Why English cricket turned against spin

Forty years ago, when England won the Ashes in Australia, they triumphed through spin. John Emburey and Phil Edmonds shared 33 wickets; they were two of England’s top three wicket-takers. In 2010-2011, England’s only Ashes victory down under since, Graeme Swann took 15 wickets, including seven in the win in Adelaide.

In last winter’s Ashes, England didn’t even feign the belief that they could win through spin. Will Jacks, who had taken 22 wickets in 14 matches over the previous three County Championship seasons, was England’s sole slow bowler for the last four Tests.

Picking Jacks was a classic compromise: he was selected as much for his batting at No 8 as his off-spin. His presence illustrated both the paucity of spin in the English game, and the reluctance to trust the leading slow bowlers who are in the system.

“We all know why he was picked – we felt we did need that extra batting,” Jeetan Patel, England’s spin coach, admitted midway through the defeat in Adelaide, the Australian venue that now takes the most turn. “It’s not his front-line skill. He’s probably 50-50.

“Would we have liked to have Graeme Swann out there? Probably, but we don’t have him.”

The contrast in figures was damning. In Adelaide, Swann took 7-161 in the Test, bowling 70.1 overs and conceding just 2.29 an over. Jacks conceded 3-212 from 39 overs, leaking 5.43 an over.

“Will Jacks did as good a job as he could,” says Swann. “It’s just a shame that on a pitch that was crying out for a world-class spinner, we didn’t have one.”

It is tempting to indulge in grim fatalism: to think of spin bowling as something that, like learning foreign languages, English people simply do not do. Yet, for all the current travails of English spinners, England is also the country of Jim Laker and Tony Lock, Hedley Verity, Derek Underwood, Swann, Monty Panesar and Wilfred Rhodes.

Spin’s decline in domestic cricket

A century ago, Rhodes was summoned, aged 48, for the decisive Ashes Test at the Oval, and took six wickets in the match as England regained the urn. The cricket writer Neville Cardus celebrated Rhodes in characteristically lyrical prose:

“Flight was his secret; flight and the curving line, now higher, now lower, tempting, inimical; every ball like every other ball, yet somewhat unlike; each over in collision with the others, part of a plot. Every ball a decoy, the spy sent out to get the lie of the land; some balls simple, some complex, some easy, some difficult; and of them – oh, which – the master ball.”

Long after Rhodes retired, with a haul of 4,204 first-class wickets that will forever remain the world record, high-class spin remained a staple of county cricket. When he broke into the domestic game in the late 1980s, “you had two spinners at pretty much every team,” recalls leg spinner Ian Salisbury, who played 15 Tests for England.

“You were playing first-class cricket the whole summer. A lot more spin was bowled. Wickets could get a bit tired. Seamers couldn’t stay fit with the workload.”

The turn of the century was, at least compared to what has come since, a modern Golden Age for Championship spin. While Salisbury and Saqlain Mushtaq were irresistible spin twins for Surrey, bowling the side to three titles from 1999-2002, other counties boasted overseas stars including Shane Warne, Muttiah Muralitharan and Mushtaq Ahmed. Northamptonshire alone boasted three fine home-grown spinners: future England stars Swann and Panesar, and Jason Brown.

In essence, the tale of English domestic spin is very simple: a story of continuous decline. In the 1940s, spinners took 47.4 per cent of wickets in the County Championship: an environment that moulded Laker, who took 19-90 against Australia in 1956. In the 1970s, spinners still took 36.4 per cent of all bowlers’ wickets. By the 2010s, this figure had halved, to 19.9 per cent.

At some leading counties, spin is even more marginalised. Surrey are coached by former England off-spinner Gareth Batty. Yet during their run of four titles in seven seasons, they have generally deployed an all-seam attack, supported by auxiliary spin from a front-line batsman.

In Murder On The Orient Express, Hercule Poirot posits an unlikely theory: they all did it. Perhaps the same is true of the demise of English spin bowling.

“It’s probably never been more difficult to be a spinner in England than the last few years,” says leg-spinner Matt Parkinson, who played a single Test against New Zealand four years ago. “With the pitches, the weather, the Dukes balls, it’s been quite challenging.”

Until 1992, each team played 22 Championship games; the figure is now just 14. While the Championship was played partially over three days until 1992, the greater number of overs that teams were required to bowl per day encouraged spin.

For spinners, the matches that are scheduled are mostly played at the wrong time. Salisbury and Swann developed by playing first-class cricket all season. Today’s spinners scarcely get to play with a red ball during the height of summer.

‘Learning red-ball cricket is hard for spinners’

The Hundred has compounded what was already a desperate situation for spinners. This season, all counties will play just four Championship games between May 19 and September 2.

Spinners often thrived on out grounds, which tended to offer greater turn. Now, such venues are scarcely used at all.

Of the regular first-class grounds, Taunton is renowned for offering the most turn. Somerset have faced scrutiny for the amount of assistance that the pitch offers to spin. Last year, Somerset were docked points after 35 wickets fell in five sessions during a match against Durham; match officials cited excessive turn from day one.

“We should have 18 grounds with 18 different pitches,” Swann says. “I’d love to see a couple of places around the country that offer real turn.

“In my book, there’s no such thing as excessive turn from day one, if the bounce is even. Every player will then learn how to bat on it, how to bowl on it. Then when you go to India and you go to Bangladesh on day three, day four, you find out how to win a game of cricket. If the system docks you points, even if the bounce is even, it’s absolutely nonsense.”

Perhaps no discipline is so distinct across the formats as spin bowling. While the best fast bowlers can use relatively similar tactics with the new ball in Test and T20 cricket, in white-ball cricket, spinners bowl faster, flatter and shorter than in the red-ball game.

Consider, for instance, two of the premier modern off-spinners in different formats. In T20, Sunil Narine has an average length of over one metre shorter than Nathan Lyon does in Tests. Narine also bowls quicker, and turns the ball less. Essentially, the method favoured in the white-ball game sacrifices turn in favour of control.

[Source: Daily Telegraph]