Flipper (cricket)
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The flipper is the name of a particular bowling delivery used in cricket, generally by a leg spin bowler. Squeezed out of the front of the hand with the thumb and first and second fingers, it keeps deceptively low after pitching and can accordingly be very difficult to play.
It was reputedly invented by the Australian leg-spinner Clarrie Grimmett. Grimmett became so enamoured with the delivery that he bowled it at times almost as frequently as his stock leg break. The great Don Bradman once remarked to Grimmett that he must have forgotten how to bowl a leg break, as he bowled so many flippers. Ironically, Bradman was bowled shortly thereafter at a memorial match by Grimmett, who produced a perfectly pitched stock ball that turned just enough to remove Bradman's off bail. "There y'are Don, I told you I could bowl a leg break" was Grimmett's alleged response.
The flipper comes out underneath the hand at delivery. There must be sufficient tension in the wrist and fingers to impart a good helping of backspin or underspin. In doing so the flipper will float on towards the batsman and land on a length fuller than he first anticipated, often leaving him caught on the back foot when he wrongly assumes it to be a pullable or a cuttable ball. The back spin or underspin will cause the ball to hurry on at great pace with very little bounce, though this may be harder to achieve on softer wickets. A series of normal leg spinners or topspinners, with their dropping looping flight, will have the batsman used to the ball pitching on a shorter length. The batsman may wrongly assume that the flipper will drop and loop like a normal overspinning delivery. Shane Warne, in his earlier days, had Robin Smith with a beauty: after giving him 3 or 4 googlies with overspin, he produced a flipper on off stump. When Robin Smith went back to cut, to his dismay he found it landing fuller than he expected and skidded through rapping him on the pads plumb in front of off stump, leg before wicket.
Shane Warne's flipper is bowled with the seam coming down like an inswinger: bowling in this way disguises it and creates the tension in the wrist/fingers mentioned earlier. The flipper will cause problems for a batsman who cannot read a legspinner out of the hand, or is not quick enough to adjust once the difference in flight is detected. Sachin Tendulkar is a classic example of a batsman that can read them out of the hand very well: he is seldom troubled by Warne's flipper, although Tendulkar has such amazing eyesight, reflexes, and footwork that he may be able to adjust his shot anyway.
Occasionally, the term 'flipper' has been used to describe other types of deliveries. The Australian leg spinner Bob Holland employed a back spinning ball that he simply pushed backwards with the heel of his palm, akin to what would now be referred to as a "zooter".
Much of the effectiveness of the flipper is attributable to the "pop"—that is, the extra pace and change in trajectory that is imparted to the ball when it is squeezed out of the bowler's hand.