in its Test history. The one chinaman bowler who could have played for India was a wonderfully gifted bowler fro

Among the many issues that cropped up in the Alouettes Week 2 loss to the Blue Bombers was the protection for their 40-year-old quarterback. Keeping Anthony Calvillo upright was not a problem last season, but one that coach Dan Hawkins is being forced to deal with only two games into this years campaign. "Its everywhere," left tackle Josh Bourke said following the loss to Winnipeg. "Its the O-Line, the receivers, the quarterbacks, the running backs, the coaches, were all a part of this problem." In 18 games in 2012 the Alouettes allowed only 30 sacks. This season Calvillo has gone down 11 times already. "I need to prepare them better," Hawkins said following the loss. The Als managed just 11 points on offence via a field goal, a single and a late S.J. Green touchdown reception to the frustration of players and coaches. "Seventy yards of offense in the first half? Us? Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me?" Veteran lineman Scott Flory exclaimed. Entering his 20th CFL season, Bourke is aware of the teams need to protect their soon-to-be 41-year-old quarterback. "You never want to see your quarterback get hit, hes 40 years old he cant take big shots," Bourke said. Bourke, Flory and centre Luc Brodeur-Jourdain were all CFL All-Stars in 2012, while one of Bourke and Flory has claimed the leagues top lineman honour three of the last five seasons. Number one running back Brandon Whitaker is thought to be one of the better pas protections backs in the CFL, so considering these factors, the talent is there for the Als to improve. Hawkins said he had confidence his group would turn things around following the tough outing. "How you handle the frustration -- Can you turn that into improvement? And these guys are seasoned veterans, they will," Hawkins said. Up next for the Alouettes is a home date with the Stampeders on Friday Night Football. Notes Out of the seven sacks in Week 2 versus the Bombers, six were in the second half…The Alouettes were 3/20 on second down conversions in the game… Its the first time since November 5th 2011 that Montreal didnt have a receiver with at least 35 yards… Montreal had 12 two-and-outs in the game.Jordan Eberle Islanders Jersey . Klitschkos management company says the bout will be the Ukrainian fighters 25th world championship fight. The 1.83-meter (6-foot) Leapai defeated the previously unbeaten Denis Boytsov in November to become the WBOs mandatory challenger. Scott Mayfield Islanders Jersey . Datsyuk will miss Tuesdays game against New Jersey and could be sidelined longer, while Cleary will likely miss at least the next three games. Its been an injury-plagued season for Datsyuk, who has suited up for just 39 games. http://www.islanderssale.com/authentic-matt-martin-islanders-jersey/ . The third-ranked Ivanovic, who won the event in 2008 and 10, served five aces and broke Wickmayer, also a former winner in 2009, five times. "The result looked easier than it really was," Ivanovic said. Nick Leddy Jersey . 10 VCU 85-67 on Thursday night at the Puerto Rico Tip-Off. The Seminoles (4-0) have scored at least 80 points in each of their games. Leo Komarov Islanders Jersey . He said Tuesday thats a big reason why he is now the new coach of the Tennessee Titans. Whisenhunt said he hit it off quickly with Ruston Webster when interviewing for the job Friday night.From S.Giridhar and V.J. Raghunath, IndiaWe set off to do a story on offspinners and left-arm spinners - similar to what we had done some months back on legspinners. We had hoped that our favourite mystery and left-arm chinaman bowlers will find adequate space. To our dismay we found that many of the names that rolled deliciously off our tongues just did not have enough wickets to qualify under stodgy criteria such as minimum number of wickets, etc. So we said, to hell with all that - let us just enjoy ourselves writing about our favourite chinaman and mystery bowlers - the non-conformists, conjurors and sleight-of-hand purveyors.The left-arm chinaman is a mirror image of the right-arm leg break - bowled by turning the wrist so that the ball turns the opposite way to left-arm finger spin. When bowled back of the hand, it becomes the googly, it turns the other way. We identified 10 chinaman bowlers as we trawled through the history of the game. Even if you were to add up all the wickets taken by the chinaman bowlers it would be less than a combined tally of Bedi and Underwood. There are 45 left-arm spinners who have more than 40 wickets each but just four chinaman bowlers who meet this criterion. The strike-rate of the chinaman bowler is superior (a wicket every 70 balls as compared to 79 for the orthodox left-arm); the bowling average is similar, 31.6 as compared to 31.2. The difference is that while the 45 left-arm spinners have taken over 4800 wickets in 1605 matches, the 10 chinaman bowlers have played only 184 matches to take 427 wickets.Old timers had the great fortune to see the peerless Garry Sobers bowl a lot of this stuff. In fact they were so fortunate that they saw that genius bowl left-arm fast, slow orthodox and chinaman all on the same afternoon. His 235 test wickets are a wonderful mix of all three. In the fifties, Johnny Wardle played for England. A maverick - and that sat badly in England - he bowled orthodox finger spin in England, but served up chinaman and googlies abroad. He bowled the way his heart dictated and he bowled really well - 28 Tests, 102 wickets at a strike rate of 65 balls per wicket. His average of 20.39 is the best for any post-war spinner who has over 100 wickets. In our statistical analysis, he is second-best among left-arm spinners since 1900 (min. 50 wickets) which is awesome. But he rubbed the administrators and his captain Peter May the wrong way. He would have played a lot more games for England but for Mays preference for his Surrey team-mate Tony Lock.Time for a lovely story: Johnny Martin who played for Australia in the sixties bowled his chinaman very slowly through the air. In a Sheffield Shield match, Martin beat a batsmen all ends up and struck him on the back foot in front of the stumps. To his utter disgust, the Umpire turned down his appeal. Martin asks the umpire: Whats wrong, ump, isnt he in front? Umpire: Yes son, he is. Martin: Then why isnt he out? Umpire: Because the ball wouldnt have reached the stumps, Johnny!Why is it that most of the chinaman bowlers are from Australia? Is there something in the Australian air that makes spinners bowl back-of-the-hand wrist spin rather than finger spin? Just as they have given cricket so many famous legspinners from Mailey to Warne and MacGill, so too have they provided us a line of chinaman bowlers, from Fleetwood-Smith to Hogg. Strangely, Australia hardly has a worthy presence among orthodox left-arm spinners.Fleetwood-Smith (10 Tests, 42 wickets) in spite of some sterling performances in the 1930s is unfortunately best remembered as the bowler who conceded the highest number of runs in an innings - one for 298 out of an England score of 903 for 7. This was The Oval tesst where Hutton made 364.ddddddddddddMuch later, Lindsay Kline (13 Tests, 34 wickets) and Martin (eight Tests, 17 wickets) had their unforgettable moments too: Kline took a hat-trick against South Africa in 1957 but his moment of glory was as a No. 11 bat for Australia in the famous 1960-61 series against West Indies. Coming in as the last batsman he stayed for more than 100 minutes with Slasher Mackay to earn Australia a draw in Adelaide. More than the fact that he lasted against Hall, Sobers, Worrell and Gibbs for that long, what was amazing was that he was practicing at the nets in the afternoon against similar bowling for more than an hour as if anticipating what he would be called upon to do later that day! Immediately after, he was dropped for the final Test - typical of Australian cricket, no sentiment at all.Martins moment came in the same series. After the famous Tie in Brisbane, Australia won the second Test comfortably in Melbourne, thanks to Davidson and Martins bowling. In a golden spell, Martin removed Kanhai, Sobers and Worrell in four balls. Had he done it in three, it would surely have ranked as the grandest hat-trick ever!Time once more to pull the leg of the chinaman bowler: This story was told with great relish by Dileep Sardesai. In the fourth Test in Barbados of Indias landmark tour of West Indies in 1971 - the series belonged as much to Sardesai as it did to Gavaskar - India were 70 for 6 and Sardesai was left with Solkar to repair the damage. Sobers, the West Indies captain, had Inshan Ali their chinaman bowler on at one end. Now, for the Indians this slow bowler was a far happier proposition and not wanting Sobers to change him, Sardesai and Solkar decided that in every Inshan Ali over they would deliberately appear to be beaten by the odd delivery, as though they had failed to pick him. Sardesai chortled that the extended spell to Inshan Ali actually helped the Indian cause. Knowing Sardesai, this could well be a true story!Not much need be said about the chinaman bowlers of the last 25 years. We have watched them in close detail on TV. None more so than Paul Adams of South Africa, perhaps the only bowler to have ever had his face towards the umpire while delivering! His action - called frog in the blender - caused great consternation to the English batsmen when he was first unleashed. But batsmen sorted him out in time, because although Adams bowled good length and line he became too predictable. Nevertheless, by the time he finished he had 134 wickets in 45 matches. More recently, we have seen Hogg - tongue hanging out - bowl for Australia. Katich bowls too but we think that he should be bowled a lot more by Ponting.It is surprising that the sub continent that produced left-arm orthodox spinners (Vinoo Mankad, Bishan Bedi, Dilip Doshi and Iqbal Qasim come to mind), does not have a single chinaman bowler in its Test history. The one chinaman bowler who could have played for India was a wonderfully gifted bowler from Hyderabad - Mumtaz Hussain. A contemporary of Gavaskar, Mumtaz promised a lot when he made his name in university and Ranji Trophy cricket with a mesmerizing mix of orthodox left-arm, chinaman and the googly. He was so difficult to read that the keeper had to devise a set of hand signals to read him. Sadly within a couple of seasons Mumtaz had greatly reduced his chinaman and bowled mainly orthodox finger spin. Soon - for it was the time when Bedi ruled - Mumtaz faded away into the anonymity of first-class cricket. It is probably the closest that India came to having an international chinaman bowler. ' ' '