Chinaman (term) is almost entirely absent from British English, and has been since before 1965. However, "chinaman" (not capitalized) is still used in an alternative sense to describe a left-arm unorthodox spin bowler in cricket. Most British dictionaries see the term "Chinaman" as old-fashioned, and this view is backed up by data from the British National Corpus. According to "Merriam-Webster's Dictionary of English Usage", in American English "Chinaman" is most often used in a "knowing" way, either satirically or to evoke the word's historical connotations. It acknowledges, however, that there is still some usage that is completely innocent. In addition, Herbst notes
Finger spin ball for a right-handed finger spinner has a clockwise component of spin as well as a component of top spin. The stock ball for a left-handed finger spinner rotates the anticlockwise as seen by the bowler. For some finger spinners the index and middle fingers do a lot of work, snapping, to impart spin on the ball. At the other end of the spectrum there are finger spinners who rely much more on the wrist action. Either way, the wrist position at the point of release determines how the ball spins. There is a large range of variations used by