‏Top 10 Googly Bowlers in Cricket History

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Cricket has always been more than a bat and a ball, it’s a game of tactics, precision, and mind games as well. And when it comes to the tricks bowlers use, none is more capable of unseating the best batsmen in the world than the googly.

Googly (or wrong ‘un) is a delivery bowled by a leg-spinner, the googly spins in the opposite direction to the typical leg-break delivery, rather than spinning away from a right-handed batsman, the googly spins sharply back into the batsman, and it can bewilder batsmen who misread it completely or are technically incorrect.

Over the decades, a number of bowlers have been able to own the googly, as one of the hidden weapons in their artillery to excel in world cricket. Today’s article will examine the Top 10 googly Bowlers, their styles of unique bowling and contribution to the game.

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1. Bernard James Tindal Bosanquet (England) – The Inventor of Googly

• Era: 1900’s

• Famous for: Inventing the googly

• Bosanquet invented the googly after experimenting in his training while in England, to the surprise of himself and other players it completely confused other players at first, however after a series of successful googly’s it became a revolutionary weapon. The current leg-spinner using a googly today owe their googly to Bosanquet. 

✅ Legacy: Had it not been for Bosanquet, leg-spin would never have had this deceptive variation.

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2. Bhagwat Subramanya Chandrasekhar (India) – India’s Ace Leg-Spinner

• Era: 1960s–1970s

• Style: He deceived batsmen by using an impaired arm to create angles of spin no one ever expected or catered for.

• Chandrasekhar’s googly was a hazard, a delivery batsmen could never predict, and would often leave a batsman aghast with no idea what direction the ball will ultimately turn. His childhood illness led to one arm being weaker than another, yet he turned disadvantage into advantage.

✅ Achievements: 242 Test wickets, part of India’s golden quartet of spinners.

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3. Abdul Qadir (Pakistan) – Restorer of Leg Spin

• Era: 1977–1993

• Style: Master of several variations of the googly.

• In a time when the world thought leg-spin bowling was dead, Abdul Qadir has been labelled as the man who restored it. He had six very different variations of the googly, each with growing degrees of deception. He would bamboozle top batsmen with his deliveries in the 1980s, overcoming batsmen’s modern skills with unpredicted flight.

✅ Achievements: 236 Test wickets, Pakistan’s greatest leg-spinner up until Mushtaq and Yasir.

4. Shane Warne (Australia) – The Spin Wizard

• Era: 1992–2007

• Style: Subtle and reliably rare googly; sensationally disguised.

• Warne’s stock-ball was the leg-break and, when he used the googly, batsmen were unfazed by this unpredictable delivery. In other words, while he didn’t use his googly often, when he did, batsmen were devastated by loss of creditability. He epitomised how well leg spin could be bowled.

✅ Achievements: 708 Test wickets, turned leg-spin into a global craft.

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5. Anil Kumble (India) – The Silent Assassin

• Era: 1990-2008

• Style: Quick skidding googly with no turn.

• Kumble was not a huge turner but relied on accuracy, bounce and speed. His googly was much quicker through the air than his normal style and more often than not, batsmen were caught out simply because they had anticipated his straight deliveries.

✅ Achievements: 619 Test wickets, 10 wickets k in an innings vs Pakistan.

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6. Mushtaq Ahmed (Pakistan) – The World Cup Legend

• Era: 1990s -2000s

• Style: A sharp deceptive googly, especially in ODIs.

• Mushtaq Ahmed was also instrumental in Pakistan’s 1992 World Cup win and his googly regularly had batsmen completely confused, regardless if he was in a Test Match or ODI, making his one of the greatest leg-spinners of the 90s.

✅ Achievements: 185 Test wickets, and had a huge impact on Pakistan’s WC victory.

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7. Saqlain Mushtaq (Pakistan) – The Mysterious Spinner

• Era: 1990s-2000s

• Style: Known for doosra but also had a variation that resembled and acted like a googly.

• Although Saqlain was an off-spinner, many of the variations used by Saqlain had additional confusion added due to the concepts of a doosra. Saqlain changed world off-spin bowling in many facets and things that went beneath the skin and use of the doosra naturally confused the batsmen to expect a delivery that spun in the opposite direction to what they expected.

✅ Achievements: 288 ODI wickets, and would change and impact off-spin bowling forever.

8. Imran Tahir (South Africa) – The T20 Magician

• Era: 2011 – 2019

• Style: Aggressive, speed googly, a handful in restricted overs.

• The googly was Tahir’s calling card – he was both new age leg spinner and anomalous mystery bowler. Absolue inordinate injection of supply and method, and of course, goon intensity. T20’s and ODIs suffered irrevocably. A plan for Tahir, was to achieve indefatigable bowling due pace, break well with X factor and the ability to be widely pursue and repeatedly successful in the franchise market at an never before rate. Iconic celebrations were almost as equally named as his Wrong ‘uns.

✅ Achievements: 173 ODI Wickets, 63 T20I Wickets, and IPL slayer.

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9. Yasir Shah (Pakistan) – The Googly Master of Test Matches

• Era: 2010’s – Present

• Type: Well disguised Googly, considerable in long formats.                         

• Yasir Shah’s googly has troubled world class Test cricketers forever since. If Yasir did everything correctly, with control, flight and dismissal of his googly, he would be th successor in belief, style and effectiveness compared to Abdul Qadir.

✅ Achievements: Fastest Pakistan bowler to 200 Test Wickets.

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10. Rashid Khan (Afghanistan) – The New Aged Unforgettable and Undeniable mystery

• Era: 2015 – present

• Type: Five speed, no eyes and unreadable for the batsman with little room to move.

• Rashid Khan has laid claim to the googly being his biggest weapon and definitely deserves to be in Top 10 Googly bowlers in Cricket. It is essentially the opoucan effects of 21st century leg spin bowling. Everything from their filming speed and action adds to the mystique of the googly. Turning batsmen towards the crease allowing no time to read the delivery.

Rashid is sporting to be the ‘fastest leg spinner in the world’, and the ball appears to be close to impossible to screen read in T20 cricket; and is of course another reason why many still consider him to be T20’s leading wicket-taker and metaphorical icon of Afghan cricket.

✅ Achievements:  world record as T20’s leading wicket-taker in history and dux in T20 form of bowling cricket.

Comparison Table: Top 10 Googly Bowlers in Cricket History

❓ FAQs on Googly in Cricket

1. Who invented the googly in cricket?

👉 The gawky googly was invented in the early 1900s by Bernard Bosanquet, who was born in England.

2. What bowler today has the best googly?

👉 Rashid Khan is widely regarded as the best current day googly bowler, especially in T20’s.

3. Why is a googly so difficult to face?

👉 Because it looks exactly like a leg-break but rotates in the opposite direction and fools the batsman.

4. Who is the best googly bowler from India?

👉 Anil Kumble and B. S. Chandrasekhar are both regarded legends for their own versions of the googly.

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📌 Conclusion

The googly is much more than a delivery in cricket, it has been a weapon of deception that has shaped history. From Bosanquet’s invention to Rashid Khan’s current day mastery, it is one of the hardest balls to play. Every bowler in this list added their own magic to the googly, keeping batsman guessing and resulting in cricket fans falling in love with spin bowling.

👉 Whether you are a cricket fan or a budding bowler, understanding the top googly bowlers in cricket gives you a greater appreciation for the skill and artistry that is part of the game of spin bowling.