“If you don’t have mystery, you will be history”— Badree

A recent trend among spinners has evolved in the Region. They prefer to bowl `0 overs for 35 runs by bowling flat and quick. The art of spinning the ball and flighting is slowly dying.

Former West Indies leg-spinner Samuel Badree believes that the spinners in the Caribbean have poor technique and are too defensive. The Trinidadian is calling for spinners to spin the ball and for regional franchises to play attacking spinners.

“When you look at the records, you see someone like Permaul get a bag of wickets every season and then at the international level it is a bit different. What I want to see is spinners try to spin the ball and have different weapons as a spin bowler. You also have other weapons like drift, dip flight and bounce. If as a spinner you have two of these weapons, you can be very effective.

“If you only have one weapon (pace), you will be ineffective. You might be able to get away in the First Class, but when you reach the international level, you might have a rude awakening,” the former number one ranked T20 bowler said on a recent Sean Devers radio programme.

The 40-year-old Badree, who is now a commentator, said in his playing days, he was able to get away with not spinning the ball, but now, the game has evolved and spinners must be attacking and spin the ball. “The game has evolved. When I played, I was able to get away with not spinning as much, but things have changed. You cannot be an international player and not turn the ball.”

“Someone like Kevin Sinclair who is in the infancy of his career have to develop something that is a bit different. If you don’t have mystery, you will be history. If you like a Mujeeb and Sunil Narine, the only traditional off-spinner that has survived in T20 is Mohammed Nabi, who has that guile, flights and varies his pace. Sinclair will have to be versatile and be able to bowl at different stages of the innings,” Badree explained.

With reference to the Regional Super50, Badree described that tournament as ‘boring’. He noted that bowlers were not trying to spin the ball in the Regional Super50. “Our regional teams do not select attacking bowlers. We would select a bowler who will bowl for 35 runs in 10 overs as to a wrist-spinner who will bowl 10 overs and give you three or four wickets. Our technique as spinners is poor and we won’t spin the ball,” Badree said.

In Badree’s 52 T20 Internationals, he picked up 56 wickets with best bowling figures of 4-15. He finished his career with an impressive economy rate of 6.17 and a bowling average of 21.07. Only Daniel Vettori and Sunil Narine have better economy rates than Badree in T20 Internationals.