The Greatest Leg-Spinners in Cricket History
The Greatest Leg–Spinners of All Time
Like off-spin, Leg-spin bowling is also no less than an art in the game of cricket. And many great Leg-spinners have handsomely orchestrated that art. The innovations and variations like the googly, flipper, slider, quicker, and the zooter, of the leg-spinners, always make life difficult for the batsmen, especially in test cricket.
These species of spin bowlers have risen unwaveringly, with the shift and diversity in the gentlemen's game.
We've witnessed many great players in cricket history who have engraved the history books with mind-boggling deliveries and spells which have had batsmen tied up in knots.
Each leg spinner is different, with his own bag of special skills and techniques. Comparisons are difficult, especially over different eras, as the nature of the playing surfaces and the shape of the game itself has changed. Statistics may not tell the whole story, but they do not lie.
Here are the greatest leg-break bowlers of all time who have assailed the pitches, whirled the balls, and won the hearts and minds of fans across the globe. We bring to you six of those gentlemen who have become leg-spin legends.
Shane Warne – Australia:
Nothing much should be said about a man who almost single-handedly revolutionized cricket by reinforcing the art of leg-spin bowling. Moreover, what can I say about this man?! Everyone of us has perhaps seen the Ball of the Century that Warne delivered to Mike Gatting and left him baffled like he’d seen a ghost. One of the most charismatic players to have played the game, Warne remains one of the greatest match-winners of all time. He was truly the pinnacle of leg-spin bowling.
Warne featured in 145 Test matches for Australia and took 708 wickets with 37 5-wicket hauls. He tormented the English, the Kiwis, and the South Africans alike and was the most important player in the great Australian team of the 1990s and 2000s. Warne’s best Test match figures were 8/71 including a hat-trick against England. Warne also took 293 wickets in 194 ODIs and 1319 wickets at 26.11 in his first-class career. Warne’s bowling average was 25.41 in Test matches and it could have been better if the Indian and West Indian batsmen had not played him so well.
Warne could turn the ball with a surpassing venture, had exceptional control on line and length, and got many LBW dismissals with his lethal flippers. He decisively won the spinners’ battle against the great Lanka's Muralidharan when Australia beat Sri Lanka 3-0 in a test series on the Lankan soil in 2004.
He was a member of the 1999 World cup winning Australian side, but could not play in the subsequent edition of the World Cup as he was banned for a year for taking illegal drugs. All the controversies, however, did not prevent Wisden from picking him as one of the 5 greatest cricketers of the 20th century among Sir Donald Bradman, Sir Garfield Sobers, Sir Jack Hobbs, and Sir Viv Richards.
Abdul Qadir – Pakistan:
Abdul Qadir was a pure wizard with the ball who resurrected the fading craft of leg-spin in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Arising off a loping, bouncy run-up to the wicket, he would deliver the ball with great ostentation of his arms. He had more than one standard leg-spin presentation, diversifying both the flight and the turn of the ball, to enchant up a spacious range of combinations. He owned at least two different googlies, unleashed at varying speeds, and produced with different arm actions, and also bowled the top spinner and the flipper with great accuracy and effect. He was often spoilt for choice, using too much variety rather than establishing a rhythm.
The great Pakistani captain Imran Khan used him as one of his main attacking bowlers, but his figures flagged because the umpires often failed to read the complexities of his bowling methods. Had DRS and ball tracking systems been available in his days, Qadir’s figures would have been significantly different. In his well-refined test career for Pakistan, Abdul Qadir played 67 matches and took 236 wickets at a staggering average of 32.8.
Even the legendary Shane Warne identifies Qadir as his bowling idol. Former English Captain Graham Gooch, who played against both Qadir and Warne considers Qadir as the more reliable bowler by quoting, "Abdul Qadir was even finer than Shane Warne.”
Writing about him in the Guardian, Mike Selvey called him “the little paragon of prestidigitation, the sultan of spin.” Watching Qadir was similar to attending a concert, mesmerized by his mystery and skill, rather than focusing on worldly statistics.
Anil Kumble – India:
Anil Kumble is India’s leading wicket-taker – he has got 619 wickets in 132 Tests at an average of 29.65 under his belt. Considered one of the finest and most decorated Indian players to grace this beautiful game of cricket. Kumble is the third-highest wicket-taker ever, behind Muttiah Muralitharan and Shane Warne, and the second bowler, behind Jim Laker, to take all ten wickets in an innings. He performed that feat against Pakistan with an astounding 10/74.
Kumble obtained all these achievements in his career despite being inscribed off by many early in his career, as he was never a huge turner of the ball. His accuracy and a devastating flipper were his biggest weapons while playing on the international stage.
Sambit Bal, the editor of Cricinfo, wrote about Anil Kumble, "That he has been an unusual spinner has been said many times before. It has also been said, a trifle unfairly, that he is a unidimensional bowler. Palpably, he has lacked the turn of Warne and Murali, but his variety has been subtler, far more apparent to batsmen than to the viewers. He has shown that not only turn and flight that can deceive the batsman but also the changes of length and pace. He has been a cultured practitioner of his unique craft and a master of nuances."
His international career lasted almost 18 years and he also had the privilege of captaining the Indian team.
Richie Benaud – Australia:
Often called the ‘Voice of Cricket,’ Richie Benaud came to typify the sport in all its facets from batsmen, bowler, and captain to writer, commentator, and thinker. He has been declared next to Sir Donald Bradman as one of cricket’s greatest personalities. Benaud is the only all-rounder, in fact, a spin-bowling all-rounder to make it onto this list, as he became the first person to reach the milestone of reaching 2,000 test runs and 200 wickets. He played 63 tests and took 248 wickets at a tremendous average of 27.03.
Benaud’s bowling was uniquely marked by his ability to keep the batsmen fastened by the first ball. It is such a precious combination to have a parsimonious, leg-spin bowler that it almost seems to fly in the face of tradition. It is Benaud’s manifestation of all things cricket, as well as his astounding ability with the ball that will always get him included on numerous lists of great players for generations.
A tribute to Richie Benaud
Gideon Haigh described him as "perhaps the most influential cricketer and cricket personality since the Second World War."
In his review of Benaud's autobiography Anything But, Sri Lankan cricket writer Harold de Andrado wrote:
"Richie Benaud possibly next to Sir Don Bradman has been one of the greatest cricketing personalities as a player, researcher, writer, critic, author, organizer, adviser, and student of the game."
Mushtaq Ahmed – Pakistan:
Mushtaq Ahmed modelled himself on Abdul Qadir and Intikhab Alam. Exceptionally skilled, Mushtaq had an impulsive tenacity about his bowling. A small but compact, lively run-up to the wicket was followed by a blurred whirling of arms as the ball was delivered. Through frenetic and wild appeals, he would entreat the umpire for a favourable decision and would be visibly dispirited when the umpire failed to read his straighter one or googly or allowed a batsman to get away despite deliberate padding.
Mushtaq Ahmed - Cult Hero, incredible leg-spinner
At times he was known to tell the umpire in advance which ball he was bowling next so that the umpire could follow the line and trajectory of the ball and be supported in making the correct decision when the batsman was beaten. This spinning wizard from Sahiwal dismantled the batsmen 185 times in 52 Tests for Pakistan, while he has also registered 161 ODI wickets to his name in 144 ODI starts for Pakistan.
Mushtaq enjoyed deceiving his opponents and had a googly that Wisden called "Indecipherable". The image of Mushtaq crushing the wicket of baffled Graeme Hick with a googly, in the World Cup final of 1992, is incised in the mind of every Pakistani cricket enthusiast. Sometimes his enthusiasm and vitality got the better of him and too many variations limited him from settling into a rhythm that could frustrate the batsman.
During his most prolific years of Test cricket, he played his first spell of county cricket, appearing for Somerset between 1993 and 1998. Eddie Lawrence describes Mushtaq as "one of Somerset's best-ever "overseas" signings."
Moreover, In 1997, he was named as one of the five Wisden Cricketers of the Year, in which he was described as being a member of "a glittering triumvirate of wrist-spinners who adorn the modern game."
Subhash Gupte – India:
Subhash Gupte is indeed the second Indian on our list of greatest leg-spin marvels of all time. Sir Gary Sobers, perhaps the greatest all-rounder of all time, said that Subhash Gupte was the greatest leg spinner he had played against. Gupte played in the era when the gentlemen's sport was governed by masters of the willow. That didn’t prevent him from declaring rather notable chaps such as Sir Gary Sobers, Tom Graveney, Hanif Mohammed, Sir Frank Worrell, and Dennis Compton.
His bowling was characterized by his ability to give the ball a lot of flight and turn it sharply. Gupte only played in 36 tests but seized 149 wickets with a galvanizing bowling average of 29.55. Sadly, his career was to end, unfortunately, and rather unfairly, when an odd incident took place during England's 1961-62 tour of India. The ill disciplinary act of Subhash Gupte and his roommate Kripal Singh caused a scandal, ultimately bringing an end to Gupte's career.
My Decisive Verdict on the Greatest Leg-Spinners of All Time:
I think selecting the six greatest leg-spin diviners among the hundreds was nearly impossible for me. But I have to do justice to the good ones who have graced this game with their leg-spin forecast.
Leg spin has been labelled as both romantic and eccentric cricketing art. It is an art that sends the heart racing, its mysteries a joy to behold as they unravel. In its essence, it is a source of both magic and joy and World cricket has been fortunate to have been blessed with a succession of these magicians. Leg-spinners like Bill O’Reilly, Arthur Mailey, Clarrie Grimmett, Intikhab Alam, BS Chandrashekar, Stuart MacGill, and Danish Kaneria are also not far behind during their peaks. After all, it is leg-spin bowling that makes cricket one of the best and most colourful games of the modern era.
Many youngsters like Adil Rashid, Adam Zampa, Shadab Khan, Rashid Khan, and Yuzvendra Chahal, etc. have taken inspiration and stimulus from these greats, and many more will do the same.
