it's the sodukku ball, not sudoku ball

by MaxEntropy_Man Tue Dec 27, 2011 11:24 am

mark taylor kept referring to ashwin's delivery that got lyon (going the other way) as the sudoku ball. it's not sudoku but sodukku (சொடுக்கு) which means snapping of the fingers in tamil. i've been reading that it's a delivery born, developed, and perfected on the streets of chennai before ashwin unveiled it on the international stage. they were showing slomo videos of it yesterday and there was high praise from that great sage of aussie cricket, richie benaud himself. ashwin has plenty of variations along with a potent standard off-spinner. the bane of finger spinners lately has been that they forget their standard delivery. hope ashwin never loses his grip on the off-spinner and go the way lafbhajan has gone.

by MaxEntropy_Man Tue Dec 27, 2011 11:31 am

here's more info on the சொடுக்கு ball (http://www.indiachatforum.net/Thread-adukalam-world-cup):

You remember I talked about a style of bowling which is popular in and
around Chennai in Tennis ball matches? It is called 'sodukku' bowling.
What happens there is that the bowler actually depresses the tennis ball
and holds it between his fingers so that his thumb is bunched up behind
the ball and he holds the ball near the edge of his fingers. Then while
throwing, he simply gives a fillip to the ball. That makes the ball
attain zip off the pitch while looking to be entirely harmless while in
the air. And the turn one can get off the pitch too can be very sharp -
simply because the ball has crazy revolutions when it is released with a
fillip. It hits the wicket and then spits like crazy. Try imaginging
such bowling being played on a basketball court. It would be awesome, I
am telling you. Very challenging for batsman.

But while this can still be done with a tennis ball, to do this with the
hard cricket ball takes some doing. Imagine holding the ball with your
index and middle finger supported by the thumb at the back. Now simply
press down with all your fingers (the index and middle fingers press
down and the thumb presses up) The ball will simply pop out of your
hand, right? This pop, this fillip is what Mendis is using to generate
zip off the wicket off innocuous looking balls. The secret is that the
ball does not look particularly special when it is in the air. But when
it pitches, it gets more than expected bounce, pace and turn.

While it is hard to pop the balls like this in full bowling action, it
is hard to comprehend imparting spin while doing this and then bringing
to bear the control that is needed to keep international batsmen on a
tight leash. Make that impossible to comprehend

but i fear the damage is already done. when you name something close to something else that is very popular, it's doomed to morph into that more popular thing.

it's the sodukku ball, not sudoku ball

it's the sodukku ball, not sudoku ball

Re: it's the sodukku ball, not sudoku ball