Bowling wide of the crease is the cheapest change a spinner has

Two feet sideways at the point of delivery alters every angle in the contest, and it costs nothing to try.

Two feet. That is the whole adjustment, and it changes more about a delivery than any grip a spinner will spend a winter learning.

A finger spinner who moves wide on the crease has altered the angle into the stumps, which alters the line the batter must play down, which alters where the ball pitches relative to his pad, which alters whether a defensive push goes to mid on or to midwicket. The ball is the same. The revolutions are the same. The batter's whole geometry is different, and he has to work it out while the ball is in the air.

Compare that with the alternative route to variation. Learning a new delivery takes years, degrades under pressure, and often gets read within an over by a batter who watches the hand. Changing where your back foot lands takes an afternoon. The return on effort is absurdly lopsided in favour of the crease, and yet I watch spell after spell bowled from the same worn patch beside the stumps as if the umpire had drawn a box.

There is a real cost, which is why good captains do not use it constantly. From wide of the crease the angle takes the ball across the right hander and away from the stumps, so leg before decisions become harder to win and a bowler surrenders one of his two main modes of dismissal. Bowl from close to the stumps and you keep that mode alive but you are predictable. It is a genuine trade rather than a free upgrade, and the mistake is treating it as a permanent setting rather than a switch you flick for four balls.

The version I would use more is the sequence. Three deliveries from close in, the batter's feet settle into a pattern, then one from wide with the same flight and the same speed. He plays the line he has been playing for the last three balls. The ball is now half a bat width outside it.

Off spinners bowling to left handers should live wide of the crease and many still refuse, because they were coached to attack the stumps and it feels like retreat. It is not retreat. Retreat is bowling the same angle for six overs and hoping the surface eventually does the work for you.