I recently reviewed Twirlymen by Amol Rajan, a joyful, celebratory dance to the music of spin. Well almost entirely joyful. During the rare moments when Rajan wasn't being swept away by boyish enthusiasm, he also found time to offer the odd lament on cricket's greatest but most difficult art. Laments to opportunities not taken, not given or not recognised, to dreams dashed or unrealised, to promise unfulfilled or undeveloped, and to legacies lost or discarded.
That theme and in particular as it relates to English leg-spin (and chinaman bowlers) forms the central premise of this book. A story that begins brightly with a trickle of English (and Scottish) ingenuity and innovation, but which then goes south, literally, as first a stream of South Africans and then, a torrent of Australians take over. It is an extraordinary fact that only 5 wickets have been taken by English leg-spinners (Scott Borthwick 4, Mason Crane 1) in Ashes Tests since Bob Barber dismissed Graham McKenzie at Old Trafford in 1968.
In assessing how and why this happened, the author takes us on a familiar path through the main protagonists and innovators. En route he provides some welcome clarity on Bonsanquet's popularising rather than inventive relationship with the googly as well as suggesting a hidden, deeper meaning to the 'bosie' sobriquet. Despite admirably thorough research that brings out a few gems, one is still left with more questions than answers when it comes to the greatest of them all, SF Barnes - surely just as Barnes would wish it. I particularly enjoyed the speculative suggestion that Clarrie Grimmett, known for his attention to detail, employed fox terriers to retrieve the balls from his purpose built garden net because they were known for their high-energy level and low drool output!
As far as English wrist-spinners are concerned it has always been an uphill struggle. It is not enough that they must master the most difficult skill in the game, in which, as Ian Salisbury rightly notes, 'a centimetre wrong in your action can affect it by two yards at the other end', but they must also overcome an ingrained distrust of their art which has seemed to pass like contagion from captain to captain, era to era. It is hard not see in McLaren's reticence towards the admittedly erratic but dangerous Bosanquet and Hutton ( a leg spinner himself) and May's reluctance to utilise the myriad talents of Johnny Wardle, more than a hint of the risk averse tactics of the Strauss-Flower era. It is something of an irony that England's one international class wrist spinner, Adil Rashid, is born and raised in Yorkshire an area deemed by Hutton to be entirely unsuited, climatically, to such extravagant pursuits.
Instead English leggies have relied on the backing of deep thinkers such as Mike Brearley and Peter Roebuck and innovative risk-takers, such as Adam Hollioake who revived Ian Salisbury's career. Roebuck, speaking before the T20 revolution and way before England renaissance in the 50 over game, speculated that in a game where 400 was the new 250 leg-spin would be a risk worth taking. A point Rashid and others continue to prove.
Faced with such overwhelming negativity, it is no surprise that many such bowlers have headed for the Promised Land in search of love and understanding. In perhaps the most interesting and certainly original part of the book, Parkinson charts the progress of a number of young Englishmen sent to Australia to work with Terry Jenner, leg-spin guru and mentor to the Great One. The results were not, as if you need telling, messianic. Like Aubrey Faulkner, mentor to Ian Peebles, Jenner believed there was a right way, his way and a wrong way, all the others. In keeping with many of us who have spent years trying to perfect a simple leg-break, he saw Shane Warne not only as the perfect model but the only one. Unfortunately, and I could have told him this myself, this turned out to be completely folly. The result was a certain disillusionment for the characters concerned and undoubted disappointment for the ECB who had funded Jenner's work. But who knows, judging by Rashid's recent resurrection, perhaps it has a brought a greater appreciation and understanding as well. Dying maybe, but not dead yet.
