A Beautiful Game

by Mark Nicholas

  The leg break hissed, some more than others: there was the big spinner and the little spinner, the side spinner and the over spinner. The topspinner fizzed and then bounced alarmingly, hitting the splice of the bat or my gloves. The googly, or wrong ’un, also bounced more than the norm but didn’t turn as much. After a couple I could read it okay. The slider was the one I most remember, a telling delivery that threatened to be something it wasn’t: a leg break that skidded straight on but did so very quickly, like it had been bowled on glass. He told me that most of the other stuff—zooters and such—were no more than bluff and mind games. I was enthralled. We went back and did it all again the next day. The ball reacted off the surface in a way I had not previously experienced. It was like unravelling a mystery, knowing that a single moment of indecision could cost your life.

  I played spin pretty well and made hundreds against Anil Kumble (twice) and Abdul Qadir. Way back, in 1981, I faced Bishan Bedi in a couple of exhibition matches in Dubai. I have no idea why but I was in Keith Fletcher’s England XI against a combined India–Pakistan team, which included most of the greats: Imran, Kapil, Viswanath, Bedi, and so on. Bedi’s orthodox left-arm spin was an act of pure beauty and so captivated this young batsman that he stood transfixed by the ball, falling hopelessly for its arc and flight. As the spinning orb closed in, it became a temptress, hovering just beyond the young batsman’s reach. ‘Wait, wait for it to come to you, it will come but wait, have patience,’ said Bedi, amused by my groping response. Bedi had it, as the old pros like to say, on a string.

  Back in the counties, I battled against John Emburey and Phil Edmonds, as fine a pair of tricksters as you will meet. There was Deadly, of course, and the underrated, pipe-puffing Norman Gifford. I wish I had seen Erapalli Prasanna in the flesh, for Ian Chappell has him top of the finger-spinning league; Graeme Pollock reserved that title for Fred Titmus. Many a South African throws Denys Hobson’s hat into the wrist-spinning ring. Pakistan was right to shout from the rooftops about Qadir, in the way India hailed the mighty Kumble. But none of these were Warne. Warne was a force of nature.

  Shane Keith Warne took 708 Test-match wickets with leg-spin, the hardest skill in the game. Had he played in the age of the decision review system, he would have taken a hundred more. Warne was the result of an Australian dynasty that began with Arthur Mailey and Clarrie Grimmett. It took in Bill O’Reilly and Richie Benaud, before a few ‘nearlies’—Terry Jenner, Kerry O’Keeffe, Jim Higgs, Bob Holland and Trevor Hohns—became the fellows he decided to walk by on his way to the summit. He studied them all, embracing the best of each. It has made him impossible to emulate, for he became the collective noun of leg spin and its consummate master.

  On the way back from the indoor school, I asked who taught him the practicalities of this stuff. He said Jenner was a fine coach and great mate. Jenner was his go-to, his checklist. Jenner told him to ‘spin up’ and drive his right hip. He also reminded him, with some frequency, that leg spinners need a lot of love. Warne said that Benaud passed on to him the advice he had received from O’Reilly—‘Go away and rehearse six consecutive perfectly pitched spinning leg breaks. It’ll take you three years.’ I asked Richie about this and he purred before adding about Warne: ‘He did it in two, which began to tell us how good he was.’ Perfect, I’d say.

  It takes two to tango, and the sight of Ian Healy whipping off those bails with such relish became a standard for the game. Healy’s career was the result of a lot of hard yakka; he is a man who leaves little to chance. If Knott is not the best wicketkeeper I have seen, Healy is. I can see him now, low in his crouch, athletic, energised: ‘Watch the ball, move, stay down.’

  His description of keeping to Warne is riveting. ‘There’s Warne’s slow walk in, the build-up of energy through the crease, and the release. The flipper would have been detected two strides earlier and this is not it. This is the leg-spinner, last seen leaving the hand, blocked by the batsman now. How much will it turn? Think he just rolled it, rather than ripped it, but it’s heading for the big hole outside leg-stump.

  ‘Stay down and move late, I keep telling my legs. This could do anything off the pitch and, by then, it will be behind the batsman. But must ignore him and he will only further distract me as I try to isolate the ball. It should slide down leg, but will it? That’s the dilemma, and I must wait and watch before deciding to move low and strong. Gloves low and relaxed enough to give with the ball, and in it goes cleanly. Pat yourself on the back, take a deep breath and settle in again. The first ball of the spell is done, 30 overs to go.’

  The 1993 series in England is almost always remembered for the Gatting ball but Healy’s stumping of Graham Thorpe at Edgbaston, from a high bouncing ball that really spun, was a majestic example of eye, hand and instinct rewarding years of work. Healy says that Rod Marsh gave him the basics, simple little gems that he has passed on to all who have asked, and the rest of it is down to interpretation. His style was to show the gloves to the ball and then exaggerate the ‘give’ so that it became habit.

  Healy’s opening line ‘There’s Warne’s slow walk in,’ is worth further examination. The walk in is the start of a marker, a statement that tells the batsman this is all about me, not you. There is the pause at the start of his approach, the little stutter of his feet, the walk itself, the slight acceleration, the leap and then the explosion at the crease, followed by the drive of the body and the powerful follow-through. After this comes the great exhortation, the ooh and the aah, the look and the stare, then the comment, the goading, the adjustment to the field and the aside to a nearby fielder, before it all begins again.

  Often he would summon Healy or Mark Taylor, or they would call for him, and the two would meet mid-pitch to talk about the weather or the women in tight T-shirts a tad wide of mid-on. The poor batsmen assumed this to be some master plan, a weakness spotted and the necessary science applied, but it was just part of the show. After one such interlude, Shivnarine Chanderpaul lost his stumps to the last ball of the morning session on the fifth day of a Test match West Indies might just have won. With 71 off 68 balls, the little Guyanese had given the run chase a thrilling impetus, until Warne reminded everyone who was boss. It was some ball, more remarkable than the one to Gatting. But that is the thing, a single moment in the mystery cost Chanderpaul and the West Indians their life in the match.

  ‘Bowled, Shaane.’ ‘Thanks, maate.’ Two masters, mainly unbeatable.

  ‘WELL DONE, MACHANG!’

  Even from a distance there was no mistaking the most distinctive bowling action in cricket. Such a singular mystic: so many friends, a few enemies. ‘Will the pitch spin? Is it hard, will it bounce?’ he daily wondered, as if the array of off breaks, leg breaks and straight-onners required nature’s assistance. Say what you like, Murali Muralitharan claimed 800 Test wickets, which makes him the most prolific bowler of all time and one of the greatest cricketers to have graced the fields of gold.

  I did a show with Murali on Channel 4, a sort of innocent or guilty job, in which he volunteered to bowl in a rigid brace, cast with steel bars and resin. In other words, he subjected himself to a televised inquisition during which he delivered every one of his magical, mystery balls and gave us a tour of his action and body. He had a wrist like rubber, that moved with a remarkable super-rotation; an elbow that was double-jointed and could hyperextend; and a shoulder that revolved on a horizontal plane.

  He bowled his off spinner and topspinner pretty much as normal, the brace seemingly irrelevant. He bowled the doosra effectively, if slower than he might in a match and possibly with fewer revs on the ball. It was difficult to be sure whether this was because of a lack of adrenaline; because the weight of the brace restricted the speed of the shoulder rotation; or, simply, because the brace did not allow his arm to straighten. When we were done, I put the brace on my own arm. It was impossible to bend or flex the arm in that brace. Before the inquisition, his critics said it was impossible to bowl a doosra without straightening th
e arm. Wrong. Difficult but not impossible. The vitriol thrown at Muralitharan has been unkind and uneducated. The fact that he has reacted without bitterness tells us much about the man.

  Behind him has been an army of support. First among them Arjuna Ranatunga, the one they called Napoleon—a tough fellow with an incisive take on cricket, a love of food and the appetite for a fight. Ranatunga gave no quarter over Muralitharan, indeed he raged against the machine against his man. Then there was every other Sri Lankan on the planet, and Tony Greig too. More recently, Mahela Jayawardena and Kumar Sangakkara have led the resistance. Kumar should know. He stood and watched from pole position. He could read the devil in the delivery and make sense of it. Kumar is much feted for his batting and much under-feted for his work with Murali. Slight of hand and swift of foot, he was the glove for Murali’s fingers. Bloody hard graft, keeping to a magician.

  Not that you would have known it. Sangakarra just got on with his job in a typically determined and restrained manner. It takes courage to keep wickets and a mighty commitment to maintain Test-match standards with both bat and gloves. A sweet nature belied his ruthlessness, for he was no angel behind the stumps, applying sharp wit and withering language to vulnerable opponents. He was professional, well trained and practised: a man who trusted rehearsal before instinct. The antithesis of M.S. Dhoni, say, for whom instinct is all. In the end, wicketkeeping held back his batting. Ambitious for records, he stood aside as keeper and duly became more prolific on the scoreboard. For a while, Murali missed the sage advice that came from behind the wickets but they soon rediscovered one another. Between them is nothing but admiration, for the roads travelled and the landmarks passed.

  At breakfast in Birmingham one morning, I chatted with Sangakkara and we wondered whether any cricketer had contributed so much to the success of his team as Murali. Bradman maybe, but bat and ball cannot compare. The nearest is Hadlee, whose Kiwis won 22 Tests with him and lost 28. Without him they have won 61 and lost 137. Now, here is a deal-closer. With Murali, Sri Lanka have won 54 and lost 41. Without him they have won 21 and lost 51. In those 54 Test-match victories, the man with the rubber wrist took 438 wickets at 16.18 apiece, striking at a wicket every 42.7 balls bowled. As a point of reference, Warne took 510 wickets at 22.47 in the 92 Tests Australian won with him on board, striking at 51.2.

  Murali averaged 6 wickets per Test—the only bowler of the 66 who have taken 200 or more Test wickets to take 6 or more wickets per match. The naked figures are the naked truth, whether you like it or not. Make your complaint to the MCC or ICC if you think there is a cross against his name. Between them they have altered the law to increase the degree of allowance and, we might say, interpretation. It is these institutions that allowed Murali to keep on playing. As Michael Atherton said: ‘More power to their elbow.’

  The Sinhalese for ‘mate’ is machang. This phrase was a constant in the Muralitharan–Sangakkara relationship: ‘Well done, Murali; well done, machang.’

  ‘WAIT, IT WILL COME, HAVE PATIENCE’

  The best spin bowlers provide the ultimate test of skill and nerve. It is cat and mouse they play, a game of hunter and hunted. The batsman requires stealth and composure because the spinners who know their craft make the ball float and swerve and dip. The Gatting ball turned a long way from outside leg stump across to off stump, but first it swung from off to leg and then it dipped, which gave Gatting the impression it wasn’t there at all.

  In general, decisive footwork and the softest hands separate the expert from the journeyman. The best way to pick a leg spinner is from the hand but, if that fails, watching it off the pitch will have to do. Ideally, the length of the ball should also be determined from the hand—‘See it early, play it late,’ said the old coaches. Garry Sobers, who played only back to fast bowling, went mainly forward to spin bowling—until, that is, the moment when he picked the length as short and sprang back into his crease to cut, drive and pull. The key is to get the head set forward to the bowler and to the line of the ball and from there let the body position itself naturally.

  The bat, not the pads, should lead the way and be angled to ensure the ball drops down to the pitch when defending. The pads should be a second line of defence only. Sobers hates pad-play—‘You’ve got a bat, use it,’ he says. By so doing, you hope to eliminate the bat-and-pad catch close to the wicket.

  It is important for batsmen to use their feet to come down the pitch but not necessarily to hit boundaries. By getting to the pitch of the ball, it is easier to defend and work singles to keep the strike rotating and the scoreboard moving. There is an art to this, especially as meeting the ball as it pitches opens up both sides of the wicket and upsets field settings. These battles are absorbing and take time. Warne is very good at predicting when one side or the other will crack.

  In the masterclasses we have done on television in England, Australia and South Africa, Warne talks about maintaining mental pressure on a batsman. There are many ways to do this: dry up runs, then offer scoring opportunities that have risk attached; leave areas of the field vacant, especially those that require hitting against the spin; have fielders saving singles rather than protecting boundaries; question intent; encourage batsmen to take you on; remind them of previous successes or failures; fly a kite—in other words, bowl a wide ball that spins a mile but that he cannot reach, only watch; bowl into the rough made by the previous bowler’s footmarks; applaud him when he least expects it; tease him; stare at him for no reason; stare at him for good reason; and so on and so forth. Warne played games that few others thought about and won many a moment with them.

  The best example of this came on the last day of the Test match in Adelaide in 2006–07, when any chance of either side winning appeared to have gone. Both teams had made more than 500 in their first innings. England were 59 for 1 in their second, 97 ahead and only a day left. We chatted on the fourth evening and Warne told me, quite certainly, that Australia would win because the Poms would look to play defensively for the draw and he would do the rest. Apparently, he said this to Ricky Ponting and then led the team talk the next morning.

  He hated losing (though it must be noted that he does so graciously and that he speaks well of most of his opponents) and even when he had none for plenty, the belief that a wicket could be taken governed the whole match. It was as if there was only Warne—no crowd, no media, no urn—only Warne and the match to win. Such a menace. ‘I might get slogged,’ he says, ‘or I might knock ’em over but I’m not going to die wondering.’

  Sure enough England froze. He knocked over Andrew Strauss, albeit controversially; unravelled Pietersen; found a Jaffa for Ashley Giles and a wrong ’un for Matthew Hoggard. The chaos he caused created chaos in general. On a flat pitch, England threw themselves off the cliff. Lemmings, or just the legacy Warne began to create at Old Trafford in 1993?

  At the time, I had not seen anything better than the way Pietersen played Warne in the first innings of that Adelaide Test—the white-handkerchief moment. Pietersen then matched or bettered it against the Indian spinners in Mumbai six years later, when he made 186 from 233 balls and, along with Alastair Cook, hauled England back into the series. Brian Lara conquered Muralitharan in Sri Lanka in 2001–02, making 688 runs in three Tests at 114. Barry Richards, who was commentating, judged those runs as the finest against spin he had witnessed.

  (Surprisingly, given the rich palette from which to choose, Richards picks two relatively unheralded innings against spin as among the finest he played. First, 69 against Bedi in a tight Hampshire win on a dustbowl at Northampton; and second, 71 not out, in a match Hampshire lost, when he carried his bat against Titmus and Edmonds on an equally difficult pitch at Southampton—testament, perhaps, to the thrill of outfoxing the foxes.)

  All of which leads me to recall the best batting against spin I saw on the field of play. My second County Championship match was against Gloucester at Basingstoke in 1978. I marvelled at the contrasting methods of Zaheer Abbas and Mike Procter, o
ne a master of touch and placement, the other a powerful striker of drives and pulls.

  John Southern, our tall left-arm tweaker, said Zaheer was impossible to bowl to because of the speed with which he picked length. Fully forward and fully back, the Pakistani made anything a fraction off length look foolish, while anything off line just looked easy. He said Procter intimidated simply with his presence. One straight-driven six was lost in a field. After that, John dared not overpitch and so Procter stepped back, opened his stance, and pulled him flat into the scorers’ hut for six more. History records that John took just a single wicket in the match and that our off-break bowler, Nigel Cowley, was not called upon at all. Gloucestershire’s left-arm spinner, John Childs, took 12 for 58. In contrast to the sparkling play we saw from Gloucester’s adopted sons, we homegrown folk were rooted to the spot, terrified of a mistake. A bit like our bowlers.

  All of which leads me to a favourite story about spin bowling. Procter was a wonderful all-round cricketer but his off spinners are not as well known as the other, more imposing aspects of his game. In the 1970s, he played a few seasons for Rhodesia in the Currie Cup—good bucks, I think—and the pitch in Bulawayo turned square. Transvaal were visiting for a Currie Cup clash of note and, concerned by a lack of options among local slow bowlers, selected a young Welshman, David Lewis, who ran a garbage-disposal business and had played a couple of games for Glamorgan in his youth.