The new county season is likely to be a big test of English cricket’s curating of spin bowling. A structure that shunts most championship matches to both ends of the schedule is hardly conducive to its development and although more points are being awarded for a draw (up from five to eight) the law of unforeseen consequences means this might not result in the hoped-for move away from seamer-friendly surfaces. Only one wicket out of 66 fell to spin on the opening day on Thursday.
There also needs to be a change of mindset. Two years ago, Somerset were docked points (which will be deducted in this year’s competition because of the championship’s suspension in 2020) for preparing a pitch at Taunton that the Cricket Discipline Commission ruled as poor, referencing “excessive unevenness of bounce”, which seems a crass reaction when grassy, damp pitches assisting seamers have been ten-a-penny for many seasons.
Gareth Batty, the Surrey player and assistant coach who played nine Tests as an off spinner and has taken more than 1,000 wickets at professional level, believes this attitude must be reviewed if England are to nurture world-class slow bowlers. The performances of Moeen Ali, Dom Bess and Jack Leach in the sub-continent this year suggested the problem was not so much a want of talent as a shortage of exposure to the right pitches and pressures.
“Somerset produced our two [main] spinners for the India tour [Bess and Leach] yet they were chastised for promoting spin,” Batty said. “I’ve seen other clubs play on seaming pitches that go sideways and up and down, with games finishing in two or three days, and nobody bats an eyelid. It’s a case of, ‘Oh well, it’s England, the ball seams and swings, and batsmen didn’t play well.’
“If we want to be the best Test team, Twenty20 team, ODI team, we need to expose all our players to different surfaces before they get to international level. If Somerset wanted to build their team around two young spinners, that should be championed. They shouldn’t be hindered at every turn.
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“When England go to India, the pressure on the spinners is turned on its head from what it is like here. Playing on the turning pitches they had at Somerset two years ago is the best preparation you could have. We’re asking guys to front up in the best places in the world to bowl spin without ever being backed in our country.”
Batty welcomes the recent appointment of Jeetan Patel, the former New Zealand and Warwickshire off spinner, as England’s full-time spin-bowling coach. “Let’s be honest, county cricket is here to service England being a better team,” he said. “We all play county cricket to win but we don’t want easy wins. We want guys to migrate into the England set-up understanding the hard work required and not learning on the job.
“Jeetan’s a great addition. He understands the technicalities of bowling. There’s huge research in fast bowlers bowling 90mph. We need to nick a bit of that for spin. We need to load young spinners with lots of good information and accelerate their learning. They don’t have the time they once had. You can’t play until you are 26 or 27, then break in [to the England side] and play for ten years. Those days are done because of the world we live in.
“There aren’t going to be many spinners in the county game bowling to be the purist spinner making a difference in Tests, bowl strong balls with a bit of curve or dip, or over-spin. Your way into county cricket as a spinner is through T20s or 50 overs. We need to add the craftsmanship, which takes time. We want spinners to get the headlines on the last day of a [championship] game, not just keep down over-rates or service a few overs when the fast bowlers are tired.”
Ali, Bess and Leach took 53 wickets across six Tests in Sri Lanka and India but were comprehensively outbowled by Ravichandran Ashwin and Axar Patel in the last three matches. The India pair proved more skilful and, unsurprisingly, better versed in the conditions. England’s challenge is to narrow this gap.
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Batty watched the progress of these games closely as a commentator for talkSPORT. “Moeen [who played in only the second Test against India] started like a man who hadn’t played Test cricket for a period,” he said. “In that last innings he bowled naturally and found what was right for him [in taking four for 98]. He is our best finger spinner and has been for some time. If we’re serious about winning games on the sub-continent you need Moeen playing red-ball cricket.
“Bess did brilliantly in South Africa [last year] where there wasn’t the same expectation. He worked on some good stuff leading into India but it is very difficult bowling against the best if your action isn’t fully repeating. We need to keep supporting him. Leach started slowly and got more into it. He found it hard [at first] because his natural angle is to target top of off stump but on those surfaces you had to bowl much straighter. He finished very nicely.”
Batty, 43, is likely to play some Vitality Blast games for Surrey this season but his principal job is working with the county’s young cricketers and especially their up-and-coming spinners. These include two of the most promising in the country in the off spinner Amar Virdi, who possesses flight and guile, and Dan Moriarty, a tall left-armer.
Among others he will be keeping an eye on are the leg spinner Matt Parkinson at Lancashire, who like Virdi was among England’s reserves during the Tests in Asia, Jack Carson at Sussex and Thilan Walallawita at Middlesex.
“One thing is obvious: if you’re a good young spinner in England, you’ve got a heck of a chance of a long international career — you’re one of a select band,” Batty said.
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“The opportunities are great if you’re prepared to put in the hard work. And if a young spinner from another county gets five-for against us, I’ll still be trying to help them, because we need to keep producing them — and I’ll be telling our boys how we could play it better.”
