What Is a Googly in Cricket?
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A googly is a leg-spinner’s disguised delivery that spins the opposite way to their stock leg break. To a right-handed batter, a leg break turns away toward the off side; a googly turns back in toward the stumps, behaving like an off break. The bowler achieves it by rotating the wrist so the back of the hand faces the batter at release, while keeping the arm action unchanged. It is also called the wrong’un or the bosie.
Leg-spin is built on deception, and the googly is its greatest trick. A batter who reads it wrong can be bowled or trapped in front before they know what happened.
What makes a googly different
A leg-spinner’s normal ball is the leg break. To a right-handed batter, it pitches and spins away toward the off side. The googly does the reverse: it spins back in toward the batter and the stumps, behaving like an off break even though a leg-spinner bowled it.
The magic is that the two deliveries look almost identical in flight. The batter commits to playing for the usual leg break, and the googly darts the other way.
How it’s bowled
The difference is all in the wrist. For a leg break, the ball comes out of the front of the hand with the wrist cocked one way. For a googly, the bowler rotates the wrist further so that, at the moment of release, the back of the hand faces the batter. That extra turn reverses the spin.
Because the hand position is hidden behind the ball and the arm action stays similar, a well-disguised googly is very hard to pick from the batter’s end. Skilled batters try to read it from the hand or the seam, but many are fooled.
Why it’s so effective
| Effect | Result for the batter |
|---|---|
| Spins in unexpectedly | Can be bowled or trapped LBW playing for the wrong turn |
| Looks like a leg break | Hard to commit to the correct shot |
| Keeps batters guessing | Even the threat of one changes how they play |
The googly’s value is not only the wickets it takes directly, but the doubt it plants. Once a batter knows a leg-spinner has a good googly, they can no longer assume any delivery will turn away, which makes the honest leg break more dangerous too.
How batters try to pick it
Reading a googly comes down to three methods, in descending order of reliability. The best batters watch the hand at release: the back of the hand rotates toward them for a googly, and a fraction of a second is enough if you know what you’re looking for. Failing that, some read the seam in flight, since the ball’s rotation axis differs from a leg break. The last resort is simply playing late, waiting for the ball to pitch and reacting to the actual turn rather than the predicted one, which sacrifices scoring options for safety.
Bowlers counter each of these. A googly bowled from wider on the crease hides the wrist longer, and quicker leg-spinners give batters less time to play late.
Googly vs doosra
The two get conflated, but they come from opposite bowler types. Both turn against the bowler’s stock ball, and that is where the similarity ends:
| Googly | Doosra | |
|---|---|---|
| Bowler type | Leg-spinner (wrist) | Off-spinner (finger) |
| Turn to a right-hander | Into the batter | Away from the batter |
| Mechanism | Wrist rotation, back of hand faces batter | Finger and wrist manipulation at release |
| Legality issues | None | Frequently scrutinised against the 15-degree elbow limit |
The doosra’s difficulty is anatomical: generating reverse spin with the fingers tempts bowlers to straighten the elbow beyond the permitted 15 degrees, which is why several exponents have been reported and remodelled. A googly carries no such baggage.
A quick history note
Bernard Bosanquet developed the delivery around 1900, reportedly out of a tabletop game called Twisti-Twosti where he tried to bounce a ball past an opponent across a table. He brought it into first-class cricket that year and used it to devastating effect in the 1903-04 Ashes, where Australian batters had no answer to a ball that broke the fundamental assumption of leg-spin. The name “bosie” stuck in Australia as a result.
Modern wrist-spinners have made it a stock weapon rather than a surprise, and a bowler with a hidden, accurate googly remains one of the hardest challenges a batter can face.
Frequently asked questions
What is a googly in cricket?+
A googly is a delivery bowled by a leg-spinner that turns the opposite way to their normal leg break. To a right-handed batter, a leg break spins away toward the off side, while a googly spins back in toward the stumps, catching batters who expect the ball to leave them.
How is a googly bowled?+
It is bowled with a wrist action. A leg-spinner releases a leg break out of the front of the hand, but for a googly they turn the wrist further so the back of the hand faces the batter at release, making the ball spin the other way while looking similar in the air.
Is a googly the same as a wrong'un?+
Yes. 'Wrong'un' is a common nickname for the googly, because the ball goes the 'wrong' way compared to a leg break. In Australia it is also called a 'bosie', after Bernard Bosanquet, the English cricketer credited with inventing it around 1900.
Who invented the googly?+
Bernard Bosanquet of England developed it around 1900, reportedly from a tabletop game called Twisti-Twosti in which he tried to bounce a ball past an opponent. He first used it in first-class cricket in 1900 and deployed it in Test cricket during the 1903-04 Ashes.
How do batters pick a googly?+
Mainly from the hand and the seam. Watching the wrist at release is the classic method, since the back of the hand faces the batter for a googly. Some read the seam's rotation in flight, and a fallback is playing late off the pitch to react to the turn rather than predict it.
What is the difference between a googly and a doosra?+
Both turn opposite to the bowler's stock ball, but the bowler type differs. A googly comes from a leg-spinner using wrist rotation, spinning into a right-hander. A doosra comes from a finger-spinning off-spinner, spinning away from a right-hander, and is far harder to bowl legally within the 15-degree elbow limit.
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