reason has not performed well against India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, where as Herath has done better than him, In terms of ODI I think Vettori is an out-right winner. Maybe we will have a better understanding when Herath reach's 100 ODI's.

yeah it's a no contest in ODIs between these 2, though i don't think that necessarily makes vettori the #1 left arm ODI spinner ever.

[Gowza]

what's interesting with herath is that before murali retired herath's stats in tests were horrible.average 37, strike rate 75 from 22 matches. since murali retired he's averaged 24 (nearly 25), and struck at 57 from 25 matches. that's a massive difference. i guess the time he spent out of the team due to murali being so great actually helped him.

[MohammedShamim]

Originally Posted by Gowza
what's interesting with herath is that before murali retired herath's stats in tests were horrible.average 37, strike rate 75 from 22 matches. since murali retired he's averaged 24 (nearly 25), and struck at 57 from 25 matches. that's a massive difference. i guess the time he spent out of the team due to murali being so great actually helped him.

I don't think his the out-right winner in term's of the Best SLA at the current moment, Look at this player: Abdur Rahman from Pakistan: His strate rate 66, Economy of 2.57 and Average of 28.40, already has 81 wickets from 17 Match's. The only negative part is that he has played less match's. I think its pretty hard to actually answer the question, who is the best SLA at the moment.

[Gowza]

Originally Posted by King13
I don't think his the out-right winner in term's of the Best SLA at the current moment, Look at this player: Abdur Rahman from Pakistan: His strate rate 66, Economy of 2.57 and Average of 28.40, already has 81 wickets from 17 Match's. The only negative part is that he has played less match's. I think its pretty hard to actually answer the question, who is the best SLA at the moment.

well to me current means last 12 months, you could possibly say jadeja, rehman has only played 2 matches in the last 12 months but they weren't good. now last 2 years is different rehman averages 25 striking at 59 that's from 9 matches, whereas herath in the last 2 years averaged 24 striking at 56 from 20 matches. so over the last 12 months it's herath or jadeja, rehman comes into it if you go the last 2 years but herath still has better stats from more than double the number of matches in that time period.

[BengaliPagol]

Razzak rules the roost.

[Gowza]

herath catching vettori in ODIs, not in wickets of course but certainly in other stats like average, strike rate, econ rate.

[jeesh]

Heres an interesting question. Why dont SLA's exert the same influence as off spinner or leg spinner. You talk about the best spinners of the world in the last 20-25 years, Warne, Murali, Saqlain, Mushtaq Ahmed, Kumble, Harbhajan comes up. In present context Swann, Ajmal, Ashwin.

Why is it that an SLA never makes it to the best/legendary spinner category. You do a fantasy team, would you pick Swann/Ajmal or Herath. I doubt the latter.

[Gowza]

Originally Posted by jeesh
Heres an interesting question. Why dont SLA's exert the same influence as off spinner or leg spinner. You talk about the best spinners of the world in the last 20-25 years, Warne, Murali, Saqlain, Mushtaq Ahmed, Kumble, Harbhajan comes up. In present context Swann, Ajmal, Ashwin.

Why is it that an SLA never makes it to the best/legendary spinner category. You do a fantasy team, would you pick Swann/Ajmal or Herath. I doubt the latter.

yeah i'm wondering to, chinaman as well. but there are a lot of SLA's around right now with razzak, elias, shakib, herath, vettori, agar, jadeja so maybe now is their time? herath has been brilliant in test matches over the last 3 or so years.

[jeesh]

Originally Posted by BengaliPagol
Razzak rules the roost.

He may be our highest wicket taker, but i think he is far from our best spinner. Ability wise i rate both Shakib, Enamul higher.

It puzzles me, but although Razzak ages, he doesnt mature and continues to bowl inconsistently. Some series he bowls very well, in some he is no better than a new comer bowling short, wide, over pitching. He hasnt developed his armory either and solely relies on his 100 kph arm balls more than anything else.

If you remember Rafiques bowling there was a lot of maturity. He was extremely wily, maintained a very tight line and read the batsmen very well. You could always count on him to give you 10 tight overs. Whether you need an early wicket, or you are defending a tight score you could give him the ball and tell him Rafique do the job for us. Even the oppostion respected him. In this way Razzak isnt someone you can trust at all!

[Gowza]

Originally Posted by jeesh
He may be our highest wicket taker, but i think he is far from our best spinner. Ability wise i rate both Shakib, Enamul higher.

It puzzles me, but although Razzak ages, he doesnt mature and continues to bowl inconsistently. Some series he bowls very well, in some he is no better than a new comer bowling short, wide, over pitching. He hasnt developed his armory either and solely relies on his 100 kph arm balls more than anything else.

If you remember Rafiques bowling there was a lot of maturity. He was extremely wily, maintained a very tight line and read the batsmen very well. You could always count on him to give you 10 tight overs. Whether you need an early wicket, or you are defending a tight score you could give him the ball and tell him Rafique do the job for us. Even the oppostion respected him. In this way Razzak isnt someone you can trust at all!

it's not just wickets being the highest wicket taker, he has has a decent ODI average to go with it.

[Gowza]

btw, herath in ODIs in the last 12 months: 18 matches, averages 21.3, econ 3.99, strike rate 32.

[Jadukor]

Originally Posted by jeesh
Heres an interesting question. Why dont SLA's exert the same influence as off spinner or leg spinner. You talk about the best spinners of the world in the last 20-25 years, Warne, Murali, Saqlain, Mushtaq Ahmed, Kumble, Harbhajan comes up. In present context Swann, Ajmal, Ashwin.

Why is it that an SLA never makes it to the best/legendary spinner category. You do a fantasy team, would you pick Swann/Ajmal or Herath. I doubt the latter.

I think it is a question of individual talent rather than the type of bowling (Off Spin, Leg spin or SLA) that they do. Warne, Murali, Saqlain, Kumble were just better bowlers than the rest and same can be said about Swann and Ajmal. I think Swann is very effective because he extracts a lot of turn as a finger spinner and Ajmal is so dangerous because of all the variations he has. When we have an SLA who is a huge turner of the ball with lots of variations, I am sure he will also find a place among the all the greats despite being SLA

[Gowza]

Originally Posted by Jadukor
I think it is a question of individual talent rather than the type of bowling (Off Spin, Leg spin or SLA) that they do. Warne, Murali, Saqlain, Kumble were just better bowlers than the rest and same can be said about Swann and Ajmal. I think Swann is very effective because he extracts a lot of turn as a finger spinner and Ajmal is so dangerous because of all the variations he has. When we have an SLA who is a huge turner of the ball with lots of variations, I am sure he will also find a place among the all the greats despite being SLA

As long as they also have the variations, accuracy etc to go with that turn. Agree that it's simply a matter of talent rather than style especially when you consider how many truly great spinners there have been that have rivalled or come close to rivalling what fast bowlers have to offer.

[jeesh]

Heres a very interesting read on the emergence of left arm spin in the last decade or so. Must read- http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine...ry/595633.html

[jeesh]

Heres another interesting post i found on the topic

In terms of wickets, New Zealand's Daniel Vettori was the most successful left-arm spinner in the history of the game. He has 345 Test wickets from 105 Tests at an average of 33.98.

That left-arm spinners are not successful is a debatable point. Remember that left-handed bowlers are rare in the first place. For example, Wasim Akram is the only left-arm bowler with over 400 Test wickets. Does that mean that left-armers are not successful? Given that there are hardly left-arm bowlers, the probability of one of them storming the charts like Muralitharan or Warne is pretty rare.

In cricket's history, there have been some good left-arm spinners like Bishan Bedi. One other possible reason is that finger spin is not as effective as wrist spin. Muralitharan is an exception, but to call him a finger spinner is to undermine his talent. Muralitharan could rotate his wrists and his shoulders, so he was really a finger spinner who bowled with a lot of wrist action.

There are very few slow left arm unorthodox bowlers (left arm wrist spinners), so left arm finger spin is the dominant bowling style of left-arm spinners. If we discount Murali (who was a prodigy and biomechanical masterpiece) then Harbhajan Singh is the most successful finger spinner with 406 wickets from 98 matches. The reason for finger spin being less successful than wrist spin is because the ball doesn't turn as much and wrist spinners generally do more with the ball in the air and off the pitch. Also, batsmen can usually see the ball well with a finger-spinner's action, whereas they find it harder to pick the wrist spinner's deliveries.

This is why Murali's wristy action gave him an advantage. Batsmen just could not see what he was doing with the ball most of the time. Even Brian Lara, who played Murali with aplomb, suggested that he didn't really pick Murali. However, he was able to see when Murali would get discouraged and it became easier to play a deflated, discouraged Muralitharan. This is where Lara said that Shane Warne had the edge, because Warne always believed he'd get his man and never let his shoulders drop.

If wrist-spin is more effective than finger spin, you'd think that the chinaman bowlers (slow left arm unorthodox) would have more success. However, the chinaman bowlers turn the ball from off to leg (just as an offspinner). They'd need to bowl to more left-handers to really create more problems. Chinaman bowlers are generally far less successful than leg break bowlers, who turn the ball from leg to off.

Source: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/in...5072502AAVY1PS

[jeesh]

Originally Posted by Jadukor
I think it is a question of individual talent rather than the type of bowling (Off Spin, Leg spin or SLA) that they do. Warne, Murali, Saqlain, Kumble were just better bowlers than the rest and same can be said about Swann and Ajmal. I think Swann is very effective because he extracts a lot of turn as a finger spinner and Ajmal is so dangerous because of all the variations he has. When we have an SLA who is a huge turner of the ball with lots of variations, I am sure he will also find a place among the all the greats despite being SLA

I do agree with your view. We probably havent had a very skilled slow left arm spinner. Vettori for instance is a very intelligent, attack minded spinner. But its just orthodox spin, he doesnt have the x factor to take apart a batting lineup or put fear in their minds. Herath is also excellent, but its consistent accurate spin bowling with some variation. Swann in contrast will cause nervousness even before the match starts. As a coach of the opposition much of your preparation will be how to deal with Swann. Your batsmen will be thinking about him.

Much of Australia's struggle with Swann in the current Ashes series is psychological than technical.

[Gowza]

i didn't know this until recently but michael bevan did a decent job as a chinaman bowler in tests, 29 wickets from 18 tests with an average of 24.24 and a strike rate of 44.3. he was being used as the 2nd spinner.

[Gowza]

Originally Posted by jeesh
I do agree with your view. We probably havent had a very skilled slow left arm spinner. Vettori for instance is a very intelligent, attack minded spinner. But its just orthodox spin, he doesnt have the x factor to take apart a batting lineup or put fear in their minds. Herath is also excellent, but its consistent accurate spin bowling with some variation. Swann in contrast will cause nervousness even before the match starts. As a coach of the opposition much of your preparation will be how to deal with Swann. Your batsmen will be thinking about him.

Much of Australia's struggle with Swann in the current Ashes series is psychological than technical.

reckon herath could make some batsmen nervous nowadays. i mentioned his ODI record of the last 12 months where he's averaged in the 21s and had an econ of just under 4 and striking at 32. we his test record over the last 3 years, he's averaged 24.91, econ 2.6 and struck at 57.3, taking 129 wickets in 25 matches. those are impressive numbers by any standards. he did even better in just the last 2 years of tests and even better again in the last 12 months averaging 22.13, striking at 49.9 and taking 46 wickets in just 7 matches. jadeja has a pretty impressive numbers over the last 12 months as well.

herath's overall record averaging under 30 and striking just under 64 still puts him right up there, obviously not warne, murali, o'reilly etc level but for comparison anil kumble averaged 29.65 in tests and struck at 65.9 and yet he's considered one of the greatest of all time. sure kumble has the high number of wickets and herath doesn't but still, 200 wickets and a career that has spanned nearly 15 years proves herath's longevity regardless imo. and really you can split his career into two parts, before murali and after murali. after murali he's been as good as any spinner ever.