Australia has been a cruel and unforgiving place for English twirlers in the last 30 years. Will that change in this Ashes tour?
By James Wallace for Wisden
Cricket Monthly
Shane Warne tells a story about batting against Ashley Giles during the 2006 Adelaide Test. Now, Giles is a man of many achievements; currently the managing director of
England men’s cricket, as a player he won the Ashes, was named a Wisden Cricketer of the Year and took 143 Test wickets. Off the field, he’s scaled Mt Kilimanjaro and played cricket at the summit, and even been awarded the honorary freedom of Droitwich Spa. Still. Warne didn’t rate him. Not as a spin bowler.
“If he or she is not trying to spin the ball,” Warne writes in his book, No Spin, “then I give them another title: slow bowler.” Warne describes Giles archly as “a slow, accurate bowler”.