Date-stamped : 12 Apr95 - 14:39 Boycott convinced that spin vision will crack the great mystery - Ian Wooldridge IT MAY not be the biggest scientific breakthrough since the splitting of the atom but Mr Simon Wheeler`s baby is the talk of Test cricket. I refer to Spin Vision, a television technique which is fascinating armchair audiences around the world. Shane Warne bowls. But is it the leg break, the googly or the top-spinner? Enter Spin Vision. Even those with 12-20 vision know the answer. In super-slow motion, filmed at 75 images per second, they can see whether the ball is spinning in one direction for the leg break or the opposite direction for the googly. Obviously the facing batsmen have no advantage but what they can do afterwards is cluster round a television set for hours watching endless re- plays to determine which Warne wrist action produces which delivery. batsmen will be doing that all this week.` Mr Benaud, an emeritus professor of wrist spin himself, was speaking in the wake of West Indies` abject three-day defeat by Australia here on Sunday, considerably attributable to their failed intention of smashing Warne out of the four-Test series. I apologise, ladies, if this is beginning to read like gibberish but it is a massively complicated subject which dates back to the day when Bernard Bosanquet, father of the late and hugely loved ITN newscaster Reggie Bosanquet, discovered contra- spin while idly hurling balls around a billiard table. He found that by imperceptibly varying the wrist action one could actually turn the ball in precisely the opposite anticipated direction. Transforming this to the cricket field, he won a Test match for England against utterly bewildered batsmen. Playing for the leg break they found the ball turning back on to them. This is the googly, still known in Australia as the `Bosie`, in tribute to Reggie`s dad. Shane Warne is the latest and possibly most brilliant ex- ponent of this form of mesmerism. If you don`t know which way his next delivery is spinning you are liable to be floundering in the crease like stray cattle on a motorway. It gets even more complicated here. Some great Test batsmen have such remarkable eyesight that they can actually detect which way a ball is spinning by watching it revolving through the air. The late and equally hugely loved Ken Barrington, of England, was one. Vivian Richards, of West Indies, was another. Now we have Brian Lara, to whose visual powers I can testify from a remark- able incident last week. We were playing golf together in a Texas scramble. Having driven 30 yards short of him I stopped our electric golf cart to retrieve my ball. `Don`t bother,` said Lara, `that`s not yours. It`s a Maxfli and you`re playing Titleist.` From a distance of minimally eight yards he could read the minute trade markings on a ball nestling in the grass. In contrast, there is Geoffrey Boycott, a complex and dogmat- ic man now commentating on TV after a glorious if self-centred career as an England opening batsman. `I can`t think how he did it,` he said. `I had such terrible eyesight that I had to wear glasses when I was 17` - today he has contact lenses - `but I never did see which way the ball was spinning. I either had to read the bowler`s hand or play it off the pitch. `I`ll tell you this. If l were playing against Shane Warne I`d watch every ball he bowled on Spin Vision and I`d work him out in a week. He`s a great bowler, no mistake, but Spin Vision will make him vulnerable.` Simon Wheeler, inventor of Spin Vision, is 35, a former BBC em- ployee directing for Trans World International, whose images are transmitted around the globe. He was a leg break bowler for Douai School`s Second XI and concedes he absorbed the idea from American TV coverage of baseball. `They were slow motion pictures from 40 yards,` he said. `Our problem is that we are filming bowlers from 90 yards.` But all-day cameramen Riaan Myburgh, a former wicketkeeper- batsman from Grey College, Bloemfontein, South Africa, stands on an elevated boundary platform scrutinising the world`s finest spin bowlers. The great argument is whether Spin Vision will unravel the mystical art of wrist-spin bowling. Richie Benaud thinks it won`t. Geoffrey Boycott is convinced it will. Mr Wheeler is professionally neutral but the ghost of Bernard Bosanquet will probably haunt him. Source :: Daily Mail Contributed by Ram.Krishnan (rkrishna@garnet.acns.fsu.edu)