Why did it take so long for spinners to become dominant in international cricket wicket-taking wise?

Question

Given that spinners generally bowl longer spells than fast bowlers, and have longer careers, one would expect them to surpass most fast bowlers in terms of wickets taken. Instead, until the retirement of Courtney Walsh, the Test cricket wicket taking charts were dominated by fast bowlers. The world record for most wickets were successively held by Fred Trueman, Dennis Lillee, Ian Botham, Richard Hadlee, Kapil Dev and Walsh. Lance Gibbs' 309 wickets were considered unsurpassable for spinners until Shane Warne took 300 in the late 90s. Since then, the bowling charts have been dominated by spinners, with Muttiah Muralitharan, Shane Warne and Anil Kumble at the top. Even given that the 70s and 80s were dominated by fast bowlers, and much less cricket was played before that, why did it take so long for spinners to come into the ascendency? Given that, at one time, England, West Indies, South Africa and Australia produced fine spinners (Arthur Mailey, Clarrie Grimmett, Bill O'Reilly, Tich Freeman, Wifred Rhodes, Richie Benaud, Hugh Tayfield, Sonny Ramadhin, Alf Valentine), why is it that spinners, after Sydney Barnes, were never on top of the charts until recently?

Answer 1

i think it was because India and Pakistan never where able to build  the conveyor belts of fast bowlers from the likes of Australia ,west Indies and england of the 70s and 80s

so they built on the knowledge they excelled,, at which where spinners ,this knowledg was more or less lost in western cricketing nations

then came along Adul Quadir who brought back the old alchemist art of leg spin bowling ,, .and the googley  .. which bamboozled every body..cos the art of playing the googley was lost in time .. Shane Warne modeled himself on Quadir...then the rest is history ..

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Answer 2

Well, Clarrie Grimmett was the first to 200 wickets, but I take your point, the leading bowlers, certainly since WW2, have always been fast bowlers.

It could be that spinners were often seen as a holding bowler, there to tie up an end, and take wickets on helpful surfaces. The fast bowler would be the one used as the wicket taking bowler.

All this changed with the emergence of Shane Warne. He reinvented the game, and showed that spinners, just as much as fast bowlers, could be strike bowlers, and on any surface, not just those conducive to spin.

Did you know that Warne has better figures at Brisbane than any other Australian ground? And the 'Gabba is supposed to be a fast bowlers paradise!

Now we are wondering whether a fast bowler will ever top the bowling charts again.

Answer 3

I think it's partly cyclical (spinners did dominate in the 1930s, the 1970s as well as the 2000s) and partly conicidental that three of the greatest spinners arrived at the same time.

Leading the wicket-taking list isn't necessary a great measure of how good a bowler is, I rate Malcolm Marshall as the greatest bowler ever but he never led the list. There's been plenty of great spinners who for whatever reason never topped the charts.

In the 1950s there was Jim Laker but he was never a regular until his 1956 exploits and missed a total of 48 Tests during his career mainly due to the presence of Johnny Wardle and Tony Lock.

Spin twins Alf Valentine and Sonny Ramadhin started their Test careers with a bang but could never sustain the performances of 1950, over-bowling, injuries and batsman finding them out the causes.

A shoulder injury in 1961 robbed Richie Benaud of getting close to Trueman's record, he'd taken 154 wickets @ 21.79 in the 4 1/2 years before the '61 Ashes.

Hugh Tayfield Test career finished at the age of 31 after two poor series but with South Africa's lack of Test matches, when compared with England and Australia, he'd have had to play for another decade to reach 300 wickets.

Chandrasekhar and Bedi both took over 200 wickets, but India's lack of Test matches probably cost them. Off-spinners Prasanna and Venkataraghavan were both rotated so never had a chance. Abdul Qadir also passed 200, but his failure to travel well done for him.

Lance Gibbs, despite not being an better spinner than the aforementioned names, was able to pass 300 and hold the record for a short time in the late 1970s because he had longevity, was the countries number one spinner and the country played enough Test cricket.