Why leggies have become wrong'uns

Richie Benaud, Abdul Qadir, Anil Kumble, Mushtaq Ahmed, Bill O’Reilly, Clarrie Grimmett. Six legends of the game, and all of them were leg-spinners. The retirements of the two with the highest wicket hauls - Warne and Kumble - took place only a short time ago. But the leg-spinner has become an endangered species. The only frontline wrist spinner regularly selected for Test cricket in 2012 has been Imran Tahir. And his Test career now hangs by a thread after dispatched round the Adelaide Oval at well over a run-a-ball last week, and gaining little reward for it. With the demise of Tahir, we could well have seen the demise of the Test Match leg-spinner.

2012 has been a particularly challenging year for the art mastered by Warne. It was hoped that his career would inspire a generation of youngsters to bowl like him, but we are still waiting for anything remotely resembling the ‘new Warne’ to materialise. Since January just 387 overs of leg-spin have been delivered. 261 of those were bowled by Tahir, who has taken 17 wickets at an average of more than 55. No others have made a significant contribution to Test Matches with the ball - Devendra Bishoo’s 53 overs against the Australians at Bridgetown cost him his place in the West Indies team, Graeme Cremer took 2 wickets in Zimbabwe’s only Test of the year, and New Zealand new boy Todd Astle has so far contributed just 13 overs to his team’s strong showing in their ongoing Test in Sri Lanka. With left-armers Daniel Vettori and Jeetan Patel around the chances are he won’t feature when his team return to the more familiar surroundings of Napier and Wellington (or the Middle of Middle Earth as its being called this week). The leggie with the second most wickets is in fact David Warner, but something will have gone wrong if Australia start picking him for his tweakers.

Compare this current state of affairs with 2002. Warne and Kumble took 116 wickets between them, with Danish Kaneria taking 26 of his own and Stuart MacGill an impressive 14 in the 2 matches for which he was picked. To prove that that year wasn’t a legend inspired fluke, look no further than 1982 - Qadir took 38, Sri Lanka’s Somachandra de Silva weighed in with 23 and a number of others also made worthy contributions. This reflects the state of affairs in most years - until now.

So, why have leggies suddenly become wrong’uns? For a start leg-spin bowling is perhaps the hardest cricketing discipline to master: patience is needed on the part of the bowler, his captain and his coaches. Leg-spinners rarely understand their game until they’re in their 30s, and will often frustratingly bowl a rank long-hop at least once an over.  In the T20 age cricket those long-hops invariably find themselves hoiked over the boundary ropes, knocking the bowler’s confidence and, in the case of Tahir, making him look more club bowler than match-winning Test spinner. In the case of young players this can lead to them being hid away from the action when the going is tough. That in turn makes it difficult to justify their selection, and ultimately they need to have a second string to their bow to make sure they’re in the team at the good times. In the recent cases of Cameron White, Steve Smith and Adil Rashid the batting has to a greater or lesser extent taken over.

In addition, the decline of leg-spin has mirrored a boom in left-arm spin. Back in 2002 new England one-day coach Ashley Giles was the world’s best left-arm spinner, taking 23 wickets at 42. But in 2012 there are four left-armers with 20 or more wickets thus far, including Test cricket’s leading wicket taker in the calendar year Rangana Herath and, in just four Tests, Monty Panesar. Pragyan Ojha and Abdur Rehman are the others and, had Bangladesh played more Tests this year, Shakib-al-Hasan would also stand a good chance of being on that list. Some have attributed this to the Decision Review System and the increased chances of getting lbw decisions in the bowlers favour. But a reluctance to risk leg-spin is surely also a factor: where captains were once willing to back the wrist-spinners who give it a bigger rip, they are now favouring left-armers who turn the ball the same way whilst offering much more control.

Of course, leg spin can make a comeback - we’ve seen what Murali did for the supposedly dying art of off-spin. But attitudes will need to change. Leg-spinners will need to be backed more, and will need to take the initiative in focusing more on cutting out the long-hop. Otherwise Michael Clarke’s slaughter of Tahir might have marked the end of the front-line Test Match leg-spinner.