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[Buzz]

Further to the point on improving batting techniques. My view is that we are seeing a major improvement in the quality of spinners at the top of the game. Perhaps not yet in Aus or SA...

However, with the improved bats and smaller grounds, flatter, batsmen friendly pitches, MS Dhoni's requirements excepting, life has never been so hard for a spinner.

And yet we see Monty, Swann, Ajmal, Narine and others succeeding in all forms of cricket.
In the past the spinners have had uncovers wickets and prouder seams etc to help them.
If only captains understood spin bowling better, I think we would see even more success for them.

I would also like to see more wrist spinners, but they are never really anything other than a rare breed!
Against all the odds, are we seeing the rise of the spinner?   

[Johnny]

I think it's been very well documented that DRS has helped spinners immensely - they get more decisions now, which in turn seems to have influenced umpiring perception in terms of giving those decisions in the first place

[Alvaro]

The tendency towards frustrating batsmen out rather than attacking them means that leg-spinners are for it.

[procricket]

I do not think the quality of spinners has gone up.

I think scoring rates in test cricket by and large have gone up so people are less intent in wrist spin.

The warne and murali era was much better than it is now

Pitches maybe have something to do with it but also more aggressive batting in test cricket

[alba caerulea]

Before Graeme Swann broke into the England team orthodox finger spinners were all but being laid to rest in Test cricket

Top sides wanted a wrist spinner or an unorthodox finger spinner sometimes resulting in bizarre selections - Alex Loudon, Chris Schofield and Imran Tahir being three examples

DRS is a huge help to the finger spinner as Johnny has said

India and Pakistan have always had quality spin options for obvious reasons and Sri Lanka have just about replaced Murali with Herath. Bangladesh also have a few tidy spin bowling all-rounders - Shakib, Mahmudullah etc

However - South Africa haven't had a genuine wicket-taking spinner in my lifetime and Australia havent really settled on one since Warne. Narine still has it to prove in Test cricket in my opinion too

[uknsaunders]

I think the quality of spinners is about the same. Seems like we've gone through a few phases such as flat wickets and no lbw's killing off finger spin. We then had some exceptional wrist spinners as turning the ball miles was the only way to get wickets.Now we are in the DRS era where finger spinners are getting LBW's again. This has led to batsman being forced to use the bat again and in turn deliveries have had to spin less to get the edge, bringing finger spinners right back into it. Swann is a product of DRS, and the rest of the world has followed particularly with left arm around darting into the pads. Spinners have to work harder, get move revolutions on the ball but it's a good time to be a spinner.

[Manormanic]

I think for a long time people were suckered by the Warne/Kumble/Muralitharan effect - three such talented bowlers/throwers at one time meant that everyone else was looking to compete rather than to pick the best of what they had.  England were particularly bad on this front, chasing round after someone with a bit of mystery when they had a genuine craftsman in Tuffers...


Now, no genius.  But lots of decent bowlers, all helped by the confidence that one day cricket has brought to their art and by the addition of DRS which makes it hard for a batsman to stonewall an accurate spinner with variety in the way he would have done two decades ago...

[alba caerulea]

I think the quality of spinners is about the same. Seems like we've gone through a few phases such as flat wickets and no lbw's killing off finger spin. We then had some exceptional wrist spinners as turning the ball miles was the only way to get wickets.Now we are in the DRS era where finger spinners are getting LBW's again. This has led to batsman being forced to use the bat again and in turn deliveries have had to spin less to get the edge, bringing finger spinners right back into it. Swann is a product of DRS, and the rest of the world has followed particularly with left arm around darting into the pads. Spinners have to work harder, get move revolutions on the ball but it's a good time to be a spinner.

I might be wrong but I though Swann was up-and-running with his England career for a while before DRS began in earnest? Unfair to call him a product of DRS if that is the case

[uknsaunders]

Dec 2008 I think was his test debut. DRS Nov 2009. Perhaps unfair but Hawkeye had been around for years prior and decisions were starting to be given. I remember Murili in 2004 or 2007? against England getting plumb LBW's turned down and Hawkeye showing it.

[Manormanic]

Dec 2008 I think was his test debut. DRS Nov 2009. Perhaps unfair but Hawkeye had been around for years prior and decisions were starting to be given. I remember Murili in 2004 or 2007? against England getting plumb LBW's turned down and Hawkeye showing it.

pretty sure the cameras also showed that he was chucking the ball, so it kinda evened itself out really!!!

[alba caerulea]

Dec 2008 I think was his test debut. DRS Nov 2009. Perhaps unfair but Hawkeye had been around for years prior and decisions were starting to be given. I remember Murili in 2004 or 2007? against England getting plumb LBW's turned down and Hawkeye showing it.

A 'product' of DRS would still be incorrect then. He learned to take his wickets without its help in the county game and at the beginning of his international career. To be a product of something it must happen before your success or failure does

And even now DRS only gives spinners what they deserve, they are not being given wickets that are not out

[uknsaunders]

Sure the decade in county cricket helped his game and I'm not saying he wouldn't take wickets, but DRS has helped him unlike the likes of Tufnell a few years earlier. You need only look to his high % of LBW's to see he has been helped by DRS giving him what is due.  Tufnell I read had just 7% of his wickets LBW, compared to say Monty with 24%+ and Swann nearly 30%. This makes interesting reading:-

Are LBW's on the Rise?
http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/519290.html

[Manormanic]

what I think really influences Swann as almost a special case is the preponderance of left handers in international top orders.  This was always the line in the sand for umpires - giving a left hander out on the front foot to an offie...yet DRS has shown how often the arm ball hits in line and goes on to hit, and how often the one that straightens from round the wicket does the same...

[alba caerulea]

Fully accepted but to call him a product of it takes a bit away from his skill. Or perhaps just the way I am reading it.

It does make you wonder how many wickets bowlers in bygone eras would have taken with the help of DRS and indeed if Ashley Giles would have considered bowling around the wicket more often!

[Manormanic]

oh, I would not - have not - called him a product of it. I have merely said that he has been assisted by it.