High time tourists learned the lessons of leg-spin (13 December 1998)

13 December 1998

High time tourists learned the lessons of leg-spin

Ian Chappell

Ian Chappell believes England are still being held back by some basic flaws in batting technique

STUART MacGill extracted enough spin and bounce with his leg-spinning deliveries to suggest England are going to be hard pushed to save this third Test.

The signs were ominous when Peter Such began to turn the ball and largely helped to bowl Australia out for a reasonable score. Such was part of England's continued improvement with the ball on this tour. Apart from extracting reasonable turn, he has been prepared to flight the ball and invite the drive and, most importantly, he has bowled a good line just outside off-stump to the right-handers.

This is a big change from when I saw Such bowling in the 1993 Ashes series, when too often he bowled a middle-and-leg line to the right-handers and was easily worked away for runs. Such is the nature of this game that it has generally rewarded the more attacking players and Peter's harvest included two classic off-spinner's wickets - Mark Waugh and MacGill.

Dean Headley was another who contributed to this continued improvement and he helped England rid themselves of the horror of watching the lower half of the Australian order pile up runs. Headley used a combination of brain and brawn to claim his victims, an especially smart piece of work outwitting the dangerous Ian Healy. However, England has made no ground at all in the field, where straightforward catches are still being grassed. Two of the biggest offenders so far in this series have been Mark Ramprakash and Alan Mullally, which must be galling to the selectors because the other half of their game is in top shape.

Ramprakash looked particularly good early in his innings as he took a much more positive approach to batting than at any previous stage of the series. His footwork was sharper and consequently his placement was precise, with two cover drives off Glenn McGrath racing away to the fence. It was probably no coincidence that the two players with an Asian background looked the most comfortable against MacGill, but even they made serious errors of judgment that highlight the biggest problem England players have with leg-spin.

Both Ramprakash and Nasser Hussain missed juicy full tosses from MacGill that pitched outside leg stump. On the first occasion, Hussain was nearly bowled around his legs and Ramprakash survived a big shout for lbw. These deliveries ought not to have put the batsmen's wicket in peril and should have been dispatched to, or in Hussain's case, even over the short-side boundary. England made this mistake too often in Brisbane and would have paid the penalty if it had not been for the storm, but they are unlikely to be reprieved by the weather in the driest state on the continent.

The fact that England have virtually failed to learn anything about how to play leg-spin bowling since they first ran into Shane Warne in 1993 must be the most annoying thing to management. MacGill is now bowling much more confidently in Adelaide than he did in the first innings at the Gabba and his confidence will continue to soar as long as his bad deliveries go unpunished.

That England batsmen have played off-spin more assuredly in Adelaide suggests that the demons that lurk in the mind are caused by not knowing which of MacGill's repertoire is coming. They do not leave the crease because they are unsure and by staying at home they make MacGill a better bowler; it is classic Catch 22. It is likely to be compounded at the MCG because there England could well have two leg-spinners to face, one of them the best in the world.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)