The leggie has honed her wrong’un for years to turn it into a deceptive and deadly weapon

Shashank Kishore18-Feb-2022Amelia Kerr is making her WBBL debut, in October 2019. She comes to Brisbane Heat with a big reputation. Can she live up to it?For a while, it appears as if she might not bat or bowl. And then in the ninth over of the chase, she is thrown the ball. Two uneventful overs pass but she already has the batters wondering: is she a legspinner or a googly bowler? It’s a question that player after player asks for the rest of the evening.In her third over, Kerr makes a splash. Out come three wrong’uns, again. This time, the over reads 0W0WW0 – no hat-trick, but she caps a memorable debut with a triple-wicket maiden.That over in itself makes for absorbing viewing because of her variations. The first wicket is off a googly that dips and spins gently to beat the inside edge and crash into the stumps. The follow-up is a flipper that is left alone on line and length. Then she bowls a fizzing googly that strikes the pad even before the batter has shaped to play the cut.Sydney Sixers are eight down and Kerr has a chance to close out the game in the same over. She brings out a flighted delivery. It drifts in, pitches on off and spins back in to beat a forward prod. Bam! Another googly, another wicket. It’s a dream beginning – a teenager varying her pace and trajectory like an international veteran.The story repeats in the Super Smash final of 2021. Kerr’s high-quality bowling leaves batters unsure of which way the ball is turning. They’re stabbing nervously at her, with leaden feet. They fall like ninepins. Kerr picks up a hat-trick, though Wellington Blaze lose out on the title to Canterbury Magicians, thanks to Lea Tahuhu’s cameo with the bat.”I called her a googly bowler,” laughs Ivan Tissera, Kerr’s childhood coach, who is now in charge of Wellington Blaze, her domestic team. Tissera first met Kerr when she was a ten-year old, who her father, Robbie, wanted to spend summers outdoors. As they began working together, Tissera remembers accuracy being Kerr’s first big strength.”She had a natural legspinning action – clean, good arm-speed, a lot of flight. As kids, the wrists are flexible, so she’d come to the nets and keep bowling, not knowing which way she’s turning the ball. She’d land the ball in the same spot outside off, see the ball rip away both ways and then ask in amazement how it’s happening.”As she grew up and hit her teens, Kerr began to understand the nuances of the googly. She worked on developing a quicker arm. “Initially, I just wanted her to enjoy bowling,” Tissera says. “Then she understood the googly needs to be subtle, but struggled a bit with drift. So the line would end up being middle and leg. It took a good two years of hard practice to get that balance right.”As Kerr began to travel the world and play in the leagues, the realisation dawned that she ought not to be a one-trick pony. She watched Rashid Khan and wanted to fizz the ball around like he did. It was her next project, to get quicker through the air but without losing the bite in her bowling.It’s this awareness of her craft, the ability to understand the subtle differences and work on them tirelessly, that helps her execute unfailingly in a match scenario. It’s also this aspect that sets her apart from the next best at the googly, Poonam Yadav.The India legspinner relies heavily on flight and dip, to the extent that her slower pace and trajectory can sometimes allow batters to line her up. This is perhaps what made her predictable when South Africa toured India last year. She finished the ODI series with no wickets, and managed all of two overs in her lone outing in the T20Is, a far different bowler than the one that bamboozled Australia on that magical opening night of the T20 World Cup in February 2020.”I think bowling at her usual speed, she has dismissed good batters like Meg Lanning, but it’s just that when you play non-stop, you want to pick up aspects of your game you don’t have, and that drives her,” Tissera says. “Now she bowls around 76-80kph, earlier she was around 65-67. Before, when she bowled quicker, she used to lose the shape of the ball. Now, she has lost that bit of extra turn, unless it is a rank turner, but her consistency in lines and lengths are amazing.”Who Does it Best?: The cutter | The pull | The googly | The cover drive | The yorker | The cut | The bouncer | The sweep

And who is the most economical bowler in Tests?

Steven Lynch15-Mar-2022After Jack Hobbs became the oldest to score a Test century, in Australia in 1928-29, he wrote that a famous actress kissed him at a party afterwards. Who was this actress? asked Pushkar Pushp from India

This incident followed Jack Hobbs’ 142 in the fifth Test in Melbourne in March 1929. At 46 years 82 days, Hobbs was the oldest man to score a Test century, a record he is likely to retain for ever.In his 1935 book My Life Story, Hobbs tells the tale of what happened next. “My 142 had a very jolly sequel in the evening of the day it was scored. My diary says: ‘When I walked into the hotel dining-room, the orchestra struck up “See the Conquering Hero Comes”, and followed by playing “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”. The guests at the tables rose up and joined in.’ One of those guests was a famous English actress; she came right across the room and gave me a kiss! It was most embarrassing. I will not give her name away.”Hobbs might have been too gallant to spill the beans, but the press was less reticent. The New South Wales paper the Newcastle Sun ran the headline “Jack Hobbs blushed”, and named the lady as Margaret Bannerman (no relation to the old Australian batters Charles and Alec, as far as I can tell!) She was actually Canadian, although she had a long career in London theatre, and also appeared in several silent films. Margaret was born in Toronto in December 1896, so was 32 when she surprised Hobbs; she died in the United States in 1976. For the newspaper story, click here.Imam-ul-Haq just scored his first two centuries in the same Test. How many people have done this? asked Damith Sampath from Sri Lanka

That double of 157 and 111 not out by Imam-ul-Haq for Pakistan against Australia in Rawalpindi recently made him the 12th man to score his first two centuries in the same Test. That includes the two who did it on debut – Lawrence Rowe for West Indies vs New Zealand in Kingston in 1971-72, and Yasir Hameed for Pakistan vs Bangladesh in Karachi in 2003.The first to do this was Australia’s Warren Bardsley, with 136 and 130 against England at The Oval in 1909; the most recent before Imam was Shai Hope, for West Indies vs England at Headingley in 2017.In between, the feat was also achieved by India’s Vijay Hazare (against Australia in Adelaide in 1947-48), Jack Moroney of Australia (vs South Africa in Johannesburg in 1949-50), New Zealand’s Geoff Howarth (vs England in Auckland in 1977-78), Duleep Mendis of Sri Lanka (vs India in Madras in 1982-83), Pakistan’s Wajahatullah Wasti (vs Sri Lanka in Lahore in 1998-99), Phillip Hughes of Australia (vs South Africa in Durban in 2008-09) and the New Zealander Peter Fulton (vs England in Auckland in 2012-13).Imam will be hoping that, unlike Wasti and Hameed – the others to achieve the feat for Pakistan – he manages to reach three figures again in Tests. Of the rest, Moroney, Fulton and Hope (to date) never scored another Test century either.In the first Test at Rawalpindi, Pakistan’s openers put on 252 without being separated. Was this the highest unbroken first-wicket stand in Tests? asked K Lokaraj from India

Abdullah Shafique, who made his own maiden century, and Imam-ul-Haq put on 252 in the second innings of the first Test against Australia in Rawalpindi. That was indeed the highest unbeaten opening stand in Tests – just: Gordon Greenidge and Desmond Haynes added 250 without being separated for West Indies against Australia in Georgetown in 1983-84.The highest unbroken opening partnership in all first-class cricket is 451, by Sanjay Desai and Roger Binny for Karnataka (who declared, and won by an innings) against Kerala in Chikmagalur in 1977-78.Lance Gibbs has a career bowling economy of 1.98, the lowest for bowlers with at least 200 Test wickets•PA PhotosGiven a minimum of 200 wickets, who’s the most economical bowler in Tests? asked Robert Aldridge from England

Some 80 bowlers have now reached the milestone of 200 Test wickets – and of those, only one went for less then two an over: the great West Indian offspinner Lance Gibbs, who conceded 1.98 per six balls during his 79-Test career. Next come Richie Benaud and Derek Underwood, with 2.10. The top five are all spinners: the leading seamer, in sixth place with 2.21 an over, is England’s Alec Bedser, just ahead of the West Indian pair of Garry Sobers (2.22) and Curtly Ambrose (2.30). The versatile Sobers mixed seam with spin during his career.The leading current bowler is India’s Ravindra Jadeja, whose economy rate of 2.42 an over puts him 12th at the moment.Ravindra Jadeja scored 175 then took nine wickets against Sri Lanka recently. Has anyone bettered this in a Test match? asked Ankur Jamil from India

Three men have scored a century and taken ten or more wickets in the same Test. The first to do it was Ian Botham, with 114 and 13 for 106 for England against India in Bombay (now Mumbai) in 1979-80. He was followed by Imran Khan, with 117 and 11 for 180 for Pakistan vs India in Faisalabad in 1982-83, and Shakib Al Hasan, with 137 and 10 for 124 for Bangladesh against Zimbabwe in Khulna in 2014-15.Before Jadeja did it recently against Sri Lanka in Mohali, three others had paired a century with nine wickets in the same Test. Jimmy Sinclair made 106 (South Africa’s first Test century) and took 9 for 89 against England in Cape Town in 1898-99; Richie Benaud paired 100 with 9 for 154 for Australia against South Africa in Johannesburg in 1957-58; and Jadeja’s India team-mate R Ashwin scored 103 and took 9 for 190 against West Indies in Mumbai in 2011-12. Of these, Jadeja’s 175 not out is the highest score involved.Shiva Jayaraman of ESPNcricinfo’s stats team helped with some of this week’s answers.Use our feedback form, or the Ask Steven Facebook page to ask your stats and trivia questions

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