I think he's great but I feel like he's bowling more bad balls over the last year or so than I remember him bowling when he first started. I don't know how much of that is injury related because he's had a few problems with his back and missed some games because of it.
I understand the obsession with the googly, this is the land of Qadir, Mushy, Kaneria. A 30+ year legacy of bowlers carrying the googly one after the other like the passing of a torch in an ancient Greek relay race. PPers are obsessed with plan B, C, D and E and want bowlers with lots of variations and the ability to bowl six balls in an over and confuse the batsman but that's not how top class bowling works.
Kaneria had a fantastic googly, one of the best ever and he took some absolutely gorgeous wickets with it. What people gloss over is that Kaneria got slated constantly for being impatient and overusing his googly instead of sticking to the plan. Yasir's googly isn't as effective as any of those guys and it's for a good reason. It's because his stock leg-break is much better, spun harder and at a consistently greater pace than any of those guys.
If you have a brilliant leg-break, like Yasir does, then that will be the ball that you bowl
MINIMUM 90% of the time. Everything you do branches off that stock-ball that you can bowl with your eyes closed. The vast majority of the time, you only need to make subtle changes in pace and the amount of spin you put on it to create enough variation to keep a batsman on his toes while you put the plan to work. Many times, the natural variation in the pitch will do it for you as evidenced by this famous Shane Warne delivery to Ian Bell in the 2005 Ashes.
Bell picked the leg-break correctly and left it as he had done many times before only this one for some mysterious reason, whether it hit a harder part of the pitch or landed on a smoother part of the ball, went straight on instead of fizzing past the stumps and another chapter was added to the legend of Shane Warne's fictional mystery deliveries.
Fast forward to 2015 and England's visit to the UAE. It's the second test in Dubai, you all remember the one. Adil Rashid falling with 6 overs left in the final day to seal a win that everyone had written off as a draw. The most nerve-biting finish anyone could remember until what happened yesterday in Dominica. Of course you all remember.
Do you remember Bairstow's wicket? Playing all around a Yasir Shah googly like a tailender? Maybe you do, maybe you don't.
All that wrist-slitting and it wasn't even lunch time. Why? Because Bairstow was playing Yasir really well, leaving leg-break after leg-break, even ones that pitched on the stumps because he was confident that they were going to turn away. So PP did what PP does and went into full-blown panic mode bemoaning the lack of variations and the rest of it. So what did bowler and captain do? Carry on with the toothless bowling. Let Bairstow block and leave with confidence, it doesn't matter. Then the next part of the plan, go round the wicket for two overs which lead to the obvious complaints:
Only stayed around the wicket for two overs to Bairstow but that was enough to get his eyes and feet used to facing leg-breaks (He hadn't bowled a single googly all morning) coming from around the wicket.
What is happening out there? I'll let Misbah explain it:
Then back over the wicket after just two overs from around the stumps, is this brainless captaincy? Bowler can't make his mind up whether he should be over or around, omg there are 70 overs left in the day but we're not going to win, I'm turning off the TV what the hell this is awful.
But you guys need to chill, it's all part of the plan.
What was the result?
Even though the batsman wasn't looking for it, because Yasir bowls the googly so rarely, Bairstow picked it easily and played to clip it through midwicket with the spin but was bowled all ends up.
Why? Because he had been set up by facing leg-break, after leg-break, after leg-break, after leg-break, after leg-break, after leg-break, after leg-break, after leg-break, after leg-break. Over the wicket? Leg-break. Around the wicket? Leg-break. When Bairstow went to bed that night all he could dream of was leg-breaks. They broke Bairstow out of his comfort zone, which can only be done if you first let him get comfortable. Yasir Shah bowled 249 deliveries in that innings, only 5 (2%) of them were googlies. He took 4/87 and we won the match in the last 7 overs.
If there is anything we should have learned in the last 24 hours, it's that you have five days to take 20 wickets and there's nothing wrong with using every last minute.
Yasir bowled 222 balls in that innings, 12 (5%) were googlies. He took 5/92 and we won with one over to spare.
Plan B is useless if you don't have faith in Plan A.
That goes for all bowlers, slow or fast. If you're a young seamer, there's a reason you don't practice bouncers and then yorkers and out swing and inswing and slower ball bouncers. Sure you have Plan B, C, D, E, F etc. but congratulations now you're Jade Dernbach and nobody will remember you for anything other than looking like a total idiot with your stupid armsleeve tattoos.
Two things to add:
1) The 5th day of that Dubai test led to the first wrist-slitters thread:
http://www.pakpassion.net/ppforum/s...rist-slitters-naysayers-pessimists&highlight=
2) We're never going to see Yasir take a wicket and run straight over to Misbah ever again

[MENTION=46929]shaz619[/MENTION]