Lives in Cricket No 52 - Schooled in Cricket (2nd edition)

193 altogether surprising, and that made very early demands on judgement and concentration. It is impossible to hit through a slow, turning delivery; it forced us to choose the line much more carefully and judge the length more accurately. Right forward to kill the spin or right back to allow the ball to turn before playing it. Johnny used to stand shouting ‘Wait for it, wait for it ...’ like a drill sergeant. No matter how early you see the ball you must take it late – that is the golden rule against spin. “Yorkshiremen have a traditional weakness against leg- spin. The county does not produce leg-spinners of its own and that naturally leads to an unfamiliarity with the style and so to a reputation for vulnerability. I grew up with leg- spin and it held no terrors for me. In fact I always enjoyed the particular challenge of facing leg-spinners and treated it as one of the pleasures of the game. “Leg-spin is not an exact science. It is a marvellous, unpredictable skill with many mysterious twists and turns. And I learned through trial and error a fundamental truth about playing it: you must never totally trust your eyes. You can learn to read the ball out of the bowler’s hand but accept only 90 per cent of what you see – simply because the ball has to pitch and any sort of predictability ends there. A googly may be a googly whilst it is in the air – then it hits a couple of green blades of grass, shoots and becomes a top-spinner. The bowler tries to look as though he meant it; you try to look as though you expected it all the time ... “Playing so much against spin gave me the confidence to face it with men round the bat. Unless you can stand and belt the ball like Ian Botham, that takes a particular blend of technique and confidence. I found I could play the ball towards fielders with assurance whereas most batsmen try to keep the ball away from the clutching hands. Playing the ball with the spin in to the fielders takes technique but it quickly demoralises a spinner and the men who are supposed to be catching you out. “Johnny became, and still is, [says Boycott writing in Johnny’s most famous protege – Geoffrey Boycott Speaks