From the googly to the doosra, bowlers
have terrorized batsmen through the ages.
The glamour in the game of cricket never
ceases to charm and fascinate its followers. Anecdotes
abound and so are the stories of the cult figures and
the legends who from time to time have graced this game.
As much interesting are the cricket terms,
used while describing the game. Silly point, silly mid-on,
silly mid-off, long leg, short and fine leg are some.
Those who watch the game regularly do start to understand
the positioning of the field and why those positions in
the field are named as such. The more complicated one
like the deliveries which are called the 'Chinaman' and
the 'Googly', however, remain confusing and mind-boggling
one's, unless their origins are explained.
To add to this dictionary of unique terms,
a new term was recently included in cricket lingua, 'The
Doosra'. Needless to say the cricket lover knows about
the term. But for the cricketer-illiterate The Doosra
is used in relation to one of the deliveries of the record
breaking Sri Lankan off-spinner, Muttiah Muralitharan.
And its claim to fame, some experts claim the delivery
is illegal and dispute its legitimacy.
However, it is not Muralitharan who is
the originator of The Doosra, as many believe from the
recent controversy attached to his alleged chucking saga.
In fact it is Saqlain Mushtaq who delivered the first
Doosra in a Test against Australia at Hobart in Tasmania.
But before we delve into the history of the Doosra, lets
take a look at the origins of the other two famous deliveries
of cricket, Googly and the Chinaman.
The word googly was arguably first used
in print by a writer for the Lyttelton Times during Lord
Hawke's England tour of New Zealand and Australia. It
was then that the leg-spinner, Bernard James Tindal Bosanquet
of England mesmerized the Kiwi batsmen with a delivery
which spun into the batsman instead of turning away from
them. Many a batsmen were deceived because it was bowled
with a similar action as that of a leg spin. Playing for
the Oxford University, Bosanquet developed this as a prank
to amuse his fellow players. During the breaks in matches
he used to join in a game called 'twistygrabs' played
in the pavilion involving a tennis ball on a table thrown
in such a way as to elude the players grabbing it from
the opposite end, calling it the 'wrong one'. Bosanquet
became a skillful master using it with great effect when
bowling with a cricket ball.
Some say that the word has its origins
in a Maori word used by New Zealand's original inhabitants.
Others claim the word used to describe a lobbed delivery
causing 'google' to the ball. In 1890's this term was
used in Australia for this delivery. But originally they
had termed it 'Bosie' after Bosanquet caused a sensation
during the England's visit to Australia in the same season.
He with his first delivery, bowled the great Victor Trumper
and later accounted for many with that freak delivery.
Thus, 'Bosie' was born which later came to be known as
googly.
The term Chinaman came about during the
England tour of the West Indies in 1929-30 when during
a Test the West Indian left-arm spinner Ellis Achong,
who was of Chinese descent, instead of bowling his left-arm
orthodox delivery, turned the ball into batsman Walter
Robin's forward prod to have him stumped. Foxed by that
delivery Robins later remarked,'Fancy getting out to a
Chinaman!,' and the term started to roll on in this game.
Now, it's The Doosra. It too has a fascinating
background, one that came about not too long ago. In fact
it was during the previous Pakistan tour of Australia,
in 2000 that it was first mentioned in print during the
second Test of the series after Pakistan had arrived at
Hobart. We had lost the first Test at Brisbane by a huge
margin and were in the hopes of levelling the series before
the final Test at Sydney. Pakistan in fact did almost
just that, but some home-friendly umpiring made sure that
didn't happen.
Having set Australia 369 to win Pakistan
managed to grab early wickets, but then Justin Langer
and Adam Gilchrist survived to make a century each after
being given the lease of life at crucial junctures by
the Australian umpire when both had snicked the ball off
Wasim Akram's deliveries into the wicket-keepers gloves.
The contact of the ball and bat could easily have been
heard all around the ground.
Saqlain Mushtaq, the off-spinner had done
most of the damage in Australia's first innings bowling
them out for 246 in reply to Pakistan's 222, taking six
wickets for 46. Most of them, however, came with the aid
of his well developed delivery which instead of spinning
in, turned the other way baffling the batsmen and getting
them on the wrong foot to be caught at wicket and in slips.
It was interesting to watch people like Steve and Mark
Waugh struggle against him.
At the end of the day, as is customary
now a days, the performer of the day Saqlain Mushtaq was
brought to the conference room to face the press. I too
was there. During the course of the press conference a
member of the Australian media asked him to describe his
mystery ball which accounted for more than half the Australian
batsman. His lack of knowledge of the English language
then prompted him to say, "I call it The Doosra."
Perplexed even more, the journalists later turned to me
to translate Saqlain's alien word. I explained that Doosra
was a word used in Urdu and Hindi language which meant
the 'Second one' or in the cricketing jargon, 'the other
one'. Interestingly, as it was for the Australians, the
word used by Saqlain Mushtaq became the headline on most
of the Australian national papers.
'THE DOOSRA, Saqlain's mystery delivery
gets the Aussies' highlighted the Pakistan off-spinner's
feat. Australia, however, won the second Test as well
despite The Doosra and later went on to a clean sweep
in the series. But had it not been for the dicey umpiring,
Pakistan could have well levelled the series 1-1 and who
knows, maybe went on to take the series. Maybe now, thanks
to the facility of international, third-country umpires,
home bias can be eliminated and Tests can have fair results.
Still, what really will
matter in the series ahead in our tour to Australia is
the consistency or the lack of it of the Pakistan players.
No one on this tour will have the same influence on the
Aussie batsmen as did Saqlain on the last tour. The originator
of The Doosra, Saqlain promised had also promised a 'Teesra'
or the third one, during this year's home series against
India. His failure to perform forced him out of the team
and now that he has a recuperating knee, he might have
to struggle to make his way into the squad and show to
the world if really had a 'teesra' or not.
