Left-arm unorthodox spin
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Template:Bowling Techniques Image:Chinaman small.gif In cricket, left-arm unorthodox spin – often known as slow left-arm Chinaman and abbreviated to SLC – is a style of bowling. The bowler uses his wrist to spin the ball so that when it pitches it turns from off to leg for a right-handed batsman, i.e. from left to right from the bowler's perspective. The action and direction of turn exactly mirror those of a leg spin bowler (who bowls right-handed). A slow left-arm Chinaman bowler may also have a "googly" ("wrong'un" in Australia) which turns in the opposite way in order to trick the batsman. Charlie Llewellyn, a South African all-rounder who played at the end of the 19th century, laid claim to inventing the delivery.
This style of bowling is very uncommon, as not only is it difficult to master, but the "turn" into the right-handed batsman is usually less dangerous than the turn away from the batsman generated by a left-arm orthodox spin bowler. Very few specialist bowlers of this type have played at Test level: the South African Paul Adams is perhaps the best known recent practitioner, although his technique is highly unorthodox in every sense of the word. In recent times, Michael Bevan, Brad Hogg and Simon Katich have also bowled Chinamen as all-rounders for the Australian team. In 2004, Dave Mohammed of the West Indies bowled this style in Tests against England. Perhaps the most famous practitioner of the art was West Indian all-rounder Garfield Sobers, although he performed it as a third bowling style. Previously, "Chuck" Fleetwood-Smith bowled in this fashion for Australia in the 1930s.
The term "Chinaman" to describe this particular style of bowling is believed to relate to former West Indian spin bowler Ellis "Puss" Achong. Achong, a left-arm orthodox spinner and the first Test cricketer of Chinese ancestry, bowled a delivery turning from off to leg and had the English batsman Walter Robins stumped as a result. Legend has it that Robins, as he walked back to the pavilion, remarked to the umpire, "Fancy being done by a bloody Chinaman".
Reference
- Cricket and Race by Jack Williams ISBN 1-85973-309-3