Back-Spinning Deliveries

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someblokecalleddave

someblokecalleddave

Well-Known Member
I think we need to seperate this discussion from the other less specific topic areas. We do seem to be going round in circles with the discussion with some factions of one opinion and the others another. The main points of contention are -

1. What is a Slider
2. What is a Zooter
3. What is the name of the ball with the fingers run down the back of the ball delivered cross seam (scrambled).

I think to we need to start quoting and linking our sources as well. So here's my starting point and I have to admit this blokes not a spin bowler and often gets it wrong on the tele and yet he gets paid for this stuff.

Here's a Zooter..........

http://www.channel4.com/sport/cricket/analyst/jargon/ana_42.html

If you type in Zooter in Google you'll get the same description several times.
 
someblokecalleddave said:
I think we need to seperate this discussion from the other less specific topic areas. We do seem to be going round in circles with the discussion with some factions of one opinion and the others another. The main points of contention are -

1. What is a Slider
2. What is a Zooter
3. What is the name of the ball with the fingers run down the back of the ball delivered cross seam (scrambled).

I think to we need to start quoting and linking our sources as well. So here's my starting point and I have to admit this blokes not a spin bowler and often gets it wrong on the tele and yet he gets paid for this stuff.

Here's a Zooter..........

http://www.channel4.com/sport/cricket/analyst/jargon/ana_42.html

If you type in Zooter in Google you'll get the same description several times.
Click to expand...


I think we agree that
1. Slider= a leg break bowled with a scrambled seam that skids on ( see warne's video with mark nicholas)
2. Zooter= the backspinner ie further round the loop than the big leg break
3. No 3 is an orphan with no name, but is probably categorised as a seamer
 
1. Slider = what you describe as number 3. the ball is held like a leg break (with the seam either cross seam like a leg break, or straight like a seamer, bowlers choice). but instead of flicking the fingers and wrist, you simply drag the hand down behind the ball to impart a small amount of backspin and the ball skids straight on.

2. Zooter = pure backspinner delivered with an around-the-loop method. the hardest spun of all back spinning deliveries.

3. no name ball = leg break with a scrambled seam. some may call it a Slider, but its the exact same ball as a leg break, just with a scrambled seam. thus i dont think it needs another name.

the clearest description in the world of the Zooter - Shane Warne himself demonstrating it, clear as day, as a round-the-loop back spinner. in the same video he also shows the "big leg break" with backspin, and interestingly describes the flipper as the Richie Benaud flying saucer variation! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tObCnRsIY1U
 
Lets nut this out and work it through, on this thread. It could take some time. We can and will get to the bottom of it. I think the simpson article i dug up is a good start. A first hand account from warnes coach at the time he first learnt the backspinning toppie or doug ring skidder or as benaud once called it his sliding toppie or sometimes just "slider".

If terry jenner wasn't so crook I would email him again as he is always willing to answer questions i put to him in the past if he can.

I am going to blow my own trumpet here, but last year dave and me solved one of the biggest mysteries of legspin. What was grimmetts mystery ball. We say here it is the overspinner he pereferred over the backspinning flipper to be known as his mystery ball.

We have gathered the evidence and it is conclusive and solid, including actual photos. I communicated this to ashley mallett and terry jenner and they both wrote me back saying rubish, grimmett did not bowl a topspinning flipper but spent 12 years working solely on the warne/benaud flipper. This is wrong, wrong, wrong and proves neither mallett, jenner or for that matter a dozen other famous cricket writers and historians have read all grimmetts work closely enough.

We have been here before over the term slider. It is a trade term that we legspinners can know what is meant by the context it is used in. I often refer to "the" slider (pure backspinner) and "a" slider ( arm ball, seamer non spinner).

I have a theory and will post it later.
 
I'm on it as well Macca! Found some interesting stuff already and realised I'm a victim of the Shane Warne world domination machine! At this juncture I'm so glad that I named the thread as I did, otherise I'd have ended up looking like a right pillock what with having read the stuff I just have and already realising this is once again down to semantics!

I think its going to come down to the fact that one of the deliveries is going to be recognised as going by 3 different names even though it's the same delivery. The confusion then lies in the fact that the same delivery can be bowled in the wrong way either by accident or maybe intentionally as it then has different attributes and its been seen by commentators and accredited with one of the newer names even though it's the same delivery!

It'll be interesting to see what we all come up with and then whether we get some consensus.

Here's a link that suggests that possibly between us we may have some problems............

http://www.todaytranslations.com/press-room/66/doosra-outscores-googly

I'd have thought that the worlds top liguists would have easily found someone to explain a Googly to them!

And from the worlds best ............

Zooter - 11 % (A variation of the flipper, bowled by a leg-break bowler with little or no spin on it. Typically zoots along the ground with little bounce.)

Just trying to establish what the origins of Zoot are is diificult even though it keeps coming up in different texts. Philpott uses it once in his book to describe the Orthodox Back-Spinner saying "I would have Zooted back-spinners at him". This kind of suggests that possibly in Australia the word Zoot is slang and combines shoot and Zing, but looking at slang dictionaries on-line it doesn't come up as far as I can see?
 
I'm liking this one from cricinfo's glossary

Zooter A spin bowling variation, first devised by Shane Warne. This is a delivery that snakes out of the hand with little or no spin imparted, and so deceives through its very ordinariness. Some question whether the delivery has ever existed, for it could be another of Warne's mindgames to keep his opponents on their toes

But then there's no entry for 'Slider' or 'Orthodox Back-Spinner'?
 
I think we need to expand the scope of our investigations as well......

1. What is a Slider
2. What is a Zooter
3. What is the name of the ball with the fingers run down the back of the ball delivered cross seam (scrambled).
4. What is an Orthodox Back-Spinner
 
I think Zooter is the one that needs definition.

I thought for a while it was just warnes take on a right round the loop backspinner where he cancelled the revs. That would almost fit both rough descriptions.

We might have to go back thru the threads but i remember being convinced by what jim2019 presented that the zooter was the pure backspinner with normal revs like the philpott "backspinning toppie" and that accords with what simpson, the guy who showed warnie the ball to start with, says.

The zooter that is described as a non? anyway slow spinning palm ball is everwhere, but what is their source and how do you suppose to bowl the f*****g thing? They never really say.
 
Your link you posted earlier is telling - "

A terrible irony of his life is that the media have sometimes come down hard on him, exploiting those moments when he let himself down off the field. I say `irony' because, being a clever bluffer on the field, he didn't mind using the media to his advantage, especially at the start of each season when he'd announce the discovery of his latest "mystery ball".
His opponents would see the headlines everywhere about something that didn't exist. In reality, there was never a new trick, only a revamping of the name for Peter Philpott's "back spinning toppie".

Shane originally called it his zooter, now he calls it his slider and over. The last decade or so the ball has brought him numerous lbw decisions. What there was, though, was a further improvement in his accuracy and flight. He was always fine-tuning his bowling and increasing his arsenal. "

The main thing I've come up with is that througout Philpotts book he doesn't use either term Zooter or Slider and these it seems are just names attached to the Orthodox Back-spinner (by Warne it seems) just to cause confusion and muck about with peoples minds. I think what I've been doing wrong is calling the Orthodox Back-spinner a 'Slider' in the same way that Jim calls the Orthodox Back Spinner a Zooter. They're the same thing, as Saddo said elsewhere it's semantics.

I reckon from now on I'll be dropping the anomalous term 'Slider' and using the real name 'The Orthodox Back-spinner' AKA "back spinning toppie".
 
Around about here last time Goldenarm jumped in with a spanner in the works.

But i will accept zooter for the backspinner as well until someone can show me another formula.

I dunno i think dad or one of my brothers showed me a backspinner so it was never any secret and i can still bowl one. And like jim said it is foolproof to a certain extent, if you stuff up you may get a huge legbreak or even stranger concoctions, which probably got warne mucking around with it after simmo showed him one.

Dave and me may have unearthed Grimmetts mystery ball and maybe now Jim has defined the Warne Zooter. You wont find too many if any other websites that go into either subject, and there is so much bullshit spoken as fact about flippers and zooters by dickheads that wouldn't know a legbreak from a broken leg :mad:

More research needed.But we will get there.
 
the "orthodox back spinner" has definitely been called pretty much every possible name it can be by different bowlers. "the backspinner" would be the most sensible name for it if it werent for the flipper, since the top spinner is simply called by what it is. but with the flipper there is a need to distinguish between the 2. then the "slider" can also be bowled with quite a lot of backspin if you drag your fingers hard enough, thus it is too confusing to name it simply as "the back spinner" when there are 3 (or more) possible ways to achieve that result.

to me, Zooter makes the most sense as a name for it. certainly that word is a Shane Warne term, ive never read an article that mentions that word without first referring to Shane Warne, and have never heard any of the older leg spin bowlers call it that without referencing Warne. most of the old timers probably called it a Slider, but it doesnt slide, it grips hard!! it only slides if you scramble the seam, and then its essentially just a slider. ive been calling it the Zooter for quite a while now and intend to continue with that term. i like the fact that nobody else ive ever mentioned it to has any idea what it is, and thinks im making up a name for a delivery i dont have. they change their tune once theyve faced one though. if you say its a slider they just associate it with an arm ball which doesnt do it justice because its technically a very hard ball to bowl, and im proud to be one of the few people that can do it.

the term "Zooter" is apparently slang for a line of cocaine, or a device used to snort cocaine, so maybe thats how Warney came up with it haha :D and a Zoot is another word for a joint, pretty much every slang term related to the word is a drugs reference. it doesnt really have any relevance to what the delivery actually does, but its a completely different term to Slider and Flipper, and thus if everyone uses it in the same way then it would alleviate all the confusion and distinguish between the 3 main back spinners.

Warne is commentating for Sky during the Ashes, and they have an email to put questions forward. if we all bombard the Sky email inbox with the same question about the Zooter (and what the correct term is in Shane Warnes opinion) then maybe we will get clarification. Warne seems more willing to share his secrets now that he isnt really using them anymore. but i still wouldnt put it past him to deny the Zooter ever existed!

just to emphasise how confusing this subject is, it seems the bloke who helped Shane Warne to write his autobiography is the foremost proponent in describing the Zooter as an arm ball with no spin on it. see paragraph 6... http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2000/aug/24/cricket7
 
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/jan/19/adil-rashid-england-cricket-yorkshire

In this article Rashid also says the zooter and the slider are the same deliveries. He would be talking of the backspinning topspinning Philpott ball that Jenner called a slider. And he being coached by Jenner at some stage would know what he is talking about .

You will find that commentators like Geoff Lawson and Damien Flemming use slider as a term for the arm ball type ball and not the backspinner. As does Ian Healey, who was Warnes keeper. He was urging smith in one game to bowl a slider at a lefthander and try and slide one past him towards slip. That is more like the baseball slider concept.

I think benaud may have been thinking slider as in the trajectory in profile like a slippery dip or slide. Benauds backspinning wristspinner ball did not loop up but rather slid down out of his hand almost inverse to a looping topspinner. The other slider is more like in baseball, sliding across the batter.
 
Heres another thing and another reason to learn the zooter. Benaud could hardly spin his legbreak more than 6 inches until ring showed him how to backspin in 1953. This was 4 years before he learnt the flipper.

Benaud was too over the top and bowled mainly topspin. He was really treated as a non-spinning joke by english batsmen in his early tests. Acurracy was all he had. As soon as he learnt the backspinner he started to bowl bigger legbreaks.

Now in that article by simpson, he also says warne spun and drifted more after he learnt backspin as well, though simmo attributes to other things he showed him.

Macgill was another who bowled lots of backspinners and bowled huge legbreaks. He couldn't get the hang of the flipper but he reckoned the backspinner, as he calls it, was all he needed to counter the bounce.
 
Jim2109 said:

ive never read an article that mentions that word without first referring to Shane Warne, and have never heard any of the older leg spin bowlers call it that without referencing Warne.
Click to expand...

Dave just found the use of the word "zoot" by Philpott to describe how he would zoot in a backspinner!
 
Yeah, if you look at page 112

I've looked it up in slang dictionaries and come up with nothing. It may be that it's simply the merging of two words zing and shoot to emphasise the way in which he bowled it. Here in England we merge words and abbreviate them as I'm sure you do over there Donkey years for instance becomes Yonks in the same way. He only uses it the once on page 112 in the chapter 'Advanced Tactics' talking about bowling to bottom handed bats who cut and pull everything.​

"I must be full, even if it means slowing down, concentrating on the bread and butter leg-spin, and trying to force him to drive. As well, I would have zooted in the occasional back spinner at the line of the stumps".​

That's the only time the word is used and its not by way of explaining a variation its simply in the context I reckon of describing the balls pace in that it shoots in/zings in ....... Zoots?​
As Philpotts book was first published in 1995, it may be that Warne or Jenner may have adopted the same term 'to zoot' to describe the action of whatever back-spinner Warne was bowling at this point? It's easy to see that rather than say "Bowl that one that shoots and zips in" you'd say 'Use that one that Zoots in.' Use the term for a few weeks and someone's bound to say 'Sod keep calling it the Orthodox back-spinner let's call it a Zooter'.

I suppose the challenge now is to see if we can find an earlier reference than 1995 of the term Zoot or better still Zooter used in cricket? I was hoping that Macca would say that it was a term used by kids for throwing like 'Luzz' in England which is a combination of Buzz and Lob. It would be so simple if that was the case, but it looks like Philpott just comes up with it out of nowhere. One of us needs to re-read 'A Spinners Yarn' again and see if he uses it there at as that may age the term even more or even identify it in the context of a back-spinning delivery?

The difficulty with this process is, there has only ever been a handful of books where the author has had the confidence or stature to stand up and stake claim to being a master of the art to the point where they've felt they're in a position where they can define and write the template for these deliveries. We might argue that since Grimmett and Philpott, Jenner and Warne have taken on that role using new media (TV and Internet)? I'm not so convinced of the validity, usefulness and integrity of the Warne & Jenner show. As Macca pointed out in the Adil Rashid/Guardian link Jenner would turn up at his annual propaganda - whoops wrist spin schools each year claiming a new delivery, but Rashid saw through it - a case of the Emperors New Clothes it's not a new delivery it's the same old Back-Spinner with a different name. New media/internet etc in academic circles is seen as being suspect because there is no editing process. Any old Joe Bloggs like me can get a free blog, write a bunch of half baked stuff on a specialist subject like wrist spinning and bingo within a matter of months it's at the top of the page in the google searches
no1-again-and-its-not-even-updated-yet.html


I've a feeling that the Warne/Jenner/Mark Nicholas media combo was not designed entirely to impart well informed and detailed information to the masses, but was also a very clever strategic and marketing ploy aimed at striking the fear of God into any batsman that faced Warne. I've always said that the Jenner/Warne/Nicholas videos on youtube have limited use to the learner and if you watch them they're contradictory in their information. I'm not convinced of there usefulness when matched up against the work of Grimmett and Philpott and I believe that Warne has a legacy that has yet to be revealed. Jenner may have been Warnes mentor, but that role is different to the role that Grimmett and Philpott have contributed to the art of Wrist Spinning and because of is current ill health it seems unlikely that Jenner will ever commit his secrets and art to print and his legacy will be a bunch of cheesey videos on youtube, unless Warne does the right thing by us all.

What I'm trying to say is that the internet is a bit ropey when you're trying to get to the bottom of this kind of stuff, by virtue of being the no.1 search on Google for Legspin that doesn't make me an experty by any stretch of the imagination as we all know on here, but for someone passing by - kids say, my presence is far more obvious than the likes of Grimmett and Philpott who everybody should be reading!

The search goes on I suppose - written references to Slider and Zooter pre 1995 when it's obvious that the internet started to blur all the information!
 
Philpott also published a cricket coaching manual ,2 i think, back in the 70,s. They had chapters on legspin. I have copies here somewhere i will see if zoot is in there.

When did the very first edition of art of wristspin come out? I think it was post warne test debut ?

You know Philpott didn't think much of warne at first. He wrote a few early articles that implied Warne wouldn't last long at test level !

Philpott and Simpson were close as players and coaches for many years. The reality is Bob Simpson and even Jack Potter were more instrumental in Warne becoming a great bowler than the self taught Terry Jenner. Simpson gave him the backspinning toppie of Benaud, around the wicket tactics, stronger follow through, made him lose 10 kilos and more, and Potter gave him the flipper.
 
Yeah dig that book out if you can and let us have the title and I'll see if I can find a copy somewhere. My copy of 'The Art of wristspin' says the first edition was 1995.
 
I have been going through some old warne stuff and found another delivery he used to call his "Derryn Hinch Ball". He would bowl a high full toss at the batsman and found it often got a wicket, as did Arthur Mailey who found that especially batsmen with straight bat orthodoxy were suspect against the high full toss.

Derryn Hinch had a tv show and he used the phrase "expect the unexpected", which was warne bowling a full toss almost at your head. He used this tactic in some 1st class matches on his first tour and it raised some eyebrows and mumbles of unsporting but warne reckoned "stuff 'em, I 'll try anything"
 
Warne has made reference to full tosses quite a few times during commentary over the past year or so. when Pakistan were playing and Kaneria threw up a couple of full tosses one of the other commentators was quite critical, but Warne defended him saying full tosses used to get me wickets. probably in reference to his Derryn Hinch ball, but thats the first time ive heard about it.

full tosses definitely get wickets, but its a risky tactic because some batsmen will just dispatch you. also in all matches ive played no balls get called above waist height even for slow bowlers. im not sure if its the actual rules for club cricket in our region, or just umpires with no clue about the rules. so bowling the chest height full toss wouldnt work. below waist height and its too easy to smash. against super aggressive batsmen looking to advance down the pitch the very full ball (or full toss, it just cant be above knee height though really) encourages a drive, but more often than not the batsman will complete miss the ball because hes expecting it shorter. i often adjust my length if i see a batsman twitch at the crease as if he is about to advance. i do the same on players that try to switch hit or reverse sweep, except i bowl very short and as fast as possible. once ive spent all winter at the gym i should think il have enough shoulder power to actually bowl bouncers off my leg spin approach, so next time a batsman tries that theyll get one flashed past their ears (or hopefully not past their ears, id rather it hits them for being so cocky :D).
 
macca said:
I have been going through some old warne stuff and found another delivery he used to call his "Derryn Hinch Ball". He would bowl a high full toss at the batsman and found it often got a wicket, as did Arthur Mailey who found that especially batsmen with straight bat orthodoxy were suspect against the high full toss.

Derryn Hinch had a tv show and he used the phrase "expect the unexpected", which was warne bowling a full toss almost at your head. He used this tactic in some 1st class matches on his first tour and it raised some eyebrows and mumbles of unsporting but warne reckoned "stuff 'em, I 'll try anything"
Click to expand...

Ha Ha Derryn Hinch Full toss. In his own words SHAME SHAME SHAME
 
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