how the twirly have fallen

by MaxEntropy_Man Sun Aug 21, 2011 11:07 pm

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/cricket/rajans-wrong-un-mishras-struggles-a-bitter-reminder-of-what-india-have-lost-2341723.html

A reminder of how far India's twirlymen have fallen in grace came from
my colleague Brian Viner's magisterial survey of The Oval history last
week. Tomorrow is the 40th anniversary of one of the greatest spells in
the history of the game. B S Chandrasekhar's 6 for 38 in 18.1 overs at
the Oval Test of 1971, which helped India win in England for the first
time, had all the venom, spin, and guile that Mishra's paltry effort
lacked. M S Dhoni, who must rue being captain of an Indian side rare in
lacking top-class spin, would have dearly loved to call on Chandrasekhar
in the current Test. He's not the only one.

Chandra is one of only two Test match players who
scored fewer runs off his bat (167) than he took wickets (242) – the
other being New Zealand's Chris Martin. During the 1977-8 tour of
Australia his hosts gave him a Gray-Nicholls bat with a hole in the
middle of it, in honour of his rabbit status. But when he came on to
bowl, the joke was on the batsman. "He was the most teasing bowler I
ever had to face," said Viv Richards. "His ability to lure opponents
into a false sense of security was deadly... He could do things with the
ball that were supernatural."

Would that the
same could be said of poor Mishra. In the 40 years since Chandra's
finest hour, Indian spin has gone from supernatural to soporific.

by Marathadi-Saamiyaar Sun Aug 21, 2011 11:14 pm

In trying to match the Westerners with pace bowlers, the Indian cricket lost what it had on hand - a great spin tradition. Today, it is despicable that Swann has the "great Indian players" surrounded by a ring of 6 fielders.

This is the WORST period that I can count that India had almost NO GENUINE spinner.

WHAT A SHAME.

by MaxEntropy_Man Sun Aug 21, 2011 11:22 pm

i agree partially with you. you first have to protect and preserve what you are good at before you go about rectifying chinks in your armor. and our cricket culture has always been about great individual batting + spin bowling. we have definitely lost one portion of it. i'm hoping the poor batting is a temporary lapse, but i am less optimistic about regaining our spin bowling tradition.

by Marathadi-Saamiyaar Sun Aug 21, 2011 11:27 pm

Isn't it an irony that in old days when the Indian spinners can cream the opponents twice within 250 runs, we did not have the batting strength even to score those paltry runs.

Now we have the batting strength and ability to tackle western pacemen (until this tour), but alas, we dont have bowling - that too spin bowling - to get 20 wickets of any (decent) opponent. Worse even the pitches in India dont help spinners anymore. Thot Murli Karthik was quite decent and Lafbhajan Maya eclispsed him. Piyush is still young and they should encourage him.

Anyway, we will know by year's end how bad our batting, bowling, and field really are.

by Guest Sun Aug 21, 2011 11:29 pm

Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:In trying to match the Westerners with pace bowlers, the Indian cricket lost what it had on hand - a great spin tradition. Today, it is despicable that Swann has the "great Indian players" surrounded by a ring of 6 fielders.

This is the WORST period that I can count that India had almost NO GENUINE spinner.

WHAT A SHAME.

westerners? is pakistan in the west too?

by Marathadi-Saamiyaar Sun Aug 21, 2011 11:44 pm

blabberwock wrote:

westerners? is pakistan in the west too?

I know someone - likely - would jump in. I was too lazy to to type defensively fearing every critic etc.. besides, I thot most would "know" what I mean.

Since you asked....

India started playing Pakis only after the 80s - before that there were not very many matches with Pakis. Pakis played our Indian great spinners very rarely. Pretty much, the Indian batsmen were terrorized by the Aussies, windies, and the English. So the Bombay Mafia mindset is to copy the whities in pace bowling. They never looked at Sarfraz nawaz as the role model - during the time when our great spinners were playing.

Samjhe ?.... Razz

by Another Brick Mon Aug 22, 2011 1:19 am

amit mishra has been even more disappointing than habhajanitor singh. this moron bowls no-balls. and does not take wickets. not even ENG wickets. i can see r ashwin touring AUS. this series is likely to end raina's* test career (unless madras mafia forgives him) and it will threaten sreesanth and mishra's test careers.

one might ask why i am after raina's case so much. look at the stats and judge it yourself.

raina - 15 tests, 710 runs at an average of 30. one hundred (in colombo! hahaha) and 6 50's (and two of them in IND, three against West Indies in WI (hahaha))

and here's yuvraj singh, who isn't any worse than raina. if anything, he is a little better and has at least one excellent knock (ENG, Chennai) to back his selection.

Yuvraj Singh - 35 tests, 1709 @ 35.6. Three hundred (all against PAK, two in PAK) and ten 50s (most in IND).

with pujara, kohli and rahane available for selection, why should raina be selected? just because he plays for srinivasan and srikanth in IPL?

by confuzzled dude Mon Aug 22, 2011 11:48 am

Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:Isn't it an irony that in old days when the Indian spinners can cream the opponents twice within 250 runs, we did not have the batting strength even to score those paltry runs.

Really!! and they have done it on a consistent basis? They were brilliant and won matches occasionally but no one feared them. Llyod, Richards scored doubles tons against them on Indian soil. Granted they were before my time and didn't get to watch them much, but IMO, we love to hype them.

by Marathadi-Saamiyaar Mon Aug 22, 2011 12:00 pm

confuzzled dude wrote:
Marathadi-Saamiyaar wrote:Isn't it an irony that in old days when the Indian spinners can cream the opponents twice within 250 runs, we did not have the batting strength even to score those paltry runs.

Really!! and they have done it on a consistent basis? They were brilliant and won matches occasionally but no one feared them. Llyod, Richards scored doubles tons against them on Indian soil. Granted they were before my time and didn't get to watch them much, but IMO, we love to hype them.

Yes. they won matches only occassionally, bcz the batting sucked big time - the Indians were terrified against the pace bowling. Batting started to improve in the Wadekar era - with SMG, and GRV with gutsy folks like Mohinder, Gaekwad, etc. Dont go by the runs. Remember there was no helmet and Beamers and bouncers were the default for the pace bowlers.

But, whenever the foreigners had to score 200+ runs, they were made to toil hard, and the confidence that the spinners can make a go at the opponent (with just 250 runs) was very high. Usually, the opponents lost anywhere from 6 to 8 wickets before they manage to win.

Of course, no one was "afraid afraid" facing the spinners. But, often many of them were bamboozled and made to look like fools dancing on the pitch.

It is not without reason the spinners were nicknamed "Snake Charmers" and even now, the media nostalgically recounts the experiences with the spinners - as much as with the pace bowlers like Holding, Thomson, Lillee, Hall, Roberts, pollack, and Snow

by garam_kuta Mon Aug 22, 2011 12:16 pm

sam yaar - with all the powers that you have, please clear this one for me. Who's the england spin bowler who threw a 'no-ball' as the winning run for india in one of their test matches in India? did it happen at all ? please enlighten us.

by Guest Mon Aug 22, 2011 12:39 pm

garam_kuta wrote: Who's the england spin bowler who threw a 'no-ball' as the winning run for india in one of their test matches in India?

captain russell. sir bhuvan ranji was the batsman. the test was held in champaner, gujarat, in 1926.

did it happen at all ?

yes.

by garam_kuta Mon Aug 22, 2011 1:02 pm

Huzefa Kapasi wrote:
garam_kuta wrote: Who's the england spin bowler who threw a 'no-ball' as the winning run for india in one of their test matches in India?

captain russell. sir bhuvan ranji was the batsman. the test was held in champaner, gujarat, in 1926.

did it happen at all ?

yes.

oh boy(ya) ! seriously ! thanks for the info but from what I heard it was in the 70's, could have been with Tony Greg's team perhaps the bowler was pat pocock or someone like that.. i googled but could not get that clarified.. thanks again!

by Bittu Mon Aug 22, 2011 11:34 pm

yes. all fallen sunsofbytches.

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