“Oh, I’ve given up bowling leg spin,” the talented youngster said to me during the first game of the cricket season on a bright April day.

“I took up bowling pace in the winter at University and my coach says I’m pretty good.”

The revolutionary PitchVision Academy Problem Solver has had a major upgrade.

Judging by the number of questions we get here at PitchVision Academy, a lot of players and coaches have a cricketing problem they need solving. Everyone has something; a technical flaw in the cover drive, not quick enough bowling, getting gassed with low fitness levels and a hundred other things.

We also know that there is a frustrating gap for most of us.

This is a guest article from AB, a club left arm spinner and aggressive batsman with more than 15 years experience. His claim to fame is a 50 run partnership with JP Duminy.

If you bowl obvious variations thinking you are going to outwit the idiot at the other end, all a decent batsman is going to do is make you look foolish by putting your well thought out “other one” into the trees over cow corner.

Being able to bowl leg spin well is rare quality; if you do that then you are valuable to any captain at any level.

Good leg spinners seem to need so much; a canny tactical awareness, steely personality, and a phalanx of variations on top of a fizzing, dipping leg break that turns a foot on any wicket.

Leg spin bowling may be an art, but it’s one that can be learned.

This article is part of "The complete guide to cricket field settings" series.

When a batsman is all set and looking to go after you, towards final overs a leg spinner can easily get thrashed if he doesn’t have a proper field to bowl to.

You know all good leg spinners have a well disguised googly; the one that goes the other way.

So you practice hard in the nets, trying to get the perfect ball.

So hard in fact, that somehow you forget how to bowl a normal leg break. You are stuck in the hell of only bowling wrong ‘uns.

Are you destined to become a googly bowler for the rest of your life?

How do great leg spinners get started?

Bowler’s like Shane Warne, Abdul Quadir and Anil Kumble are exciting. They take wickets with art, style and guile. They do it without having the advantages of pace and fear that the quicks have.

Everyone agrees: You can't set a field for bad bowling.

Like a lot of one-line advice, it's more of a guideline because there are always exceptions. It's the cricketing equivalent of "I before E, except after C".

Recently I arrived early for a net session and a young left arm seamer was there alone bowling at the stumps.

I watched him for a few minutes and his length seemed to vary quite a bit. As I knew him quite well I wandered up and asked him where he was aiming to pitch the ball.

Leg spin is the greatest bowling asset a captain can have. But the combination of lesser accuracy and greater variations means the leggie is also the most difficult to manage.

And that means it's easy to misuse the treasure of the wrist spinner.

Fortunately, there are three simple rules you can keep in mind as captain to help you get the most from leg spin.

1. There is no orthodox leg spinner