The Doosra

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It was a match day…A match day means business in Sajah. Sajah was decked up for a great game between Australia and Pakistan. A young off spinner from the Pakistan’s ranks, stepped up and completely bamboozled the Ausies leaving them at pity. It was Saqlain Mushtaq, with the most controversial and magical ball of cricket- the Doosra.

Doosra is the off spinners wrong-un or the googly as Mushtaq says himself. So, a normal off spinning ball would pitch outside off and spin towards the right-handed batsman whereas in a Doosra the ball would pitch outside the leg stump and turn away from the right hander, just like a leg spin.

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Saqulain is reckoned as the father of Doosra as he was the one who brought it to the international stage but there were evidences that the ball has been balled before that. But Murali was the one who took it to the next level making it a nightmare to the batsmen.

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The terms “Doosra” has a fascinating story. In Urdu, the “Doosra” means “the other one “ and Pakistan’s wicket keeper Moin Khan always shouted at Suqlain to “ball Doosra Ball Doosra!” This term was captured by the late Toney Greig when he was giving the commentary and it was registered as th Doosra from then onwards.

So, the magic part is over but why it is controversial? Here is why.

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Suqlain should be the only one who has balled the doosra without any trouble but since then all the ballers who balled the doosra had faced a hard time. Murali was tested at Western Australia University’s biomechanics lab after he was accused chucking by the umpires, but he was cleared and eventually found out that all other ballers bend their arm more than the regulatory level of the ICC code and since then the new rules were added to accommodate the bowlers.

So Murali has had no issues after that but others like Saeed Ajamal, Harbajan, Sachithra Senanayake, Shane Shillingford and Johan Botha were either banned or forced to reconstruct their action in order to ball again but their renewed actions were not effective as much as the previous ones.

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The cricket Pundits believe that the doosra is a very hard ball to bowl if not impossible and some believes that it’s a shame that bawling doosra is still allowed. Research showed that an arm bent about 15 degrees cannot be considered as chucking. But most off spinners find it very difficult to ball the doosra within the ICC’s guidelines and tend not to ball as they would be easily exposed for reconstruct the action or a ban.

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The doosra was intended when the off spinners were fading from the context of the game, but it has given a new weapon to off spinners arsenal to survive in the game. We have seen many great things done by the Doosra; most talented batsmen looked so lame in front of it. We can ague whether it is illegal or not but at the end of the day, the game would have been poorer without it and it’s shame that we cannot see it in the international circuit any more.