I konw that. I was just replying to a point raised by another poster. And I don't know if you noticed, but these threads go off on tangents all the time. We don't need you to police the threads, so there's no need to let it ruin your day, okay?

The fact the the "Independant article" was wrote in 1998 IMO is testiment to the fact that finger spin (in particular Off Spin) has been in decline for some years.
The Cricinfo article was more recent in August 18, 2006.
More recent still is this from Cricinfo Blogs Cricinfo - Blogs - Men in White
I go back to the days of Bishen Bedi, and I can't see a player even getting near to his class - but even he was SLA and not an Off Spinner, I think the last player to be mentioned in the same breath as Bedi was Underwood, with respect to Panesar it certainly was not him.

Swann and Panesra may be good players - even may become very good players, but I doubt they will ever be great players.
The decline of finger spinners IMO has been gradual, in England we have had Hemmings, Croft, Edmunds and Tuffers all good to very good, but none great.

The last really decent Off spinner England had was Embury, look at the list of Off Spinners since then.

Even our esteemed former Off Spinn bowler now selector Dusty Miller was hardly world class, was little better than adiquate.
I don't believe my remarks are off topic - after all I was making a point about the decline of finger spinners, and Harbhajan is an Off Spinner - is he not?.

I would say that the reason Harbhajan has been a real disappointment in this series is the fact that like he is no better than the rest of the worlds fingers spinners who I feel are in decline.
I agree with this in total, but who are to coach young players to the standards of Bedi or even Underwood, that's part of the reason finger spin is in decline IMO - and the same reason England will never produce a decent leg spinner, there can't be any coaches available.
So who is going to help Harbhajan further is career as a world class finger spinner?.

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Ern

Spinners performances Aust v India series so far rated highest to lowest via wickets taken

A.Kumble (Ind) 18 wickets 690 runs average 38.33
A.Symonds (Aust) 8 wickets 187 runs average 23.38
H.Singh (Ind) 8 wickets 490 runs average 61.25
G.B Hogg (Aust) 7 wickets 471 runs average 67.29
V.Sehwag (Ind) 4 wickets 75 runs average 18.75
M.Clarke (Aust) 4 wickets 124 runs average 31.00

Not a great return by Harbahjan but he has the local Hogg right down in the mire with him.

It might not matter much for either Harbahjan or Hogg as it is becoming obvious part time bowlers from both teams are performing better than them.

And I am sure India will further pursue going into most future tests with 3 pacemen. Cruch time for Harbahjan will be when Kumble retires what his form is like and who else is around in Indian cricket.

Okay, that's fair enough. But even if Panesar, Swann, Harris etc. never become great players, just good-very good players, then that will still leave you with five or six high-class finger-spinners playing cricket at the same time. If that doesn't match up to the glory days of Underwood, Mallet, Bedi, Prassanna and Venkat, then it's still a great deal better than the days of Croft, Giles and Boje.

I am not policing the Threads and please be assured that this is not ruining my day in any way.

If the threads go off the tangent all the time, something needs to be done about it sometimes.

I do not believe decline in finger spinners world-wide has anything to do with Harbhajan's poor performance. If that were the case, we would not have seen the likes of Qadir, Warne and Kumble, when the art of leg-spin was almost dead after Chandrasekhar retired in the lates 1970s.

Coaching never guarantees success. But a few tips usually help a cricketer who is eager to learn and improve.

The bowling standards world-wide in general have declined, not only finger spinners.

Give the bowlers a break

They have to use basically the same ball that was getting bowled 100 years ago.

There is no way the batsmen are using the same bats. Add bat technology and roped in boundaries together and a bowlers job has become much harder.

In a new twist to the racism case, channel 9 has offered audio evidence from the stump microphone. I wonder why they were sitting on it all the while.

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My computer can beat me at chess.....but its no match for me at kick boxing.

Where did you hear this ? no way known this could be good news for Harbi channel 9 probably sat on it until they insured the rest of the series

It's on the news items at the top of this page.

To throw fuel on the fire "An Aussie go's Bolly" moves on to the infamous "Mumbai" India v Australia ODI tonite. It will be interesting to see Gus's fly on the wall veiw of things from inside the stadium.

Fox 8 at 8.30pm in Eastern Australia tonite.