A googly is a deceptive delivery bowled by a leg-spin (wrist-spin) bowler that spins in the opposite direction to a normal leg break — turning in toward a right-handed batter instead of away from them — while looking almost identical to a stock leg break as it leaves the hand. Its whole purpose is disguise: the batter reads a leg break, plays for the ball to move one way, and is beaten when it moves the other.
Understanding leg spin first
To grasp the googly, you first need the leg break. A right-arm leg-spinner uses their wrist and fingers to impart sideways spin so that, when the ball bounces, it moves from the leg side to the off side of a right-handed batter — that is, away from the body and toward the slips. This is the bowler’s “stock” delivery, the one they bowl most often, and batters learn to watch for it. Leg spin is one of the two main families of spin bowling, alongside off spin, and it relies heavily on the wrist rather than the fingers, which is why leg-spinners are also called wrist-spinners. The googly is the surprise variation hidden inside that same wrist action.
So how does a googly turn the other way?
Instead of spinning the ball away, the googly spins it back in toward a right-handed batter, moving from off to leg. The bowler achieves this by turning the wrist over further at the point of release, so the ball is delivered out of the back of the hand rather than the front. The seam and spin direction are reversed, so when the ball lands it grips and turns the opposite way to what the batter expects. Against a left-handed batter, the directions are mirrored.
Why is a googly so hard to pick?
The danger of the googly is that it is disguised. A skilled leg-spinner releases it with an action that looks very similar to a normal leg break, so the batter has little visual warning of which way the ball will turn. Experienced batters try to “pick” the googly by watching the bowler’s wrist and the seam position of the ball in flight, but the best exponents hide these clues so well that even top players can be fooled. A batter who commits to playing for the leg break — expecting the ball to move away — can be caught completely wrong when it darts back in toward the stumps or the pads. This is why a well-bowled googly often leads to a batter being bowled, trapped leg before, or caught off a leading edge. If you want to understand the leg-before dismissal it can produce, see our guide to LBW in cricket.
How is a googly bowled?
The key is the wrist. In a normal leg break, the back of the bowler’s hand faces the batter through part of the action; in a googly, the bowler rotates the wrist so that the ball is released from the back of the hand with the palm facing back toward themselves. The fingers still impart spin, but the reversed wrist position flips the direction of turn. It is a difficult skill that takes years to master and to disguise convincingly, which is why not every leg-spinner has a reliable googly. Bowling it well also tends to cost a little control, so many spinners use it sparingly — as a surprise ball a few times an over — rather than as their main delivery. A googly that the batter reads early loses all of its danger, so disguise is everything.
Where did the googly come from?
The googly was pioneered in the early 1900s by the English cricketer Bernard Bosanquet, and for that reason it was historically nicknamed the “bosie” in Australia. The delivery revolutionized wrist-spin bowling by giving leg-spinners a hidden way to turn the ball both directions from the same-looking action. Before it existed, a leg-spinner could only ever turn the ball one way, which made them easier to read; the googly changed that overnight and forced batters to respect the possibility of spin in either direction. Over the following century it became a standard — if still difficult — weapon in the leg-spinner’s armory, used at every level of the game up to international cricket administered by the International Cricket Council (ICC).
Googly, wrong’un, or bosie?
These are all names for the same delivery. “Googly” is the most common term worldwide; “wrong’un” is a popular informal name that captures the idea of the ball going the “wrong” way; and “bosie” honors Bosanquet, its inventor. You may hear any of them in commentary, but they all describe a leg-spinner’s ball that turns opposite to the leg break.
How is a googly different from other spin deliveries?
A leg-spinner has several variations, and the googly is just one. The stock leg break turns away from the right-hander; the googly turns back in; the “top-spinner” travels straight on with extra bounce; and the “flipper” skids on low and fast. Off-spinners, who spin the ball the other way using their fingers rather than the wrist, have their own mystery ball called the “doosra.” The googly specifically belongs to wrist-spin bowling, and a bowler who commands both the leg break and the googly is one of the hardest types to face in the game. To keep exploring cricket’s rules, read our explainer on how LBW works, and for other sports terms see what a hat-trick is — a word cricket actually gave to football.
