These are tough times for the legions of newly converted England cricket fans. Thrashing the Australians may have been an uncomplicated pleasure, but it came at a price for those closely watching the Ashes unfold. After all, what exactly was reverse swing — the weapon used by Andrew Flintoff and Simon Jones to destroy the Aussies — and how did it work? Now a new test of their understanding awaits after England’s decision to include two off-spin bowlers armed with “mystery” deliveries in their tour party for Pakistan — Shaun Udal, who at 36 has this season acquired from Shane Warne at Hampshire a delivery that skids on; and Alex Loudon, who by way of variation from the ball that turns into the right-handed batsman can spin one away from him. This is the doosra, a word used in Hindi and Urdu to mean “other one ”.
To keep a batsman guessing, it is essential for any spinner to have tricks up his sleeve. The leg-spinner’s “other one” — the googly — has been in production for more than 100 years, but off-spinners were slower off the mark and it was only recently that the doosra was brought into the world. The key to a good googly, or doosra, is disguising the change in action required to deliver it.
England will take Loudon, 25, to Pakistan for the experience, with Udal the more likely of the two to feature in the three-Test series, starting on November 12. It is likely neither will play if Simon Jones is fit to tour, although that is by no means certain.
If Jones makes it, England will be looking to win the series through reverse swing, which can play a huge part in Pakistan, where the technique was devised a generation ago by Sarfraz Nawaz. He passed on the secret to Imran Khan, and, through him, to Wasim Akram and Waqar Younis.
Jones’s ability to reverse- swing the Duke ball was a decisive factor against Australia, although in South Africa last winter he was unable to manipulate the Kookaburra ball in the same way. Kookaburras will be used in Pakistan.
With Pakistan possessing reverse-swingers of their own, including Naved-ul-Hasan, who has cut swathes through county sides for Sussex this summer, plus somebody who can bowl a useful doosra, Shoaib Malik, there should be no shortage of tricks on display. Nobody said cricket was a straightforward game.
Just as they have long craved mastery of reverse swing, so England have coveted a mystery spinner. Ashley Giles is a commendable bowler who has performed admirably in recent years, but it is precisely his lack of mystery that has restricted the potency of his left-arm spin.
A few years ago England believed the solution lay with wrist-spin, and tried without success to turn Ian Salisbury and Chris Schofield into Test-class performers. With the leggies failing to come up to scratch, their gaze has turned to offies who purvey a doosra.
David Graveney, who as chairman of selectors is the man charged with scouring the counties in search of talent, says there is no shortage of off-spinners trying to refine their doosras, but adds: “It’s one thing doing it in the nets, and another having the courage to do it out in the middle.” One exponent, Shaftab Khalid of Worcestershire, has failed to advance since touring with England A two winters ago.
There would be no more appropriate place for England’s relationship with the doosra to blossom than Pakistan, where it was invented by Saqlain Mushtaq in the early 1990s. It is no coincidence that both reverse swing and the doosra began life in Pakistan, because conditions can be so tough for bowling that it requires a touch of innovatory inspiration to survive. As a youngster, Saqlain used to play cricket on the roof of the family home in Lahore with his brother and cousins. They played with a tennis ball and knew all about offies, leggies and googlies.
“One day I was trying to develop something new,” Saqlain recalled. “Thanks to God he gave me the doosra and the ball spun in the opposite direction. The next time I played with my cousins and brother I got them out. They thought, ‘The ball is coming in’, but it didn’t and I got them. When I started with a cricket ball it was harder because it is heavier.”
Saqlain’s doosra brought him rich rewards. He was the fastest bowler to take 100 wickets in one-day internationals and within 18 months of first appearing for Pakistan had been signed by Surrey, whom he soon helped to their first championship title for nearly 30 years. But he was perhaps guilty of killing the goose that laid the golden egg. He was criticised for overdoing his variations, in particular bowling his doosra first up when a batsman came to the crease, and with the help of video analysis his secrets were steadily unlocked. He has not played Test cricket since April 2004, when he returned one for 204 against India in Multan, where the England series is due to start. Since then Pakistan have preferred Shoaib Malik, a superior batsman if inferior bowler.
Saqlain’s example was taken up by Muttiah Muralitharan, whose extravagant off-breaks brought him phenomenal success against all but a select band of left-handers — including Marcus Trescothick and Graham Thorpe. He needed a delivery to spin back into their legs and keep them guessing, and the doosra was the answer.
Murali had mastered one by 2003 and later that year used it to help Sri Lanka beat England at home. However, a few months later the International Cricket Council judged that he unduly bent his arm in delivering his “other one”, and he was briefly banned from bowling it.
And here is the rub. The doosra is very difficult to bowl. Other bowlers who have used it have aroused the suspicions of the authorities. Shoaib Malik has had his action reported more than once. So has India’s Harbhajan Singh, who makes sparing use of it. Critics argue that the doosra can’t be bowled without bending the arm beyond the 15-degree limit permitted for spin bowlers.
The evidence suggests that they have a case. Professor John Elliott, a biomechanics expert at the University of Western Australia, who has monitored the actions of Murali and Harbhajan, says that when he measured their actions they both bent their arms less than 10 degrees for their stock deliveries but struggled to stay within the 15-degree limit for the doosra. He points out that a bowler needs to exceed the limit only twice in a day in a match to risk being reported.
Gareth Batty, who understudied Giles on the past two winter tours, has been working on a doosra for several years but has said he struggles to control it without bending his arm.
Given the dominance of bat over ball in so much Test cricket, the doosra is here to stay, so more “throwing” allegations can be expected. But Loudon should be in the clear, because he doesn’t bowl his doosra in conventional fashion, by rotating the fingers in the opposite direction to that for the off-break, but by flicking the ball off his middle finger. It is an unusual method that he has yet to fully master, but he knows it works because it was used with success by two Australians, Jack Iverson and Johnny Gleeson. But, as with Saqlain, long hours of practice lie ahead.
