Spin bowlers and their variations in detail

To be perfect spinner, grip, variations and technique are important factors. Unlike seamers, Spinner experiencing less numbers of injuries. Due to this advantage major bowling charts are ruled by spinners like Muttiah Muralitharan, Shane Warne and Anil Kumble. 

Two types of Spinners are listed below: 

1) Wrist Spinners: 

         

           Wrist spin is bowled by releasing the ball from the back of the hand. When it’s done by right-handed bowler, ball rotates in anticlockwise motion where left-handed bowler rotates the ball in clockwise direction. Wrist spinners rotate the ball more than finger spinners normally. 

 

Right-handed wrist spinners are also known as Leg spinners and Left-handed wrist spinners also known as left arm unorthodox / Left arm china-man spinners. 

Shane Warne, Anil Kumble and Abdul Qadir are some of the greatest wrist spinners to play the game. 

Most common wrist spinners variations are listed below, 

Leg-Break: 

          

          To bowl a leg spin delivery, the ball is placed in the palm and released by the back of the hand. When the ball Is bowled, the third finger will generate the more spin. 

For a righthand batsman, Leg break spins from legside to offside that is difficult to play. 

Googly:

        

          Googly is just opposite of leg break. When normal leg break spins from leg side to off side the googly spins the other way just like off spin (i.e. off to leg side). Googly is one of the major wicket taking delivery of a leg spinner. 

Googly and leg break both have almost same wrist position that can surprise the batsman. When a batsman expects a leg break from the spinner, the ball just pitched and turn towards to the stumps will be hard to predict. For wrist spinners Googly is called as Wrong’un 

Top spinner: 

          

         Top spinner is bowled by both wrist and finger spinners. In both cases, the top spinner is halfway between the stock delivery and the wrong’un. 

Top spinner is released over the top of the fingers in such a way that it spins forwards. The ball bounces pretty higher than the anticipated height. This is also called as loopy delivery. 

To right hand batsman, right arm leg spinners bowl on the middle stump line to get lbw or bowled. To left hand batsman, they bowl on the same line to get a outside edge and dismiss the batsman by caught.

 Flipper: 

        

          Flipper is just an opposite to top spinner. The ball bounces pretty lower than the anticipated height and slightly lower in the speed too. 

The batsman will assume that delivery will drop like normal delivery, the flipper pitching under the bat and going to hit the stumps or pad. Flipper is more like a backspin delivery.

 2) Finger spinners: 

             

           Finger spinner delivery is released by arm held in a position with fingers on the outside of the ball. A finger spinner grips the ball in his knuckles of the index and middle fingers. 

When it done by a right-hand bowler its spins in the clockwise direction (i.e. Off side to leg side) where left hand bowlers spin the ball in anticlockwise direction (Leg side to off side). 

Rightt hand finger spinners are commonly known as right arm off break bowler where left arm finger spinners are called as left arm orthodox spinners. 

The bowler with most international wickets in the history, Muttiah Muralitharan was an off spinner. Saqlain Musthaq, Harbhajan Singh, Ravichandran Ashwin and Nathon Lyon are some of the greatest off spinners to play the game. 

Mostcommon finger spin variations are listed below, 

Off cutter: 

       

           Traditional delivery which is drifts away from batsman. Turns from off side to leg side of the batsman.an off break is bowled by holding the ball in the hand with seam running across under all the fingers. 

Doosra:

        

         Doosra is the wrong’un delivery of the off spinners where the ball spins from legside to offside in anticlockwise direction just like a leg spin.

 It was popularised by former Pakistani cricketer Saqlain Mustaq. Doosra is off spinners answer to leg spinners googly. 

With same grip of off break, Doosra turned from leg side to off side is difficult for batsman to play the ball. 

Carrom ball: 

      

           Carrom ball is released by placing the ball in between thumb and middle finger to generate spin. The carrom ball is similar to striking the striker in carrom game. 

By using carrom ball grip, we can bowl both sides. If the middle finger is gripped towards the leg side, the ball spins from leg side to off and middle finger is gripped towards the off side ball spins from off to leg.

 Ajantha Mendis and Ravichandran Ashwin are majorly used this type of deliveries in cricket

 Top spinner: 

            

            Top spinner is bowled by both wrist and finger spinners. For an off-break bowler, the back of the hand faces the mid-wicket region and palm of the hand faces the cove region. 

This is the only difference between wrist spinner’s top spin and finger spinner’s top spin.

Undercutter: 

        

            Undercutter is bowled by finger spinner where the bowler is facing the palm of his bowling hand towards the sky during the release.

 The ball will be released with side spin instead of orthodox off spin. The angle of the ball will cause the difficulties for thee batsman to read the delivery.  

Arm ball: 

       

           Arm ball is bowled without rolling the fingers down the side of the ball. So, the ball doesn’t turn that much. It travels straight in the direction of it released.

 Arm ball can be used as a surprise, where a batsman expect a turn by surprise the arm ball doesn’t turn that will result the outside edge. Ravindra Jadeja and Daniel Vettori are the bowlers often use this variation.