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What is the main weapon of a leg-spinner?

MenInG

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Is there one aspect of a leg-spinner's arsenal which is more important than the other?

Conventional wisdom says that a spinner needs to have all sorts of variations up his sleeves to avoid being a one-trick pony.

I hear that Shadab over-uses his googly yet he has been successful so is there more to it?
 
In Test cricket, I would say a good conventional leg break with excellent accuracy and change of pace/flight is all a leg break bowler needs to be successful. An occasional flipper/googly here and there makes him deadly but that strong conventional leg break is of most importance. In LOIs, it is a different case. You can get away with an average leg break and accuracy as long as you have a lot of variation.
 
Is the X factor a component of a bowler's armoury too?
 
the most successful leg spinner in the history of cricket didn't have a googly.

Don't think that googly as a variation is a deceptive at international level. Variation in leg spin however is something that is extremely good to have.
 
Controll - ability to land 6 balls in desired spot. Then comes the knowledge to know exactly how much he is going to turn on a particular surface/ball.
 
Control!!! Leg Spinners who made it to the international teams are most able to do leg spin, googly, flipper. What differs them is the control on their ball. Using wrist to deliver ball causes the ball to go full toss. The more control there is the better leg spinner he 'll be. Yasir has the best control out of the current lot in my opinion but he has the least turn too because of his control he been picking wickets.
 
Control is important to succeed in all formats especially test cricket.

However when it comes to taking wickets it's about beating the Batsman in flight. That's what Dhananjaya did yesterday. That's what Yasir did against England
 
If you don't have a good, consistent leg-break then nothing else matters.
 
I think its control and line and length.

Remember, afridi was selected in the team because he was a young leggie who didnt even bowl a single full toss delivery.
I read this story somewgere dont remember who wad the guy who selected him.

And in later years this is why afridi had bowling success. The guy didnt have any break like shadab or rashid does but he had great control with line and length.

Though afridi could had done better had he not rushed in his overs
 
Mushtaq Ahmed may disagree :mv

Just because his stock ball didn't turn miles doesn't mean it wasn't a leg-break but yes, amend that to "good, consistent, stock delivery". Mushy is the perfect example of the type of bowler who can get away with bowling a lot of googlies, because his leg-break had more top-spin than side spin so the googly didn't look that different from his stock delivery.

Leggies like Yasir Shah or Shane Warne would be lesser bowlers if they worried about the googly because it's so different from their normal leg-break that even you could pick it from the stands. :harby
 
Is there one aspect of a leg-spinner's arsenal which is more important than the other?

Conventional wisdom says that a spinner needs to have all sorts of variations up his sleeves to avoid being a one-trick pony.

I hear that Shadab over-uses his googly yet he has been successful so is there more to it?

Momentum and Rhythm are the most important, closely followed by the indiscernible googly. What makes Legspinners so dangeorus and enjoyable to watch, is that even if they only bowl the conventional legbreak with rhythm they can still be extremely potent. Also with clever positioning of the bowl, the drift becomes a natural weapon for a LS. Yasir Shah is a quintessence of all these aspects.
 
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