Saeed Ajmal's new mystery ball - could this be the teesra?

Will Saeed Ajmal unveil a new mystery ball in the series against England?  Perhaps the fabled teesra?

I would love to see it, and especially to see how the England batsmen, now so well supported by their coaches and intense video analysis, react to the new challenge...if it exists.

Is Ajmal playing mind games?  Graham Gooch seems to think so - but what if Ajmal really does have something new?

It should be fun to watch!

Looking for more variations

Peter Philpott, in his "The Art of Wrist-Spin Bowling", described the concept of a spinner going "around the loop" - keeping the finger movement constant, but rotating the wrist between successive deliveries, to change the direction of spin.

So, for a right-arm wrist spinner, you might start with a "big leggie", releasing the ball with the seam pointing at gully, or even cover; then a "little leggie", with the seam directed to first slip; the top spinner, with the seam straight down the wicket; the googly, with the wrist now turned even further round so that the seam is spun towards leg slip.

Shane Warne's "slider" might be the delivery at the opposite end of the loop to the googly - still with the same finger movement as a regular leggie, but now with palm of the hand towards gully and the seam pointing towards leg slip but with the fingers spinning the ball back towards the bowler.

And if that sounds like a convoluted description, just imagine how it must be to bowl the delivery!

For the finger spinner, perhaps the loop from doosra, through top-spinner and on to the regular off-break could be continued on to include the "flipper"...and back to Saqlain's teesra...perhaps.

What is the teesra?

When I started this blog, I struggled to come up with a name that evoked the fascination I feel for the game of cricket. I didn't want to write as the wrong'un, much as the googly would fit the bill - possibly the original mystery ball. Professor Bruce Charlton already has an excellent blog called the doosra.

So I went one further. After the doosra (the second, or "other" on), comes the third one, or "The Teesra". Saqlain Mushtaq was reputed to be developing a new mystery delivery, back in 2004. At the time, it wasn't really clear if this ball ever was ever bowled in anger, or even exactly what the delivery might be.

But a post on cricistan.com shows Saqlain bowling his "third one" (after the off break, and the doosra) in the 2008 ICL.

It looks like a flipper - palm of the hand facing away from the bowler at the point of release, the ball flipped out beneath the fore-finger. And the video clip shows the result as a seemingly short delivery pitches much further up than expected, and skids on to trap the batsman leg before.

So is this the new mystery ball? Or could it be Graeme Swann's "gyro" arm ball?

It doesn't really matter - so long as spin bowlers can keep coming up with new ways to take wickets, the game will stay as fascinating as ever.

Throwing a curveball - why not bowl one?

I nearly got to watch a live baseball game at the weekend...until persistent rain caused the game to be called.

But I was thinking about what baseball pitchers do with a baseball - and it's a lot more than just hurling it through at 100 mph. They use spin-swerve to get the pitch off straight, and curveballs add over-spin to add dip to the mix.

It's the same effect as David Beckham uses to get the ball up and over the defensive wall, and curving into the top corner.

So it works in baseball, and football (and golf, and tennis); some descriptions of the finger spinners arm ball sound like spin-swerve, and Shane Warne's "ball of the century" to Mike Gatting surely had a bucket load of spin-swerve on it. But I don't think I have ever heard a cricket commentator talking about any one using spin-swerve at medium pace or above, and the only coaching book where I have seen it described is Alan Wilkins "The Bowler's Art" (a fascinating technical read, by the way).

Now, it possibly is easier for a pitcher to generate spin-swerve when he pitches than for a bowler to do the same, but is anyone trying? Reverse swing was invented to compensate for the lack of conventional swing with a shiny ball. Apparently, SF Barnes used spin-swerve in the early years of the 20th century, to capture 189 wickets in 27 Tests, so it could certainly be done in the days when there was no second new ball.

So why does no one add spin-swerve to the fast and medium-pacer armoury?