Wow, a fellow chinaman! "Why don't we see more?"- There are so many reasons for that... Only 15% of the world population is left handed, and about 90% of all spinners are finger spinners, so the odds are against us. Even though there are hundreds of millions more right handed leg spinners, very few make it to international cricket. So life is tough for chinamen as well as our right handed counterparts. But it's even tougher for the southpaw version of the wrist spinner, since just 15 or so have played internationally and thus we don't have a role model we can look up to and think "one day I want to bowl just like that chinaman" like the right handers have Warne. Coaches also tend to turn aspiring wrist spinners into finger spinners (no pun intended) , easier to coach, easier to bowl.

If your a left arm wrist spinner you only have half a pitch width to bowl to. This makes accuracy nearly impossible to achieve if you want to rip the ball as much as Warne, except if your willing to practice much harder than any of cricketer (and there are very few people who want to practice that much)

It can be extremely rewarding if you get it right, especially if you bowl for the first time against a batsman, they won't know what's coming. Afterwards it gets more difficult, and you have to work for your wickets. But it's worth it!

Paul Adams, Brad Hogg, Simon Katich...

Not legendary bowlers, not magicians with the ball, even better: Chinamen!

Recently a leg spinner from the unlimited Titans (Shaun von Berg) bamboozled the opposition with his drifting, turning leg breaks. One interesting thing I noticed about him was that his seam was perfectly upright when he bowled his leg spinner. It was spinning more or less in the direction of second slip and in the slow motion replays of his deliveries I didn't notice a single wobble in the seam. It was so upright in fact that it almost seemed like the ball wasn't spinning at all (though his drift and turn certainly puts that theory to bed) How does he achieve this? If it is because of the fierce spin he imparts on the ball, why does Graeme Swann's seam wobble so much? He puts more revs on the ball than Von Berg and he can't keep the seam nearly as upright. I don't even think Shane Warne had a seam position as clean as Von Berg's. It must be an advantage to spin the seam so perfectly upright, because the chances of the ball landing on the seam are increased tremendously, and it also helps with the Magnus Effect (more drift and dip) So how do you achieve it?

You should use your leading arm to some extent while bowling, you use it as a type of rudder so to speak. It "triggers" your action so everything can start moving towards the batsman. Very few bowlers I know of have had success without using it, Paul Adams (also a chinaman) didn't use his leading arm (well I think he didn't, difficult to see from his action) but your not going to do well trying to copy him.

Why do you bowl flat? One of the biggest attributes any chinaman bowler has is the ability to subtely drift and dip the ball late through the air, past the outside edge, turning back. On non-turning wickets (which there will be plenty of in higher levels) that's all you've got unless you can turn the ball on almost every surface. Are you maybe a Kumble type bowler? (Faster through the air, no turn but plenty of over spin and bounce)

No need for "sir" I'm only 14 mate!

Yes my preferred style of bowling is around the wickets to RHB's, mainly because I can drift the ball from around the wickets so it's a very unusual angle and not one that batsmen are used to. The googly is also more effective from around the wickets, and any sliding on backspinning delivery will angle in to the batsman but if you can get a bit of swing / drift with it it might just move away a fraction which is good.

For left handers bowling around the wicket is a very good change in angle if you can do it occasionally, or even all the time (it depends on your control from around and style of bowling) Most left handers get pretty squared up if you can drift the ball into them from around the wickets! A googly from around the wickets to a left hander is very lethal, and it's a great way of manipulating the fact that they probably haven't faced a chinaman before (all the finger spinners tend to bowl from the right of the stumps to LHB's and without a delivery that goes the other way)

Going over the wickets to RHB's is something I do a lot against right handers with a closed off stance, this forces them to open it up slightly or I can drift the ball round the back of their legs / bowl them around the legs with a googly. Against RHB's with an open stance it's better to just try and turn the ball as hard as you can into them (I've noticed they have a tendency to struggle against in spinning deliveries)

The Top spinner works best if you can get it straight to a RHB after some wide off side deliveries, he will feel cramped and possibly step away to the leg side to make room for a cut shot, in which case the ball will bounce to much and get big on him. Otherwise, he will try to step towards the off side and attempt a hook shot, which could lead to a miss hit or top edge because of the extra bounce.

Because your quicker through the air / use less flight you might want to have a look at bowling a more wicket-to-wicket line, possibly with a googly / backspinner so you threathen both the inside and outside edge? That's a similar style to Saeed Ajmal, Ajantha Mendis etc. It's probably a better way to bowl in limited overs cricket, but not always as effective in the longer versions of the game. Ajmal is an exception though.