Richard - thanks for that great post. Just one thing - re the quotation above: I don't believe you do have to inform the umpire, but perhaps Andy Mellon can confirm for us? According to Law 24, the umpire is to ascertain and inform the batsmen whether the bowler will bowl right- or left-handed and over or round the wicket. It is unfair for the bowler to change his delivery in this limited respect without notifying the umpire in advance, and if he does so the umpire will call no ball. But I don't think it goes any further than that.

__________________
Money won't buy you friends. But it gets you a better class of enemy.
Spike Milligan

On a similar point to OF above, it's absurd that batsmen are allowed to change their stance from right handed to left handed (or vice versa) whilst the ball is in flight. We've all seen this happen - bowlers wouldn't be allowed to change from Right arm to Left arm in mid delivery.

Aha. Well, actually, if you change from right to left handed, you are supposed to tell the umpire and thus the opposition bowler. Some of the innovative one day shots we see (e.g. the reverse sweep) seem to break this law.

There is no need to tell the umpire if you change from off-spin to leg-spin. Some of the variations of the arts themselves will give you the effect of bowling the offy/leggy anyway, so there's no reason to do so. If your action changes either from over to round the wicket, or from left to right handed (now, can anyone do that?!?) then you should inform the umpire, and thus the batsman.

No problem here for England, we don't have a wrist (leg spin) bowler of note,so we have to have either off spin bowlers, or SLA bowlers.

Good question, it is so a captain can have a variation from pace, mix it up a little, even if the ball is not turning, a good spin bowler will use different variations in pace, bowl with a loop, or bowl flat, this helps to keep batsmen quiet

Richard if you read this, I have heard this before, why have you classed a slow left arm bowler as an off spin bowler, when he turns the ball away from the bat?.

__________________
Ern

Because he holds and bowls the ball like an off spinner, not a leg spinner? or am I wrong? I went with grip, but now I'm not so sure.....

__________________
I have a dream.... (Martin Luther King)

What law is this? The main problem with changing hands is determining which are the off- and leg-sides, obviously vital to know for any LBW appeals and also for fielding restrictions on the leg-side.

I think it is fine to change hands after the ball is 'live' (i.e. not dead) and the LBW law has been modified to define at which point the off- and leg-sides are defined, as the bowler enters his run up. I think then changing hands is ok! This is quite a recent law change.

__________________
Whatever your difficulties in mathematics, I can assure you mine are far greater!
Albert Einstein, 1879-1955

I don't know if a left-handed bowler can be called an off-spinner full stop. In a sense they are an off-spinner, but just a mirror image with a left-handed batsman. In the same vein only a right handed bowler may be called a leg-spinner.

__________________
Whatever your difficulties in mathematics, I can assure you mine are far greater!
Albert Einstein, 1879-1955

Forget the grip, slow left armers bowl, as far as the right nad bat is concerned, leg breaks.

Chinamen bowl off breaks.

The term Chinamen comes from Ellis Achong, a Trinidiadian of Chinese descent. Before that they were called left arm off break bowlers.

To be honest Richard I don't know, I have heard them classed as off spin bowlers, but also as "Orthadox Slow Left Arm".

Anyone know?

__________________
Ern

He obviously bowled mirror image leg-spin deliveries and he once bowled some guy who walked off the field angry muttering "I can't believe I was bowled by a Chinaman!". Which obviosuly has two meanings, bowled by the guy or by the delivery and it stook as the name for the delivery.

__________________
Whatever your difficulties in mathematics, I can assure you mine are far greater!
Albert Einstein, 1879-1955