Off-spinner get a raw deal in cricket. Just because their approach to the wicket is leisurely and their delivery an easy finger roll rather than a contorted wrist are not reasons to dismiss them as "stock bowlers". But for an off-spinner to get noticed he must frighten Australians and take 800 Test wickets, like Muttiah Muralitharan. Or 19 wickets in a Test match, like Jim Laker. Or bowl all day, as Hugh Tayfield did on the fifth day of a Test match in 1957 at the Wanderers, and take nine wickets.A new book, Supreme Bowling, rates Tayfield's the best bowling of all time. To understand how the authors reached their conclusion, we'll have to get the book first, but one reason must have been the standard of opposition. The England team that day had a formidable batting lineup that included Colin Cowdrey, Peter May and Denis Compton.Too late to be included in the book was Mehedi Hasan Miraz's bowling for Bangladesh against England at the weekend. The 19-year-old certainly frightened the English, even as they won the first Test in Chittagong, and buried them in the second, executing a collapse from 100 without loss to 164 all out on Sunday.Miraz's story is rags-to-riches and Cinderella wrapped in one. The son of a poor lorry driver, he was not allowed to play cricket and ordered to focus on his studies so he wouldn't end up like his father.But a neighbour saw some cricket talent in the kid and bought him a bat, gloves and pads. The teenage Miraz began to add batting to his blossoming bowling talent.He developed so quickly that, at 16, he was captain of Bangladesh's Under-19 team - young enough to captain them again at a junior World Cup this year where they surprised by reaching the semifinals. Miraz was ninth in the batting averages with 242 runs at 60.5 and took 12 wickets for 17.66.By then he was already being noticed and endorsements amounting to $35-million allowed his father to park the lorry. England were vaguely aware of him when they arrived, but the Bangladeshis kept Miraz hidden. They unleashed him in the first Test and he took seven wickets. England survived, only just, to win by 22 runs.In the second, England were humiliated. Miraz took six in England's first innings and another six in the second. He became only the third spinner to take five or more wickets in the first innings of his first two Tests. The first two were Clarrie Grimmett and Ravi Ashwin.Usually off-spinners look innocuous, so what makes Miraz so dangerous? Those who have watched him closely say he gets the ball to land in the right areas most times and being given the new ball in the series against England, he was able to generate good bounce.He also drives over his front leg like a fast bowler, says Scyld Berry of The Daily Telegraph, "so that everything goes in the right direction". That means he's bowling at a brisk pace and not putting down balls that sit up to be hit.He has also been especially good against left-handers, not afraid to loop it up to them.There are five left-handers in the England top order, of whom four can now be considered Miraz's bunnies...