Tweaking the data: Understanding the history of Indian spin bowling

Anindya Dutta relies on facts and figures rather than back stories to trace the history of Indian spin bowling

Any author who sets out to write a book on sporting phenomena has to deal with a common and pernicious problem that afflicts the majority of his kind. It’s entrapment, in a way. Take cricket, for example; the easy way to fill out 300 or so pages is to draw on dates, events and any records you can ferret out and then let the statistics do your work for you. Chances are your efforts will be applauded because there’s a substantial readership out there that wants more of the hard points and rather less of the back stories.  

There are, of