It's the feeling that someone like
myself might get a few times in a lifetime, but Shane Warne might get
several times a spell. The moment that your wrist flicks, the ball
flicks off four fingers perfectly in sync, and both fizzes and floats
towards the batsman, a grenade wrapped in candy-floss.
Because, of course, the batsman never
knows what a great ball it is until he's beaten by it. One leggie –
possibly that incorrigible rouge Cec Pepper – once shouted his glee
at the ball he'd just released, before it had even hit the pitch.
When it's a good 'un, you just know.
Like I said, I've bowled very few of
these. One is notable for being the best ball of mine that's ever
been hit for six. It came out as perfectly as anything, landed on
middle and leg, and was swatted over mid-wicket, on to the pavilion
roof. Such is life.
When you're having a bad day, any
reasonable leg-break feels like a great one. After toiling for three
games without a single wicket for my new club, I felt like an
imposter, a waste of oxygen in the dressing room. Then, in the
penultimate over of my allowable eight, I release a leg-break that
just has a little less flight than the donkey drops I'd been bowling
for an hour. When a leggie is out of form, he starts to toss the ball
higher and higher in the vague hope that he might regain his loop.
That hadn't worked, but eventually I bowled one that felt perfect.
That ball pitched on leg, drew the
batsman forward, took the edge and went straight into the keepers
gloves. Then out on to his chest, back into his gloves, and by the
time he took it I was almost under him to take the catch myself. He
must have juggled it seven or eight times before it stuck properly.
I'm under no (some) illusions over my
skill as a leggie, but with a couple of months to go before the start
of my season I'm just hoping to bowl one or two of those balls. A
great leg-break doesn't always get the rewards it deserves, I'll
likely get more wickets off filthy long hops, but when everything
comes together, feet, legs, hips, shoulders, wrist and fingers all
align, there's no more perfect feeling.
