The Magic of Spin: Australia's Great Spin Bowlers

Description

Over the years Australia has produced some of the greatest spin bowlers the world has seen. In The Magic of Spinwe meet more than forty masters of the art. They include Bill O'Reilly, who Sir Donald Bradman claimed to have been the greatest bowler of his experience; Clarrie Grimmett, arguably the 'father' of spin bowling in Australia; and the greatest spinner of the modern era, Shane Warne. The many other spin bowlers included in the book include Arthur Mailey, Don Blackie, Chuck Fleetwood-Smith, Jack Iverson, Richie Benaud, Jim Higgs, Tim May, Stuart MacGill and Nathan Lyon. Spin bowlers in cricket are masters at making the ball loop slowly through the air to confuse batsmen. Legends of the game know the magic combinations of top-spin, side-spin and off-spin necessary to fool the opposition. The Magic of Spin, dissects the various aspects of spin bowling through the stories of the bowlers themselves. In addition it includes the history and evolution of spin bowling: the wrong'un or googly was 'invented' by Bernard (BJT) Bosenquet; Grimmett 'invented' the flipper, the ball Warne in later years bowled so brilliantly; and Bill O'Reilly learned about spin bowling by watching Grimmett like a hawk in Test matches. The batsmen who have played the great spinners through the years will also help to explain the dark art of spinning. 'Spin bowling is magical and to a lot of people [a few batsmen included] a mystery.' - Ian Chappell

Ashley Mallett is a former Australian cricketer who played in thirty-eight Tests and nine One Day Internationals between 1968 and 1980. Until Nathan Lyon, he was Australia's most successful off spin bowler since World War II. Ashley is a spin bowling consultant for Cricket Australia's National Cricket Centre in Brisbane and he runs an internationally recognised coaching program, Spin Australia. He has worked closely with myriad spinners within Australia and overseas including Sri Lanka's Rangana Hereath and England's Graeme Swann. Ashley has written some thirty-three books and continues to write for newspapers and to be interviewed for his viewpoint of all matters cricket.