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CONCERNING the doosra, Australia is thinking of turning the other way.
The finger spinner’s wrong-’un had been thought a physiological impossibility until the International Cricket Council began bending the rules to accommodate the bending of the arms. At present, the allowable deviation is 15 per cent.
But at a spin-bowling summit in Brisbane last month, a coterie of former Test spinners decided that they would not teach the doosra to young Australian bowlers because, in their collective opinion, it offends the laws of the game.
Writing in the Adelaide Review, off-spinning great Ashley Mallett said: ‘‘There was unanimous agreement that the off-spinner’s ‘other-one’, the doosra, should not be coached in Australia. I have never seen anyone actually bowl the doosra. It has to be a chuck. Until such time as the ICC declares that all manner of chucking is legal in the game of cricket, I refuse to coach the doosra. All at the spin summit agreed.’’
‘‘All’’ included leg-spinners Shane Warne, Stuart MacGill, Jim Higgs, Terry Jenner and Peter Philpott, offies Gavin Robertson and Mallett, as well as Australian chairman of selectors Andrew Hilditch.
Depending on your point of view, the proposed ban on the doosra is a case of Australia cutting off its nose to spite its face, affecting to despise what it cannot have, seizing the high moral ground or even usurping the authority of the ICC.
Cricket Australia says it is none of the above. Operations manager Michael Brown, who convened the summit, said the propriety of the doosra was just one of dozens of ideas to resuscitate spin bowling in a discussion paper that will go to the board later this year.
‘‘For 100 years, we’ve just given the ball to Shane Warne and told him to bowl,’’ said Brown. ‘‘Now we have a strategy and a plan.’’
Warne, unsurprisingly, was outspoken at the summit. It was his idea to add a day to Sheffield Shield games so that spin came into play on the last day, his idea to do away with first-innings points in shield cricket, his idea to scrap 50-over cricket altogether, and his idea to allow bowlers five overs each in Twenty20 cricket instead of four.
The summit discussed captaincy. ‘‘Anyone who knows anything about spin bowling would have been horrified by the field set by Ricky Ponting for Nathan Hauritz and Jason Krejza in recent times,’’ wrote Mallett. ‘‘Often there was a point on the fence. All that does is tell the batsman that the bowler intends to bowl a few long hops outside off-stump.’’
The forum also discussed pitches, the format of matches, the atrophying of spin bowling in grade cricket, and selection. A case in point was Victoria’s Jon Holland, named in a 30-man advance Australian squad for the Champions Trophy later this year, but not a regular in the state team.
But the hardest issue to pick out of the hand was the doosra. Pioneered by Saqlain Mushtaq, repeatedly subjected to biomechanical testing, it has become something of a subcontinental speciality. Another Saqlain-taught and ICC-approved Pakistani, Saeed Ajmal, used it effectively against Australia in a series in Dubai before the Ashes.
Dean Jones is one who thinks Australia has to bend in its thinking or fall behind. ‘‘If Australian finger spinners want to be successful in world cricket today, they’d better learn how to bowl it or they will not last long,’’ he wrote in The Age recently.
‘‘Whether we like it or not, the law has been changed now and the bowler can bend his arm up to 15 degrees and still make the delivery legal. What we now need to do is get our young spinners to bend their arms a bit and start to learn how to bowl the doosra. We need to sign up Saqlain now and get him to Australia to teach Hauritz and Krejza how to bowl the doosra. And fast!’’
True to its objective, the doosra still has everyone looking for the right line.
Entertaining as always!
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