The Mind And Wrist Spin

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Neville Young said:
This is my first time on here and I know this is an old post but I would like to respond. Having had 2 sessions with Philpott many, many years ago what he stressed at the time, was that in order to succeed you needed a number of attributes. 1. You need to have enormous self belief in your ability. 2. You need to have the thickest of skins because you will be miss handled and used poorly by most of the captains you play under, and also handling advice proffered by all and sundry (most of whom will have no real understanding of leg spin). 3. You need to be a bit of a philosopher to sort through all the information and opinions (whether sought or unsought) about your bowling, to sift through what is or isn't useful to your continued development as a bowler.
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True of all spinners
 
Most of it is true for bowlers, batsmen, keepers, fielders and coaches. For all of them probably an enormous self belief is central to their development. Which harks back to the initial topic of this thread about the mental approach to wrist spin. After self belief, I guess, having a thick skin is the most important attribute for leggies because from my experience they are the ones that are probably mishandled the most. At the pointy end of the queue, are your left hand wrist spinners who are even more misunderstood.
 
Neville Young said:
Most of it is true for bowlers, batsmen, keepers, fielders and coaches. For all of them probably an enormous self belief is central to their development. Which harks back to the initial topic of this thread about the mental approach to wrist spin. After self belief, I guess, having a thick skin is the most important attribute for leggies because from my experience they are the ones that are probably mishandled the most. At the pointy end of the queue, are your left hand wrist spinners who are even more misunderstood.
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Do legspinners really get so badly treated? I think the thing is, we just need a lot more practice and if captains take us off because we haven't learnt how to pitch the ball accurately (holds hands up) that's not and can't be the teams problem. I liked the article which said that legspinners should spend at least ten years solo practice in a net before they are let loose in a match, it wasn't entirely joking.
 
Yes, I think so mostly due to their captains inexperience in using a leggie.
Setting fields for them, when to use them in the game and being able to trust their skills if a batsman is trying to hit them and for some, an unwillingness to bowl them at all.
I'm not talking just about leggies in lower grades who may not be very skilled, this happens throughout all the grades regardless of the bowlers skill. And yes you are correct that poor bowling can result in being taken off and can't be regarded as the captains fault, however, the results can stick and all of a sudden that is the problem the captain associates with all leggies.
I think it is a combination of things that can result in this. A lot of captains aren't captains for very long for one reason or another and lack experience. It takes a lot practice to become a good leggie, consequently there are quite a few that don't have the skills needed and they can make things much harder for a good leggie when he comes along.
There is also the problem that you may play in a team without a competent leggie for a season or even many seasons and when one arrives it may be the first time that the captain has ever had one in his team and even if he has some experience as a captain he won't initially (or maybe never) understand how to use his leggie properly.
 
Neville Young said:
Yes, I think so mostly due to their captains inexperience in using a leggie.
Setting fields for them, when to use them in the game and being able to trust their skills if a batsman is trying to hit them and for some, an unwillingness to bowl them at all.
I'm not talking just about leggies in lower grades who may not be very skilled, this happens throughout all the grades regardless of the bowlers skill. And yes you are correct that poor bowling can result in being taken off and can't be regarded as the captains fault, however, the results can stick and all of a sudden that is the problem the captain associates with all leggies.
I think it is a combination of things that can result in this. A lot of captains aren't captains for very long for one reason or another and lack experience. It takes a lot practice to become a good leggie, consequently there are quite a few that don't have the skills needed and they can make things much harder for a good leggie when he comes along.
There is also the problem that you may play in a team without a competent leggie for a season or even many seasons and when one arrives it may be the first time that the captain has ever had one in his team and even if he has some experience as a captain he won't initially (or maybe never) understand how to use his leggie properly.
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I still don't see why this only applies to leggies and not off-spinners, who are often just as erratic and liable to get a bit of tap.
 
Offies certainly can be erratic and liable for a tap as you say, but if they are then they will quickly be replaced. There are always a heap of them playing. If one isn't up to it, try another. Generally every team will have a specialist offie and usually a batsman as a competent backup who can bowl economically and pick up a wicket every now and then (but usually without any great spin). For many captains offies and left-arm spinners, who bowl accurate and maintain good economy rate are the ones they prefer. If you split up captains into defensive and offensive styles and look at how they use bowlers then the defensive captains are less likely to use leggies due to their concern that they will leak runs. Offensive captains may well see the potential advantages a leg spin bowler brings to an attack, but because there are so few of them they don't get the opportunity to have them in their side and don't have the same sort of experience handling leggies as they do using offies.
 
Genuine off-spinners are far rarer in amateur cricket than leggies. Almost every team I play against has a leggie, but I can count the number of off-spinners I have batted against in the past 10 years on one hand.

A bloke who just ambles in and bowls slow off cutters on a length is NOT an off-spin bowler.

Because it turns away from the stumps, leg spin is the more defensive bowling style than off spin at amateur level.
 
I'm not sure of where you are playing SLA, but here in Melbourne in my 48 years of playing and coaching at all levels, I haven't found that to be true for here. You might come across one or at the most 2 leggies who are in their side as a bowler over an entire season, but almost every game will have an offie playing in both sides. I agree that off cutters are not off spinners as they require a totally different technique, so I'm not sure how they can be confused. If it is because you see them as bowling quicker and with a flatter trajectory that doesn't make them an off cutter. If it did then Derek Underwood wasn't a spin bowler.
Whether the ball turns away or in, shouldn't make any difference as there are attacking shot on both sides of the wicket. The bowlers ability to restrict the batsman's scoring depends more on line and length and their ability to accurately assess the batsman's strengths and weaknesses, rather than being able to move the ball away.
 
Neville Young said:
I'm not sure of where you are playing SLA, but here in Melbourne in my 48 years of playing and coaching at all levels, I haven't found that to be true for here. You might come across one or at the most 2 leggies who are in their side as a bowler over an entire season, but almost every game will have an offie playing in both sides. I agree that off cutters are not off spinners as they require a totally different technique, so I'm not sure how they can be confused. If it is because you see them as bowling quicker and with a flatter trajectory that doesn't make them an off cutter. If it did then Derek Underwood wasn't a spin bowler.
Whether the ball turns away or in, shouldn't make any difference as there are attacking shot on both sides of the wicket. The bowlers ability to restrict the batsman's scoring depends more on line and length and their ability to accurately assess the batsman's strengths and weaknesses, rather than being able to move the ball away.
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Maybe legspin just isn't a thing in Aus.

Here in the UK virtually every team has a leggie. Its just far easier to bowl - all of my juniors find legspin easy and so many adults bowl legspin.

You hardly ever see a genuine off break bowler.


A ball that turns away from the stumps is more defensive style than a ball that moves towards the stumps. This is just basic cricket knowledge.
 
If that's the case SLA it's hard to imagine why only 4 leggies have played Test Cricket for England over the past 50 years. Why would that be, surely if so many people are bowling legspin then more should be getting to the peak of English cricket. Usually with more people playing a sport, the greater the competition is between players, raising the standard of play.
It is also basic cricket knowledge that no matter how far you can turn the ball to the offside, if you can't land the ball on line and length then you will get carted.
 
Neville Young said:
If that's the case SLA it's hard to imagine why only 4 leggies have played Test Cricket for England over the past 50 years. Why would that be, surely if so many people are bowling legspin then more should be getting to the peak of English cricket. Usually with more people playing a sport, the greater the competition is between players, raising the standard of play.
It is also basic cricket knowledge that no matter how far you can turn the ball to the offside, if you can't land the ball on line and length then you will get carted.
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That's more of an issue with the ECB, who try to discourage spin bowling by heavily fining any county who produce a pitch that turns for a spin bowler.

That's a good nugget of advice, do you have any more pieces of top class aussie insight? Like there are three stumps at each end and the rope round the edge of the field is called the "boundary"?
 
SLA said:
That's more of an issue with the ECB, who try to discourage spin bowling by heavily fining any county who produce a pitch that turns for a spin bowler.
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I'm intrigued SLA what's the rationale behind this? I could understand fines for poor pitch quality, but poor pitch quality isn't necessary to produce spin. It would seem that not only is leg spin effected but off spin must be equally effected as well. Is this a recent issue or has it been going on for a long time?
There is a lot of concern here about drop-in pitches and the 'sameness' in how they play. All the states used to have different types of pitches that produced very different playing surfaces and required a range of bowling and batting skills to succeed on them. With the advent of drop-in pitches that diversity is being lost and it is a belief that the standard of the player's skills will drop.
My point in the last post was perhaps lost. I guess that in "theory" the ball that moves away should be more difficult to play but in reality line and length are vastly more important in applying pressure on the batting side in the form of both runs and wickets.
 
Neville Young said:
I'm intrigued SLA what's the rationale behind this? I could understand fines for poor pitch quality, but poor pitch quality isn't necessary to produce spin. It would seem that not only is leg spin effected but off spin must be equally effected as well. Is this a recent issue or has it been going on for a long time?
There is a lot of concern here about drop-in pitches and the 'sameness' in how they play. All the states used to have different types of pitches that produced very different playing surfaces and required a range of bowling and batting skills to succeed on them. With the advent of drop-in pitches that diversity is being lost and it is a belief that the standard of the player's skills will drop.
My point in the last post was perhaps lost. I guess that in "theory" the ball that moves away should be more difficult to play but in reality line and length are vastly more important in applying pressure on the batting side in the form of both runs and wickets.
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What's the rationale behind any decision the ECB makes? They've proved over and over again to be so utterly and perplexingly incompetent at running English cricket that its beginning to look like a wilful act of destruction.

English cricket has produced one genuinely international class spinner since Underwood retired 50 years ago. This doesn't in any way reflect a lack of interest or popularity of spin bowling at the lower levels - the problem we have is at the very top level, where all-powerful ECB supremo and all-around psychopath Andy Flower doesn't believe in the role of the specialist spinner, and actively sets out to convert promising spinners to be batsmen instead. The ECB marketing men have a limited knowledge of cricket and see spin as "slow and boring", and insist on every game being played on flat, green tracks where only seamers and batsmen ("fast and exciting") can prosper. The result is that a lot that is genuinely interesting and exciting about cricket is lost. They also schedule the games for weekdays in early April and late September where the temperate rarely gets about 10 degree, to try and dissuade crowds from attending.
 
SLA said:
Andy Flower doesn't believe in the role of the specialist spinner, and actively sets out to convert promising spinners to be batsmen instead. The ECB marketing men have a limited knowledge of cricket and see spin as "slow and boring", and insist on every game being played on flat, green tracks where only seamers and batsmen ("fast and exciting") can prosper.
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So it isn't just captains that don't understand how to use leggies!
 
So many poor spinners complain that the "captain" doesn't understand them. Mate, you've just got pumped for 47 runs off 3 overs, I can't put fielders in the car park to take catches for you. "Oh but I'm a leggie, I'm meant to bowl a mixture of very wide wides, full tosses and long hops. Its not shit, its mysterious. The fact I've gone for several huge sixes is your fault for not using me properly".
 
So line and length are far more important than moving the ball away from the batsman after all.
Anyway your reply doesn't explain much. If they are bowling crap and are taken off their captain is doing the right thing. All I can gather from it is that the reason why leggies aren't considered in county cricket and elsewhere is that most of them are rubbish. Surely that can't be true, there must be good ones over there if so many are playing. If the good ones have a captain that understands how to use them then they will improve, but from the numbers that have come through in the last 50 years it appears that they don't get much of a go and as the captains of sides finish playing and move into admin they take in their mistrust and opinions with them.
 
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Neville Young said:
So line and length are far more important than moving the ball away from the batsman after all.
Anyway your reply doesn't explain much. If they are bowling crap and are taken off their captain is doing the right thing. All I can gather from it is that the reason why leggies aren't considered in county cricket and elsewhere is that most of them are rubbish. Surely that can't be true, there must be good ones over there if so many are playing. If the good ones have a captain that understands how to use them then they will improve, but from the numbers that have come through in the last 50 years it appears that they don't get much of a go and as the captains of sides finish playing and move into admin they take in their mistrust and opinions with them.
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I'm sorry that was all you were capable of gathering from my post, I genuinely thought my point was so obvious as to be idiot-proof; clearly I was mistaken.
 
A bowler of slow left arm darts
caused forum readers' sinking hearts.
He seems so uptight
I think that he might
suffer pains from impacted farts.

Your posts have now become so bitter you could use them in slug bait.
 
Sunil Wind said:
A bowler of slow left arm darts
caused forum readers' sinking hearts.
He seems so uptight
I think that he might
suffer pains from impacted farts.

Your posts have now become so bitter you could use them in slug bait.
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The 2nd and 4th lines don't scan properly. I'll give you a C-
 
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