69: Clarrie Grimmett

37 matches. 216 wickets @ 24.22. Strike rate: 67.19. 21x 5wi.

11 years. 2x good. 2x excellent. 3x outstanding.

The discussion

In the 1990s, every young wrist spinner in Australia wanted to bowl like Shane Warne. I took up wrist spin in 1993, shortly after Warne’s first tour to England, and ‘the ball of the [20th] century’. The thought process at the time was that Australia might become a factory of Warne clones. Strangely enough, that didn’t transpire. My journey was slightly different, in that my spin coach actively discouraged me from trying to emulate Warne. He recognised that Warne’s immensely strong shoulder and forearm gave him a unique physical advantage that teenagers would find difficult to replicate.[1] Warne also had a slow approach to the wicket, and in young bowlers that sort of approach makes it doubly difficult to impart enough energy on the ball to get a significant amount of ‘purchase’. Where I grew up, this was especially important given the nature of sun-baked Northern Australian pitches — I rarely, if ever, played on a genuine turning wicket, even in representative cricket.

Now watch me segue this neatly onto the subject of this missive — Australian leg-spinner Clarrie Grimmett. My spin coach was adamant that this leggie of yesteryear was a much better role model for my action. A more rounded arm trajectory and a faster approach to the wicket[2] yielded a much more consistent approach to the crease, and a much better point of release to generate enough ‘power on late’ (coach’s words still ring in my ears today, 25 years later) really fizz the leg-break past the edge of the bat. At that time, without the benefit of YouTube to watch footage of Grimmett and see the wisdom in this approach for myself, I had to trust his word that Grimmett’s action was one to emulate.

In fact, there’s very little footage of Clarrie Grimmett to be found, even today. So I’m largely trusting a few books I have read, stories and anecdotes from past cricketers, and what other cricket writers have said about Grimmett’s style. In terms of the eye test, he’s not for everyone. His low front arm is reminiscent of Jasprit Bumrah, and his low bowling arm reminiscent of Lasith Malinga, but somehow the two came together to produce an action that was able to generate a lot of turn. Grimmett also bowled very accurately, and very economically, allowing him to execute his plans to perfection.

And here’s a dirty little secret — Clarrie Grimmett wasn’t born in Australia. As many New Zealanders will tell you, Australians are very fond of claiming New Zealanders or New Zealand icons as their own — and Grimmett is no exception. Born near Dunedin in New Zealand’s South Island, he began playing first-class cricket in Wellington. New Zealand weren’t yet a test playing nation, and Grimmett moved to Australia in 1914. Even after the war, he didn’t debut for Australia until 1925 as a 33-year old. There are many reasons for this, but the important piece for this article is the hay he made once he got to the first-class scene, and on into Test cricket.

What a debut. 11 wickets in his first Test match was a sign of things to come. Grimmett raced  to 100 wickets in only 17 Tests (equal second-fastest all-time), then 200 wickets in just 36 Tests (second-fastest all-time), before finally retiring from Tests aged 44, with a then world record 216 wickets. The highlights keep coming as we examine Clarrie Grimmett’s outstanding CV:

-          44 wickets in a series (3rd all-time for all bowlers)

-          Three consecutive matches with 10-wicket hauls (3rd all-time for all bowlers)

-          Seven 10wm (6th among Hall of Fame candidates)

-          Third in 10wm per 100 innings (among Hall of Fame candidates)

-          Second in 5wi per 100 innings (among Hall of Fame candidates)

As well as those staggering stats, Grimmett’s legacy exists well beyond the raw numbers, even without the benefit of extensive footage for cricket historians (or me, a cricket tragic) to pore over. Many credit him (and who am I to argue) with inventing the flipper, later used to great effect by Shane Warne. Legend has it Grimmett had multiple variations even on the flipper. Many reports suggest that he continued working on his variations even after he retired from the game. As a great example of the lengths he went to in order to perfect his craft, he even developed a method for disguising the tell-tale clicking of the fingers that is key to executing the flipper. By clicking the fingers of his left hand when delivering the occasional stock leg-break, batters were unable to discern the difference between the ‘fake click’, and the click produced when squeezing finger and thumb together to squirt the ball out from under the hand in delivering the flipper. Marvellous.

The verdict

Having now examined Clarrie Grimmett’s career in detail, I have to say my coach all those years ago had a point. There are certainly some aspects of the Grimmett technique that are worth teaching to young leg-spinners. A lower bowling arm (in my view) allows easier access to different wrist positions to bowl all the key variations. One need not get as low as Grimmett did, but somewhere between say Kumble and Grimmett is where I think you want to be.

Lessons of a non-first-class cricketer aside, let’s return the focus to the final verdict on New Zealander-cum-Australian Clarrie Grimmett. Statistically, Grimmett is one of the most dominant bowlers of all-time, especially if you place any stock on the rate at which a bowler takes large bags of wickets in an innings.

Grimmett was a master of disguise. His continued work ethic in developing variations, and variations on variations even after retirement have been passed down to future generations of Australian wrist-spinners, and wrist-spinners all over the world.

With all his achievements, and the rate at which he took wickets, as with Alan Davidson, you might be asking: Why isn’t he higher? Purely on rate of wickets, Clarrie Grimmett might even be a top-20 player, certainly a candidate for a top-10 bowler. But unfortunately his late entry into Test cricket at 33, and the infrequency of Test matches at the time, means he too finds himself much lower in the rankings in the overall metrics. I’d love to have Clarrie Grimmett higher — I am a massive fan. Test-for-Test, he is one of the finest spinners in the history of cricket.

In one word

Disguise

Notes

[1] Particularly those with my ‘wiry’ physique. Let’s just say I’ve never dominated the weights room…

[2] In fairness it took me several years to see the wisdom in a quicker run up

Bio

Record

Source: ESPN CricInfo

career peak

Source: ESPN CricInfo