World Cup unlikely to be spin-friendly
English summer will be hard slog
Spinners in danger of being selected for next year’s World Cup in England might want to look for something else to do for those few weeks‚ or pull a hamstring.
The conditions will enlarge the already unfair advantage over bowlers that batters have been gifted by wrong-headed playing regulations‚ and the slow poisoners seem set to be left with the important but thankless task of keeping it tight while the seamers get on with the real job.
At the last World Cup in England‚ in 1999‚ spinners were almost as scarce as uncalled legside wides on the lists of the top 10 bowlers. They featured twice among the wickettakers and not at all when it came to strike rates.
Fast forward to the 2011 World Cup‚ played on the slow‚ turning pitches of India‚ Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. Suddenly spin was sexy. Half the top 10 wicket-takers were spinners‚ along with four each in the averages‚ best bowling and strike rate pecking orders. Eight of the 10 bowlers with the best strike rates‚ and who had a minimum of 20 overs‚ were spinners.
Left-arm spinner Robin Peterson played only one match in the 2003 World Cup in South Africa‚ two in the next edition of the event in the Caribbean‚ and seven in 2011 – when he was South Africa’s top wicket-taker with 15‚ followed one behind by leg-spinner Imran Tahir.
It will be eight years on from all that when the 2019 World Cup starts with a game between England and South Africa at the Oval on May 30‚ and a full 20 years since the tournament was last staged in England.
“The weather in England plays a big role‚” Claude Henderson said yesterday‚ a day before leaving his home in Leicester to return to his position as SA’s spin consultant.
“If it’s like it is now‚” he said‚ confirming that the midlands were just as bleak and wintery as London‚ and four degrees colder than the capital’s 12 degrees‚ “it’s very hard for a spinner to be a strike bowler. But if the sun comes out and bakes the wickets‚ they take more turn.”
That should be the case seven months from now‚ when the tournament will unfold in the full bloom of an English summer.