Lyon not asked or taught to bowl the dreaded 'Doosra'

The time honoured axiom that sport is the great leveller was never better displayed or exemplified than when Australia and Muttiah Muralitharan decided to bury the hatchet and help each other.. To hark back, there was animosity between the two when Australia initiated the 'calling' of Muralitharan threatening his career and then Muralitheran vowing not tour Australia again.

Then fuel was added to fire when Australian Prime Minister John Howard also labeled Muralitharan a 'chucker'. But then it was all's well that ends well with all parties pocketing their pride and agreeing to help each other with Australia swolling their pride and inviting Muralitharan to coach the Aussie spinners.

Off-spinner Nathan Lyon made his maiden tour to Sri Lanka and what will be etched in his memory is the first ball wicket he took on Test debut when he had Kumar Sangakkara caught in the gully in the Galle Test that ended in victory for Michael Clarke's Australians.

O'Keefe is a left arm leggie. Australia has hardly produced any good left-arm spinners. Off-spinners and leg spinners have rolled off their assembly lines regularly, but not offies.

Although he captured wickets in the First Test against Pakistan which Test Australia lost, O'Keefe does not look a leftie who could run through sides and help Australia to victory.

Nathan Lyon not bowling the 'Doosra'

Watching the Australia - Pakistan Test match being played in Dubai, on TEN CRICKET it was interesting to hear former Pakistan opening batsman and Captain Rameez Raja saying that Lyon does bowl the 'Doosra' or the 'floater' when Lyon was bowling.

Raja is a good reader of the game and player potential. By what Raja was implying was that Muralitharan in his short stint as spin consultant with Australia has not taught or asked to teach Lyon how to deliver the much maligned 'Doosra'.

Now the 'Doosra', the ball that is bowed with an off-break action, but turns leg-break after pitching, has run into controversy from the moment it was invented and introduced by Pakistan's off spinner Saqlain Mushtaq. The 'Doosra' cannot be bowled with extending the arm beyond 15 degrees.

Apparently the first bowler to whom Mushtaq taught the 'Doosra' was Sri Lanka's Muttiah Muralitharan. Muralitharan made a fine art of that delivery with a lot of sweat and toil and serious practice and made the 'Doosra' his main wicket taking ball.

Test cricket's best bowler with 800 wickets

Muralitharan ended up as Test cricket's world best bowler with 800 victims and looking at the horizon it is not likely that any bowler will surpass Muralitharan's amazing record. With so many statisticians around it will be interesting if information is supplied as to how many wickets Muralitheran pocketed bowling the 'Doosra'.

By Lyon not being taught how to bowl the 'Doosra' and Australia

probably not asking Muralitharan to teach him how to bowl it, it is obvious that they would not want to have their one and only off-spinner come under the scrutiny of the umpires who are now watching hawk-eyed bowlers delivering the dreaded 'Doosra' and being reported for an illegal action.

It is the consensus that an off spinner cannot bowl a 'Doosra' without infringing the 15 degree arm extension allowed to bowlers. Any off-spinner who has not learnt to bowl the 'Doosra' cannot be that effective like a England Jim Laker and be a match winner and bag a harvest of wickets.

To be reported for an illegal action will mean that the bowler goes off the Test cricket playing radar and having to go through the process set by the International Cricket Council, have his action corrected before coming on to bowl again at Test level which is a tedious and disheartening process So it can be said that the Australian authorities did well in not asking Muralitharan to show or teach Lyon how to bowl the controversial 'Doosra' and go into cricket's oblivion for a while.

Pakistan deserve First Test victory

Having said that we move on to the First Test between Pakistan and Australia which ended in an excellent victory for the Pakistanis by huge margin of 221 runs on the final day at Dubai International Cricket Stadium on Sunday.

After demolishing Pakistanis in the one-day international series 3-nil and then having Pakistan 7 for 2 batting first on a good batting track in the First Test, the Australians let slip the game and fighting centuries from right handers Younis Khan 106 and Sarfraz Ahmed 109 and 89 from Asad Shafiq, 69 from the skipper and 53 from Azhar Ali helped the team recover and once they posted 484 the game was good as lost for the Australians.

The best-wicket keeper that Pakistan has produced according to the writer is undoubtedly Wasim Bari. Bari was all class with his glove work and Ahmed shows good potential and if he could remain consistent with the bat could become the best wicket keeper/batsman produced by the country.

Baggy green caps on the skids

From the moment Pakistan made 484, the baggy green caps were on the skids and other than for a plucky century 133 from dashing left hander David Warner, the rest of the batting was inept and in making only 303 and conceding a massive first innings lead of 151 gifted the Test to Misbah Ul-Haq's Pakistanis.

Pakistan made 286 for 2 to add to their lead of 151 and setting Australia 438 to win had the Aussies on their knees and that is how disgracefully they remained to give the home team a massive victory.

Khan who is now batting with ease and more freedom notched up his second century 103 not out to become only the fourth Pakistani batsman to score a century in each innings of a Test match. He found an able partner in opening batsman Ahmed Shehzad 131 to put the pressure on the Australians and throttle them.

The Australian second innings batting was a lesson in shame. None of the batsmen had the strokes or the temperament to cope with the high class left arm spin of Zulfiqr Barbar a maiden effort of 5 for 74 in the second innings and the leg spin of debutant Yasir Shah 4 for 50 and gave a gutless bating display in surrendering.

Leggie Yasir Shah a find for Pakistan

Leg-spinner Yasir Shah has been a find for the Pakistanis. He is highly talented and has a bright future ahead of him. He has a few rough edges to be polished. He has competent coaches with him and if the form he showed in the Test is an indication, then Pakistan has another Abdul Qadir and Danesh Kaneira in the making.

Pakistan who were dismantled in the one-day series, have come back with a vengeance with this crushing 221-run Test victory. A victory is a victory and although they will not be laying much emphasis on this victory, because it is the limited-over games that they are concentrating on with the 2015 World Cup as the target.

As for the Australians it was egg on their faces. As an excuse they might say that they were playing the longer version of the game after a long lay-off. But once in the big league, excuses however good are unacceptable. But the baggy green caps will be hurt by the humiliation and have it in them to strike back with a vengeance in the Second Test.

Captain Michael Clarke had a poor game, especially with bat, being out cheaply in both outings which added to his team's woes. Clarke will want to treat his two failures as a bad dream. Also one wonders how Alex Doolan made it to the team. We need not have to sermonize to him the attributes of a one-downer. As a one drop batsman he is a poor advertisement.

Enjoy life now. It has an expiry date on it.

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