South Africa is slowly but surely improving the quality of spinners available to the Proteas, says Paul Adams.
The Cape Cobras coach is part of the national spin camp which is being held this week at HPC in Pretoria.
Adams, together with former Proteas spinner Nicky Boje, is working with the various franchise spinners in the country, including the players who have been picked to tour with South Africa to Bangladesh as well as some exciting prospects at u19 level.
Simon Harmer and Aaron Phangiso are the two specialist spinners who have been selected for the Proteas’ Test squad for Bangladesh, with batsman and part-time bowler JP Duminy also attending the camp.
Adams said he is excited by the talent that has emerged in recent years.
‘We have quite a young crop of spinners currently in our system, it is a great opportunity for them to grab that berth,’ Adams told Sport24.co.za.
‘There is a lot of internal competition among them, which is always healthy to make sure they stay on top of their game.’
Adams said while the conditions in the subcontinent may be favourable to spin bowling, the camp was preparing the bowlers for what they could expect.
‘Generally it is the pace you bowl and your lengths; it is different to our conditions. I found in those conditions you can bowl really quick on them and things happen quickly off the surface,’ he said. ‘Whereas here in South Africa if you bowl quick it’s easy to hit it as it just slides on. Over there you can bowl and get some purchase. You have to be aware that that can be the case there. You’ve got to be prepared to do it and it not be a shock to the system.’
Adams said they tried to teach the spin bowlers to think about every single delivery and bring some variation into their bowling.
‘The subtle variation of pace instead of the variation of turning the ball in different directions is the art of what we are discussing here.
‘Especially the young players who play a lot of one-day cricket and they just fire the ball in. We need to chat about how to deliver the ball slower or quicker with the same action, but landing the balls on the right lengths all of the time.’
