Cricket Special Report: The 'Doosra' Conundrum
Saeed Ajmal has been a spinning revelation for http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Muttiah-Muralitharan-c78157. What has made him stand out amongst his peers however has
been his gifted ability to ball the ‘doosra’. This special delivery which is disguised like a regular off spin ball turns in the opposite direction instead, forcing the meek batsmen to play across the line of the ball and more often than not top edge it, or
miss it completely to be adjudged LBW.
The first time ‘doosra’ was seen in action was in 1999, when Pakistan’s great spin maestro http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Australia-c746 to pick up 6 wickets for only 46 runs. The Australian batsmen were completely and
utterly bamboozled by this turning delivery which kept them on their toes. The irony however is that despite some of the most sensational bowling displays in modern cricket, Pakistan still lost the match to Australia.
The current Test match between http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757 and Pakistan has seen Saeed Ajmal being belted without mercy all over the Dubai Sports City Cricket Stadium by the South African duo of Jacques Kallis and Hashim Amla. It would have been prudent if Saeed Ajmal
had at least studied the techniques of the great masters of spin bowling. If nothing else, he should have taken a leaf out of Saqlain Mushtaq’s book or used some common sense at the least.
They say excess of everything is injurious, and this fabled statement came to life in the ongoing test match between South Africa and Pakistan. It is ok to bowl a couple of ‘doosras’ in One Day International cricket, given the extenuating circumstances,
but Test cricket is a whole different ball game. What Saeed Ajmal failed to recognise was that bowling a ‘doosra’ after every alternate delivery was wasting the potential that it held. The batsmen became accustomed to the delivery and consequently, Saeed Ajmal
was only able to pick up a single wicket and was hammered around for more than a hundred runs alongside it. The two batsmen conveniently notched up hundreds, while Ajmal was left to hang his head in shame.
Only a couple of weeks prior to the start of the series, Saeed Ajmal claimed that he had succeeded in developing a new special delivery for the World Cup next year. While that is all well and good, but perhaps the Pakistani bowler ought to be reminded that
if his basic skill set remains weak, no new special delivery or variety would get him success in the longer formats of the game.
Saeed Ajmal and his problems with 'doosra' are reflective of a bigger problem of talented Pakistani cricketers. Many of them have lost the glitter of their talent at some stage in their career due to one reason or another. One example is of Imran Nazir who
took to the cricketing stage with a storm, flashing away with his flamboyant power hitting. He impressed the likes of Imran Khan with his forceful craftiness, but soon enough the brilliance of his talent was wasted to flaws in technique. Then Azhar Mehmood
and Abdur Razzaq, two star all-rounders, started of as smart exponents of reverse swing. But they too became predictable with their variations and compromised their utility to the team.
Saeed Ajmal faces a similar problem. He risks losing the art he became known for because of its excessive usage and lack of improvement in quality. He should have focused on maintaining the quality rather than quantity of the ‘doosras’ that he bowled. But
he didn't and so he is in a fix. Its not over for him as yet though. He will have to go back to the basics and do it all over again. An off spinner must spin the bowl, is what he needs to be told. And if he does that, he wouldn't need the special delivery
to spin the wits of his opponents in the World Cup.
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