I was fortunate for most of my captaincy years at St Kilda I had top quality spinners, a young Shane Warne, Mark Osborne, former St George, and Vic player (right arm off spin), Peter Cox, former Vic (left arm orthodox), and John Emburey, former England, Middlesex right arm off spinner.… so not a bad lot!
Spinners were so much more fun to captain as you and they, always enjoyed setting a trap for the bats, attacking fields and luring them into the net – Warne’s flipper, Emburey’s arm ball, Cox’s doosra and Ossie’s fast, over spinning straight ball … the opportunities to set batters up was fascinating to watch, using the field to create false shots, building pressure then using these type of deliveries sparingly so as to get maximum impact when delivered!
In a Grand Final against Collingwood, both Warne and Osborne had bowled many overs, beat the bat, false shots etc however they couldn’t get out the last couple of batsmen, one being on over a hundred, a left-hand bat that had played for Vic. The state of the match was that in the last session (2 hours) of the final we needed two wickets, however they were playing for a draw as they were the top team at the end of the home and away season. So we really had to try and prise them out.
We were into the last hour needing a wicket desperately so instead of rotating my spinners or bringing on a quick I went to a part time left arm googly bowler, an experienced player, opening bat David Robinson (Vic/Tas) who bowled the occasional leggie.
In actual fact he got 3 wickets in a previous flag, which we won years earlier, so not the worse but like all left arm leggies they can bowl some crap but their most consistent and best ball is usually a wrong’un!
We spoke at the top of his mark, because he could bowl the wrong’un more comfortably we decided that to the in-batter, the left hander, he’d bowl all wrong’uns coming back into him then the 5th ball bowl the traditional leg break across the leftie, couldn’t have gone to plan better, he played all the wrong’uns well but by the 5th ball he was confident, did not look as closely and did not read the leg break which he played forward expecting it to come into him…wrong, outside edge, nicked to me at 1st slip and the rest is history …. Champagne and a a flag and a place in St Kilda’s rich history