How to play spin bowling

Playing spin well is a length decision, not a hand-eye one. Against pace you react; against spin you have time, and that time is what most batters waste. The rule that survives every surface: get all the way forward to smother the spin, or all the way back to watch it turn. The ball you get out to is nearly always the one where you did neither — caught on the crease, playing at where the ball pitched instead of where it ended up.

Scoring all round the wicket against spin — right-hand batter; the gold sector is where this scores.

Forward or back — commit to one

The spinner's wicket-taking ball is the one that beats you in the gap between the two.

Fully forward. Stride at the pitch of the ball so bat meets ball as close to the bounce as possible — the ball has had no room to deviate. Front pad tight beside the bat, no gap for it to sneak through.
Fully back. Deep in the crease, back foot near the stumps, giving yourself the maximum time to watch it turn and adjust. Play it late, under your eyes.
Never on the crease. Neither forward enough to smother nor back enough to see it — this is where the bat-pad catch and the bowled-through-the-gate come from.

Read it from the hand, then from the pitch

You do not need to pick every variation to score against spin. You need length first and turn second.

Length before spin. Decide forward or back from the trajectory, before you know which way it turns. Batters who wait to read the spin have already lost the stride.
Watch the hand, not the ball's flight. Wrist position at release tells you more, and earlier, than anything the ball does in the air.
Flight is the trap, not the turn. A ball tossed higher is asking you to commit early and get stranded. Judge where it will land, not how pretty the loop is.

Scoring, so you aren't just surviving

Blocking a good spinner for an hour is how you eventually get out. You have to make them change their length.

Use your feet. Getting down the pitch turns a good length into a half-volley. Commit fully — a half-hearted charge is a stumping.
Sweep to change the length. A bowler who knows you sweep cannot keep landing it on a length. See the sweep shot.
Work the gaps square. Against turn, the ball is doing the work — you only have to angle the bat face. Hard hands into the spin is how you edge it.

The faults that hand it over

Playing with hard hands away from the body. Soft hands and the ball dies off the bat; hard hands and it carries to slip or short leg.

Reaching for the ball outside off. Let it go or let it come to you. Spin punishes the stretch.

Getting the pad in front without the bat. Playing for turn that doesn't happen is a classic lbw — keep the bat beside the pad, not behind it.

Questions

How do I stop getting bowled through the gate by spin?

The gap between bat and pad opens when your stride goes across rather than forward, or when your bat swings from the leg side toward off. Stride at the ball, keep the bat coming down beside the front pad, and make sure your head arrives over the ball rather than falling to the leg side.

Should I use my feet or sweep?

Both, and for the same reason: to deny the bowler a length. Use your feet when the ball is flighted and you can get all the way to the pitch; sweep when it's flatter or the field is up. What matters is that you have an answer that isn't defending, or the spinner bowls the same ball all day.

Why is spin harder on a turning pitch even though the ball is slower?

Because the margin for a wrong length decision grows. On a flat pitch a slightly-wrong stride still finds the middle; on a turning one the same error finds the edge. That's why the forward-or-back discipline matters more as the pitch gets worse, not less.

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