Twirlymen by Amol Rajan (Book Review)

As someone who shared his shattered dream of a career amongst the 'twirlymen', I can easily relate Amol Rajan's almost obsessive enthusiasm for his subject. And whilst this book succeeds in its primary mission to inform and enlighten, it is the author's endless and unrequited passion for the tweaks, twirls and mystery of spin bowling that is its real feature.

The book charts the history of cricket's innovators: those who looked at a little red ball and thought "what if?". It is no surprise then that the annals of spin bowling encompass so many original thinkers and unusual personalities. In fact such are the fascinating, complex and frankly eccentric characters which make up the spin brethren, that this book would work well enough as series of separate biographies. The contrasting styles and personas of spin partnerships from O'Reilly and Grimmett to Ramadhin and Valentine, Bedi and Chandresekharar, and even Edmonds and Emburey are particularly enjoyable. The wide-range of interviews provide a rich source of evidential anecdote.

From a technical perspective the author provides a valuable service in debunking the claims of Dooland, Bosanquet and Saqlain to the flipper, googly and doosra respectively. Each, he establishes, were being bowled several decades earlier at the very least. Indeed he cites W.G. Grace as an early exponent of a flipper type delivery. None of this detracts from his rightful admiration for Shane Warne's ability to invent a new delivery or two prior to every Ashes battle. Deception is after all, an essential part of the twirlyman's armoury.

Although he makes efforts to bring along the uninitiated through some useful diagrams explaining the various deliveries it is to the already converted that this book's appeal really lies. He pulls few punches and is particularly forthright on the subject of Muttiah Muralidaran whilst taking Gideon Haigh to task for his rubbishing of  the humble off-spinner.

Whilst the author's enthusiasm is mostly endearing, too often it overflows into wide-eyed, childlike excitability at the cost of reasoned analysis. In particular, for a seemingly discerning chap it is disappointing to see him fall head first into one of the diseases of modern media. Just as an overbowled googly loses its impact, so too do superlatives when used excessively.

He reserves astonishing praise for a couple of left-arm spinners. The recently retired Rangana Herath was certainly a gifted and canny bowler who also bowled an interesting carrom ball early in his career, but to describe him as 'scintillating' is really pushing it; meanwhile Daniel Vettori, a fine bowler but of essentially simple method, is described as 'brilliant'. In a book which features Grace, Barnes, O'Reilly and Warne, such high praise ought to have been less liberally assigned. It's a small quibble but one that grates from quite early on.

Published eight years ago, the book has aged well. Perhaps too well. Of the new breed of twirlymen only the endlessly curious and imaginative Ravi Ashwin would now warrant serious mention. Mystery spinners may have enjoyed a renaissance in the T20 era, but it has also shown up the limitations of that format as a means of developing genuinely great bowlers possessing the control and subtlety to match their many variations. We still await the next exponent to whom the moniker 'brilliant' could justifiably be applied. Hopefully it won't be too long.