Martin Crowe on Spin

from a cricinfo interview

Did you make any technical adjustments while playing spin?
I would open my up stance a lot. I felt that the idea of staying side-on was
ridiculous against spin. If you watched Javed Miandad, he was the best at it.
I copied his stance when it came to playing against spin. Not as much as
[Shivnarine] Chanderpaul, but a lot more than what I would do against the
quicks.


How exactly did that help?
I didn't worry about my back foot being square. Because you are not looking to
go on the back foot to defend and have a strong base. What you are basically
doing is making sure that the body is not going to come in the way of hitting
the ball. So you are defending in front of you. It's really head and hands;
you don't have to go around your front pad.


This was for both legspin and offspin?
Everything. But I never really rated the offspinners. They just came into the
hitting zone, which was leg side for me. Watching Miandad bat was the best
education I got in playing spin.


Who did you pick things up from to play fast bowling?
I talked to Greg Chappell a lot, and Graeme Pollock. I modelled my batting on
Greg. I didn't play a Test match against Sunny [Gavaskar], but I have seen
footage, and I talked a lot to him when I was young. He would talk about how,
before he went out to bat, he would put his head against the wall to make sure
his head was level. I used that.