From: anw@maths.nott.ac.uk (Dr A. N. Walker)
Subject: Re: Mushtaq sets for Somerset
Reply-To: anw@maths.nott.ac.uk (Dr A. N. Walker)
Organization: Maths Dept., Nott'm Univ., UK.
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 17:18:34 GMT

In article <15AUG199201044224@vxcrna.cern.ch>
hasan@vxcrna.cern.ch writes:
>					       (BTW, who gave it the name
>googly, was it Bosanquet himself?

	I think the origins of "googly" are lost in the mists of time.
Anyone know better?  Anyone with the OED?

>				   And also, what kind of an English name
>is Bosanquet

	I expect it's Huguenot, from the period when we were more receptive
to refugees than currently.  In my youth, I always heard it pronounced as
"BozANki", but his son [? nephew, grandson ?  some close relative anyway]
was a TV "newscaster" pronounced Bozunket.

>				       Remember who was the most successful
>Austrailian bowler till World War II? -- the wiry, diminutive Jules Grimmett
>(sp?) with 216 test wickets,

	Don't know about Jules, but the better-known Clarence was a New
Zealander [which was then bad news if you wanted to play seriously, hence
his emigration to Oz].

>			      and even afterwards, till the time when "Dennis
>the menace" started terrorizing batsmen the world over, the most successful 
>of Aussie bowlers was another exponent of this craft, yes the smooth talking
>and crisp commentator of cricket, Richie Benaud.

	Successful in raw numbers of wickets, perhaps;  but RB had a long
career, and I would be surprised if many people thought him a greater bowler
than Lindwall, Miller or Davidson, to name but three.  In his early years,
he was a little lucky to be kept in the team [his fielding and batting
helped, of course];  later, his captaincy was his strongest point.

>						  Now all this screed was
>just to bring home the point -- admittedly controversial -- that the popularity
>of LBG bowling in England should have reflected in some success at the
>international level.

	There's a difference.  The Australians "never" had any other decent
slow bowlers.  Since WWII, for example, the Australian off-breakers, such as
Ian Johnson and Ashley Mallett, would scarcely have made the average English
county team.  On the other hand, their LBG bowlers were coming out of their
ears in the 40's and 50's, so that outstanding players like Dooland and
McCool had to come to England to establish their careers.  Meanwhile, the
English leggies had to compete with, oh, Laker, Lock, Appleyard, Wardle,
Tattersall, and *dozens* of other spin bowlers who would *walk* into the
present Test teams [of *any* country].

>		      Not being knowledgable enough about the esoterica of
>English county cricket, that was the basis of my inference. How many English
>LBG bowlers have taken even 50 test wickets, what to say of 200 or more?!

	Ask me another.  Doug Wright did, of course, and would have taken
many more but for the War.

>However, do tell me whether in those heydays of LBG bowling in England,
>was it really effective, or as I suspect, it was fashionable merely
>because it was considered an exotic art form, so to say;

	I don't understand your point.  There was no "fashion" for LBG
bowling [except for South Africa in 1907], it was just one of the styles.
When picking a balanced team with two spinners, you would probably prefer
to have an off-break bowler plus either a left-hander or a leg-breaker.
Since England have always had a good supply of competent, or even brilliant,
OB and SLA bowlers, only the very best LBG bowlers have ever had a chance in
the Test team.  When there were two or three spinners in every county team,
it was easier for reasonable LBG bowlers to get a chance.  These days, when
even one spinner sometimes seems to be a luxury, it's very hard for any of
them to become established.

>							  hence it was
>naturally relegated to a relatively minor position with the increase
>of professionalism that emphasizes success at the cost of pure love
>of the game. Am I right?

	Yes, I think so.  Basically, a good fast[ish] bowler is simply
[perceived as] more *reliable*, in some sense, than a spinner.  Pakistan
and New Zealand have done something to undermine that perception, by
using a spinner not as a last resort but as an attacking move, so perhaps
things will change.  Cricket is simply more *interesting* when there is
a greater variety of bowlers.

-- 
Andy Walker, Maths Dept., Nott'm Univ., UK.
anw@maths.nott.ac.uk