Twirlymen The Unlikely History Of Cricket's Greatest Spin Bowlers

The jokers in the pack; illusionists conjuring wickets out of thin air with nothing more than an ambled approach and a wonky grip. t for them the brutish physicality of the pace bowler nor the reactive slogging of the batsman. Theirs is a more cerebral art. They stand alone in a team sport. They are Twirlymen. Having himself failed through a combination of injury and indolence to become a leg-spinner of renown Amol Rajan pays homage to that most eccentric of all sporting heroes - the spin bowler. On a journey through cricket history Rajan introduces us to the greatest purveyors of that craft, from W. G. Grace to Graeme Swann via Clarrie Grimmet s flipper, Muttiah Muralitharan s helicopter wrist, Shane Warne s ball-of-the-century and all the rest.