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Q&A: Inside an Aussie spin revolution

As the spinner's purpose changes with the trends of the three formats, Cricket Australia's spin-bowling pathways coach Craig Howard knows just how important the art will be at the upcoming World Cup … and beyond

Back in 1995, former Victoria leg-spinner Craig Howard played the last of his 16 first-class matches at the tender age of 21, but his love for the craft has never dimmed. So while injuries robbed him of what many believed would have been a fine career playing the sport, he has instead spent the years since his retirement gaining an increasing understanding of spin bowling, intermittently turning his hand to coaching. In that time he has worked on and off with Nathan Lyon, and enjoyed brief stints with South Australia, Adelaide Strikers and Cricket Australia (CA).

Now, the 45-year-old has taken on a more regular role with CA, overseeing the spin-bowling pathways program.

Howard sat down with cricket.com.au for a wide-ranging interview, covering everything from Australia's next generation of spinners to the possible use of both Nathan Lyon and Adam Zampa for the Aussies at the upcoming World Cup in the UK.

What role are you expecting spin to play at the World Cup?

Spin and seam has been what's dominated one-day cricket over in England. Especially as the tournament wears on and the wickets get a little bit dryer, the ball stops swinging after 10 overs so it's a real challenge taking wickets in that 10-40 over period. The bowlers are going to leak runs no matter what over there because the grounds are so fast, but if you can get wickets in those middle overs, it just means they don't have that real launchpad for the last 10 overs where you can really get hurt.

Image Id: 95D5B4B3BCB04B8C9DABC3CEE7BB4616 Image Caption: Australia have two elite spin options for the World Cup in Nathan Lyon and Adam Zampa // Getty

So attacking spin options through the middle – Zampa's got an excellent strike-rate and economy in abrasive conditions, and 'Gaz' (Lyon) has got the best stock ball in the world, so he's going to be challenging in all conditions. If we can get those two up and running when it's required, they're going to be a real handful.

What kind of involvement have you had with Nathan Lyon over the years?

It was a really interesting process, and it worked really well. I was there part-time at South Australia, and we'd be working on some stuff. We got his alignment right, got his feet right, so all of a sudden his arm went to a better height – he curved (the ball) and dropped it. And then we just got him bowling with as much energy towards the target as he possibly could. We had to drill that for a long time, and it was good having 'Davo' (former CA spin coach John Davison, who is now with Queensland) up here (in Brisbane), because we were very similar-minded from a technical point of view, so the same stuff kept getting drilled into him. Then 'Davo' took over with him, and it's been fun to watch. He's done the same thing but he's just gotten better at it over the last four years. He's been unreal.

It's an actual real effort to be able to bowl with what Gaz's seam position is, which is high over-spin, and that's why everyone defaults to bowling side spin. So when we're identifying talent now, we look at their physical attributes – are they going to be able to put enough force on it? Spin used to get the tall and skinny, or the short and fat, but now we're actually getting the athletes. Gaz might not look it but he's actually a really dynamic athlete – he's wiry and strong.

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What has been the key to Lyon's success in his last few Test series in Asia?

The wickets have actually changed over there, and they're better for him. On typical subcontinent wickets, you can bowl with a really square seam and just be really accurate – some (deliveries) go bang, some skid. And they're so slow, so when Gaz goes right over the top (with over-spin), and he slightly misses it, it just tends to sit up, whereas (India's spinners) bowl quite fast through the air with the square seam. 'SOK' (Steve O'Keefe) was really good at working that sort of seam angle. So that first Test match (against India in the 2017 series), SOK was brilliant … but the wickets were flatter for the rest of that series, which meant their spinners became null and void, and Gaz came into it. So the Indian wickets are changing, because of the IPL and because they've got really good fast bowlers now, so they're not like the dustbowls you'll get in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. In India, Gaz's shape really comes into it now.

What kind of impact do you think the changing nature of the pitches in India will have?

They're going to have to change their spin philosophy in India. On our wickets, if you don't bowl with high over-spin, the ball just skids straight on – you need to beat them in the air, not off the wicket. Over there, they've been able to beat you off the wicket because (the ball) grips and grabs. They flick it with no revs and it just grabs and goes, whereas if you try those flicks here, it just goes straight on.

I read an article a couple of months ago where (Ravi) Ashwin was talking about how he had to change to be successful outside the subcontinent. Part of the reason was also because the wickets in India had flattened out. To bowl with over-spin, which Gaz does, you need to use your whole body, you need to be a strong athlete to get that high energy and force behind it. Whereas Ashwin only really uses his top half, his shoulder, and he was just too slow. So he went away and worked on engaging more of his body – he ran in and jumped, and started using his legs. Then when he went to England (in 2018), he was really good – he got (Alastair) Cook out a couple of times ripping them past the outside edge, because he was bowling with more over-spin.

Can you explain the TrackMan technology in use at the National Cricket Centre in Brisbane, and what it does in terms of monitoring revolutions on the ball?

That's a machine they've had here for about eight years. We've collected some good data progression of 15-year-olds through to first-class cricket. It's a good talent identifier. A couple of the guys up here now (at CA's spin camp) – Dan Fallins (NSW) and Tommy O'Connell (Vic) – probably haven't taken a lot of wickets in underage cricket, but they were recognised by the high revolutions they put on the ball. We've got benchmark of where the likes of (Shane) Warne and (Stuart) MacGill were at, so if someone is testing around those areas, they certainly become a player of interest for us. Results aren't as important at that age. Tommy O'Connell ended up playing JLT (One-Day) Cup as an 18-year-old last year and was really competitive, and Fallins has taken wickets against England and has done well at times in first-class cricket too. So it just goes to show it's a really great tool to identify talent with.

How did the genius of Warne influence young spinners – and spin coaches – in Australia?

Fifteen years ago, we were trying to make Warne robots. We were trying to get everyone to do exactly the same thing – walk in, low energy – and they were really poor imitators of what he did. He was a real power athlete who was able to generate enormous force from not a lot of momentum. But he really exploded through the crease. A lot of kids copied the walk-up and that was about it – there was no drive, no power, no explosion – they used very little of their bodies. So we produced a lot of mildly accurate spinners who just didn't spin it enough.

Image Id: B338016605104EF78B281EF01E4AD715 Image Caption: Leggies Stuart MacGill and Shane Warne set the benchmark in terms of revolutions on the ball // Getty

Warne was able to generate enormous force and revolutions on the ball because he was so strong – he was a footballer playing cricket, pretty much. Other people need to use more of their bodies, or have a lot more momentum in their run-up. There's actually been a real shift in the last three or four years, particularly with T20 cricket, of spinners starting to run into the crease, which I think has been a real bonus for us, because everyone thought spinners had to walk up because that's what Warne did. A lot of the other great spinners used high momentum, high energy, and really used their bodies through the crease.

What are your thoughts on the speed young spinners need to be bowling at?

There's been a lot of talk about paces, with people always saying how spinners are bowling too fast. I think you want to be accelerating through your release as much as you can. Your speed is going to be governed by the gifts you've been given in your fingers and wrists. So we know through Trackman technology that revolutions slow the ball down. So if you're putting maximum effort in and you're spinning it at 2800 revs per minute, we know that your pace could be roughly around 75-80kph. That would be great if everyone could do that, but some people don't have those gifts with their fingers and wrists, and they can't rev it that high. So their revs might be 2300-2400, so they might bowl slightly quicker through the air, but I believe that's better than trying to get them to bowl slower, because then their revs decrease – and if you bowl slow with no spin, with the big fat bats they use now, they just get bashed. So you've got to be really careful when you start talking about slowing people down.

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We've got people who do bowl the high revs and the slower pace, and we're certainly not encouraging them to bowl quicker. Plenty of guys in T20 cricket now are bowling 90kph stock balls, which some of our guys couldn't get anywhere near, because they rev it too much. For the ones who do bowl with the high pace, they've got to do it with high over-spin, so the ball drops and bounces – and it still spins a little bit. If they bowl with too square a seam, it flattens out and they just get driven. Rashid Khan, for example, is bowling 90-95kph, and it's all over-spin, with a tiny bit to the leg or a tiny bit to the off, and a lot of the guys who bowl that high pace are like that.

Are there any specific examples of spinners you have noticed big improvements in?

A couple of guys who maybe didn't spin it so much – Marnus (Labuschagne) and Jason Sangha – they've added a lot of momentum and energy into their run-ups, and they're bowling with high over-spin and high pace, and we feel they've really benefited from that. In testing, they might have been revving at 2200-2300, which in our conditions, being batters first, they're probably not going to be accurate enough to challenge the batters enough. But Marnus is a really good example – when he made those changes, his revs went up, so his margin for error went up, and he started being a real handful for batters. Because if he missed his spot, the ball had so much pace and energy on it, batters still had to do something with it.

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Marnus started almost charging in like a fast bowler bowling leg-spin, and all of a sudden batters were struggling a bit. He worked on his seam position a bit, and then he actually started getting some Test wickets as well. He would be an ideal thing for Australia to have – an attacking spin option that bats in the top six. Especially when rough is created on both sides of the wicket, if you've got someone who spins it the other way to 'Gaz' (Lyon), it'd be an unreal advantage.

Do you feel as though Australia's top spinners are well-equipped for success in coming years?

Sixty per cent of Australia's games are going to be played in Asian conditions over the next period, so spin bowling is going to be as important as ever. We won our first (ODI) series outside Australia (in India, then UAE) for a long time and it was no coincidence that we bowled 30 overs of spin in most of those games, with two frontline spinners playing. We've always gone back to what we know best, which is bouncy Australian conditions, fast bowlers bowling 145kph-plus, breaking fingers and that sort of stuff. But on some of the featherbeds around the world, it just doesn't happen that way. We out-spun India in India, and we out-spun Pakistan in Dubai, so if we can do it against those two countries – probably the best two spin nations in the world – we can do it in most conditions.