Counties look to spin for success

By Martin Gough

If you want to win some county silverware this season you had better have a foreign spinner in your ranks.

Hogg, Saqlain and Kaneria are set to star this season

That is exactly what teams have done successfully in the last few years, and why an unprecedented seven sides have imported slow bowlers this season.

New to the county scene are Pakistan leggie Danish Kaneria and Australia's Brad Hogg, who bowls wrist-spin with his left arm - known as the Chinaman delivery.

In his first full season at Gloucestershire is another Pakistani, off-spin all-rounder Shoaib Malik.

And back for more at Hampshire after a three year break is Australia's Shane Warne, who took 70 Championship wickets during his last spell in England.

None of these bowlers relies just on a spinner's traditional weapons. Each has the ability to send the ball the other way.

It is a mental battle - you try to work on the batsman so that he makes a mistake Saqlain Mushtaq

For a leg-spinner, whose deliveries usually turn from right to left, that means a googly, or the flipper, which goes straight on and stays low.

For an off-spinner, that means the doosra, an Urdu term meaning "other one", which is forcing its way into English dialect.

One of the first to coin the term, Pakistan's Saqlain Mushtaq, has played a major part in Surrey's three Championship successes since 1999.

The two seasons when Surrey have failed to clinch the crown, 2001 and 2003, were the only campaigns in which Saqlain has taken less that 50 wickets.

Sussex took the title last year behind leg-spinner Mushtaq Ahmed's 103 victims.

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Pointing to England's international success since 2000, Saqlain insists: "English players are improving.

"They won a series in Sri Lanka and against us and in India they played well.

"I don't know why good spinners are not coming up but they bat well against spinners."

The England team may be improving against spinners, but their county brethren are still struggling.

Meanwhile two bowlers experimenting with the doosra - James Tredwell of Kent and Worcestershire's Shaftab Khalid - toured India with the England A side recently.

Saqlain believes the hard part is not perfecting a delivery but creating the doubt in a batsman's mind as to which variation is coming next.

FOREIGN SPINNERS Essex: Danish Kaneria (Pak) Gloucs: Shoaib Malik (Pak) Hampshire: Shane Warne (Aus) Notts: Stuart MacGill (Aus) Surrey: Saqlain Mushtaq (Pak) Sussex: Mushtaq Ahmed (Pak) Warwickshire: Brad Hogg (Aus)

"There is no secret. A batsman can watch and see if the ball is coming a different way," he says.

"It is a mental battle - you try to work on the batsman so that he makes a mistake."

Even early in the English season, when conditions are far more likely to favour seam bowling, a spinner can be effective if used correctly.

Veteran wicket-keeper Andy Flower told BBC Sport: "It doesn't necessarily have to turn heaps.

"If you bowl a good length and don't bowl bad balls you can still create pressure with men around the bat."

Flower will be joined at Essex this season by Kaneria, who has taken 72 wickets from 18 Tests but has never played in England.

Saqlain says: "On different pitches, in different conditions and against different batsmen [Kaneria] will learn a lot.

"In Pakistan we just have slow and low tracks. Here, some tracks are sharp, quicker, a bit bouncy.

"When you play in all types of conditions you learn how to bowl in them."

And while the spinners are learning, the wickets are coming and their counties are putting themselves in the frame for some silverware.