One way of getting citizenship!

[Gob]

Cricket Australia are trying to fast-track the citizenship application of Pakistan-born leg-spinner Fawad Ahmed ahead of this summer's Ashes series.



The 31-year-old plays for Queensland after he fled his homeland, saying he was persecuted by religious extremists.

He was granted Australian residency in January and took 7-162 on his first-class debut Down Under.

Full citizenship would allow him to play for Australia when the Ashes begin at Trent Bridge on 10 July.

A clause in Australian law allows some athletes to have their cases brought forward - something which has been previously invoked by Olympic athletes.

"We are trying our best but there must be some process," Ahmed told BBC Radio 5 live. "It will take some time, but I'm pretty hopeful it will come through quickly.

"It would be a dream moment for me to play in the Ashes for Australia in England."

Since the retirement of legendary leg-spinner Shane Warne in 2007, Australia have fielded 11 different spinners - with two playing just one Test before being discarded.

Their lack of a quality spinner to replace Warne, who took 708 Test wickets, is undermining their chances on their current tour of India.

Off-spinner Nathan Lyon was dropped after match figures of 4-244 in the first Test defeat, with his replacement Xavier Doherty returning 0-85 as India piled on 311-1 on the second day of the second Test in Hyderabad.

Ahmed has made an impressive start to his career with Queensland - his 7-162 against Victoria meaning his debut was the most successful by any spinner in the Sheffield Shield.

Queensland captain James Hopes has labelled Ahmed "the best wrist spinner in the competition", while Cameron White, who is one of the slow bowlers used by Australia in recent years, has said the ex-Abbottabad twirler is one of the best leg-spinners in first-class cricket since Warne.

Under current ICC regulations, Ahmed will be eligible to play for Australia on his existing visa after 18 August, but this would mean he would miss the first four Tests of the five-Test series in England.

The return Ashes series starts in Brisbane on 21 November.

[oldr_n_wsr]

'Splain "leg-spinner" Lucy.

[Crackpot]

I'm gussing it's a slang term for someone who prefers a specific sex act.

[Gob]

Leg spin is a type of spin bowling in the sport of cricket.


A leg spinner bowls right-arm with a wrist spin action, causing the ball to spin from right to left in the cricket pitch, at the point of delivery. When the ball bounces, the spin causes the ball to deviate sharply from right to left, that is, away from the leg side of a right-handed batsman. The same kind of trajectory, which spins from right to left on pitching, when performed by a left-arm bowler is known as left-arm orthodox spin bowling.




As with all spinners, leg spinners bowl the ball far slower (70–90 km/h or 45-55 mph) than fast bowlers. The fastest leg spinners will sometimes top 100 km/h (60 mph). Leg spinners typically use variations of flight by sometimes looping the ball in the air, allowing any cross-breeze and the aerodynamic effects of the spinning ball to cause the ball to dip and drift before bouncing and spinning (usually called "turning") sharply. While very difficult to bowl accurately, good leg spin is considered one of the most threatening types of bowling to bat against, since the flight and sharp turn make the ball's movement extremely hard to read and the turn away from the batsman (assuming he or she is right-handed) is more dangerous than the turn into the batsman generated by an off spinner.

Highly skilled leg spin bowlers are also able to bowl deliveries that behave unexpectedly, including the googly, which turns the opposite way to a normal leg break and the topspinner, which doesn't turn but dips sharply and bounces higher than other deliveries. A few leg spinners such as Abdul Qadir, Anil Kumble, Shane Warne and Mushtaq Ahmed have also mastered the flipper, a delivery that like a topspinner goes straight on landing, but floats through the air before skidding and keeping low, often dismissing batsmen leg before wicket or bowled. Another variation in the arsenal of some leg spinners is the slider, a leg break pushed out of the hand somewhat faster, so that it doesn't spin as much, but travels more straight on.

To grip the ball for a leg-spinning delivery, the ball is placed into the palm with the seam parallel to the palm. The first two fingers then spread and grip the ball, and the third and fourth fingers close together and rest against the side of the ball. The first bend of the third finger should grasp the seam. The thumb resting against the side is up to the bowler, but should impart no pressure. When the ball is bowled, the third finger will apply most of the spin. The wrist is cocked as it comes down by the hip, and the wrist moves sharply from right to left as the ball is released, adding more spin. The ball is tossed up to provide flight. The batsman will see the hand with the palm facing towards them when the ball is released.

History

In the 1970s and 1980s it was thought that leg spin would disappear from the game due to the success of West Indian and later Australian teams exclusively using fast bowlers. During this time Abdul Qadir of Pakistan was the highest-profile leg spinner in the world and is sometimes credited with "keeping the art aliveHowever, leg spin has again become popular with cricket fans and a successful part of cricket teams, driven largely by the success of Shane Warne, beginning with his spectacular Ball of the Century to Mike Gatting in 1993.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leg_spin

[Crackpot]

Yeah sure that what you want us to think

[Lord Jim]

Well, after reading through that, I have to say that CP's explanation makes a lot more sense....

[oldr_n_wsr]

So it's a curveball.
Thanks

[Lord Jim]

That's exactly what I was thinking...

Of course in baseball, most pitchers throw curve balls and fast balls...

Apparently in cricket, you need some folks that specialize in gum chewing and others who are exclusively walkers....

[rubato]

Not like a curveball which moves while in the air. More like putting spin on a tennis ball to make it bounce differently.

yrs,
rubato

[oldr_n_wsr]

Spin a a ball is spin on a ball. It's easier to curve a bowling ball rolling down an alley than to throw a ball that curves through the air. But I get your differentiation.

[Gob]

It's a ball which turns after the initial bounce. The speed of the bowl, the hight of bounce, the turn of the ball can all be varied thus;

[Lord Jim]

It's a ball which turns after the initial bounce.

So rube's tennis analogy is basically correct...

Just out of curiosity, how many times is a cricket pitcher allowed to have his pitch bounce on the way to the batter?

(In baseball, they tend to frown on that sort of thing... )

[Gob]

The ball can bounce as many times as the bowler wants, though more than one bounce would inevitably lead to the ball being slapped for six runs. It can also not be bounced at all, this is called a "full toss." Full tosses are rarely bowled deliberately, as they defeat the purpose of most types of delivery, which is to deceive the batsman by bouncing unpredictably on the pitch. A "Yorker" is a ball bowled to bounce very near, or even on, the batsmans feet.

[dales]

MLB Season starts in a few weeks.

[Lord Jim]

The ball can bounce as many times as the bowler wants, though more than one bounce would lead to teh ball being slapped for six runs.

Ahh, so that explains the paradox of how so many "runs" can be scored in a game where so little actually happens....

(I've had several theories about this...perhaps they just pull numbers out of a hat at the end of a match and declare that the number of runs for each team....they spin a wheel to determine the runs, throw darts at a dart board, etc.)

But every time the batter hits the ball it counts as "runs" and depending on the circumstances, it can count as "multiple runs"....

If the number of "runs" further multiply based on the number of times particular circumstances take place, I can see how you can wind up with scores like 237-174 in a game where almost nothing ever happens....

Especially if you play that game long enough...

Like say for three or four days.....

Now I believe I have a handle on that conundrum...

[Gob]

Unfortunately you do not Jim, merely striking the ball is not enough to score runs.

The rules concerning the scoring of runs are mostly contained in Law 18 of the Laws of cricket.

The simplest way for a batsman to score a run is by the striker hitting the ball such that both batsmen can run from one end of the pitch to the other without either batsman getting out: the batsmen effectively exchanging positions, so the striking batsman becomes the non-striker, and vice versa.

The batsmen may be able to run up and down the pitch more than once, crossing each time, to score two, three or more runs.

A batsman can also score four or six runs by hitting the ball to or over the boundary (four if it strikes the ground before the boundary; six if it crosses the boundary in the air without striking the ground).

A batsman is never compelled to run (cricket has no equivalent of baseball's force out).

[Econoline]

I guess the explanations of cricket stuff in this thread also explain why the guy who would be called a pitcher in baseball is called a bowler in cricket: the ball does seem to spend a lot of time on the ground...

[Gob]

I guess the explanations of cricket stuff in this thread also explain why the guy who would be called a pitcher in baseball is called a bowler in cricket: the ball does seem to spend a lot of time on the ground...

Only when struck by the batsman, otherwise it's milliseconds.



Don't forget that in Cricket the batsman also has a wicket to defend, not just to take swipes at an airborne ball.

The stumps are three vertical posts which support two bails. The stumps and bails are usually made of wood, and together form a wicket at each end of the pitch.

The overall width of each wicket is 9 inches (22.9 cm). Each stump is 28 inches (71.1 cm) tall with maximum and minimum diameters of 1½ inches (3.81 cm) and 1⅜ inches (3.49 cm). They have a spike at one end for inserting into the ground, and the other end has a U-shaped 'through groove' to provide a resting place for the bails.