What Made You Decide To Be A Spin-bowler?

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someblokecalleddave

someblokecalleddave

Well-Known Member
This is a question I'm looking at and considering discussing on my Leg-break bowling page on my main blog. What makes us decide to become spin-bowlers and then another question were you encouraged to bowl spin from the very start? If so why and were the people that directed you to do so skilled as spin coaches?

What one of these below fits your personal experience?

(a). Always bowled spin from the moment you picked the ball up.
(b). Bowled seam-up and converted early as a kid.
(c). Bowled seam up for a long time and converted because of age or injury.
(d). Always bowled spin and was coached to spin hard and forget about accuracy.
(e). Always bowled spin and was coached to be accurate primarily.
 
For me (c).

Suffered a back injury at 18 which stopped me from bowling my Nathan Astle style slow mediums. My leg break was actually a slower ball, when the 1st coach saw me bowling those slower balls as 'spinners' he told me to forget the seam up stuff if I wanted to get anywhere.

Had zero spin coaching pretty much throughput my life which I found very frustrating, there used to be next to no one available to ask either. All the subtle little things that could have been told to me in a brief conversation had to be learnt by trial and error. Spend my time nowadays helping who I can and encourage them to go as far as they can in the game through spin.

Shane Warne's rise meant captains wanted me in their team but Mushtaq at the 92 world cup was always the inspiration.
 
b) Greg Matthews was playing tests for Australia, and he didn't take his hat off to bowl, he put on a different hat. What a weirdo. And what is he bowling? I looked up off-spin bowling in my 'how to - cricket' book and got to work with a tennis ball. Think I was fifteen.
 
'A' and a bit of 'D'. At my first training session as an 8 year old I was bowling medium dross and the coach asked me if I bowled anything else. I said a bit of leg spin, he saw me bowl a few and said to stick with that. So yes, I was encouraged to bowl spin from the start. I think I kept bowling spin because I could turn it a bit and my mediums were (are) rubbish.

The people who directed me weren't spin coaches at all, but I always got told to turn the ball as far as I could, which I'm grateful for. That probably comes from Warne, where most people (at least from my experience) tell spinners to rip the ball instead of being accurate. A lot of my bowling has been self-taught, which I probably prefer over coaching.
 
B)
I was 14 and had bowled some seam up in the school nets. I thought why not and tried to bowl spin in which it spun and didn't go too badly. My teacher said it was good, on that I went home and taught myself how to bowl leg spin. In which leads to where I am today.
 
AngryRanga said:
'A' and a bit of 'D'. At my first training session as an 8 year old I was bowling medium dross and the coach asked me if I bowled anything else. I said a bit of leg spin, he saw me bowl a few and said to stick with that. So yes, I was encouraged to bowl spin from the start. I think I kept bowling spin because I could turn it a bit and my mediums were (are) rubbish.

The people who directed me weren't spin coaches at all, but I always got told to turn the ball as far as I could, which I'm grateful for. That probably comes from Warne, where most people (at least from my experience) tell spinners to rip the ball instead of being accurate. A lot of my bowling has been self-taught, which I probably prefer over coaching.
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Sounds like you got the right advice early on, never in the 7 years I've been at this (at two clubs) have I heard anyone really emphasise the need to spin the ball hard. I tend to be put in charge of the kids that can't bowl pace because of their ridiculous bowling action or total lack of it and told to try and encourage them bowl spin. I always end up just trying to get them to have something that passes as a bowling action! If they then get it I then look at whether they could start to bowl spin. Do you reckon I should ignore the action and just say 'Look mate, this is what you do with your hand and wrist... give it a rip! Do that now for the next four years and while you're at it try and learn to run in like a bowler'. What do you reckon?
 
The coach we had as a kid used to try and persuade anyone that he thought was way too short to bowl seam up to have a look at bowling spin.

Surprisingly though he never said much about me bowling mediums off the wrong foot though...
 
I went to a cricket playing school. First I bowled seam up but was pretty average. Then, I bowled offcutters. I can't remember how I first bowled a legbreak, but I must have tried it out at some point, but the defining moment was when I might have accidentally bowled a googly in the nets. There was one teacher at the time who knew about the googly, spotted it and then told me what was going on. I then managed to clean bowl someone with the thing. After that, I was hooked. I got to be able to bowl tennis ball googlies with huge spin. I never found it easy to translate that to a cricket ball though, and I'm still working on that although I can turn the thing hugely when it all goes right. This was the time of Abdul Qadir, and he was also a factor. I wanted to bowl like Qadir and spin it both ways. To be the magician, the enigma. Mike Brearley once visited my house, and as a child I ended up bowling the legbreaks and googlies with a tennis ball to him across the living room floor!
 
someblokecalleddave said:
Sounds like you got the right advice early on, never in the 7 years I've been at this (at two clubs) have I heard anyone really emphasise the need to spin the ball hard. I tend to be put in charge of the kids that can't bowl pace because of their ridiculous bowling action or total lack of it and told to try and encourage them bowl spin. I always end up just trying to get them to have something that passes as a bowling action! If they then get it I then look at whether they could start to bowl spin. Do you reckon I should ignore the action and just say 'Look mate, this is what you do with your hand and wrist... give it a rip! Do that now for the next four years and while you're at it try and learn to run in like a bowler'. What do you reckon?
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Like expecting someone to play a Mozart sonata before they can play chopsticks.
 
boogiespinner said:
I went to a cricket playing school. First I bowled seam up but was pretty average. Then, I bowled offcutters. I can't remember how I first bowled a legbreak, but I must have tried it out at some point, but the defining moment was when I might have accidentally bowled a googly in the nets. There was one teacher at the time who knew about the googly, spotted it and then told me what was going on. I then managed to clean bowl someone with the thing. After that, I was hooked. I got to be able to bowl tennis ball googlies with huge spin. I never found it easy to translate that to a cricket ball though, and I'm still working on that although I can turn the thing hugely when it all goes right. This was the time of Abdul Qadir, and he was also a factor. I wanted to bowl like Qadir and spin it both ways. To be the magician, the enigma. Mike Brearley once visited my house, and as a child I ended up bowling the legbreaks and googlies with a tennis ball to him across the living room floor!
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Whoa! Mike Brearley - why did that happen?
 
So what is the general consensus with regards the predicament I face - e.g. the club does a deal with a school to use their sports hall for nets. As part of the pay off for the deal, 20 kids turn up that have never even seen cricket let alone picked up a ball. An hour later they're shoved my way to try and teach them a basic bowling action and look at the possibility of bowling spin? Spin first or bowling action first?

 
I would say the most important skill for a novice cricketer to learn is how to flick the ball off the fingers with the wrist. This is used in all throwing and seam bowling. It's one thing to be thinking about spin bowling, but to even make up the numbers in a team it's helpful to have a good underarm throw back to the bowler. No-one ever taught me this basic skill. I worked it out when I was over 30!
 
Chino#21 said:
I vote spin first. Show them how to spin a ball underarm and maybe round arm for the fast learners. If they are meant to be spinners they'll be hooked. Show them backspin underarm, top spin round arm, side spin, whatever you think will intrigue them most. Tell them to get some table tennis balls and play with the effects that spin create. It's great fun just throwing a table tennis ball at someone else, trying to beat them with drift or dip. Mention Shane Warne and let them do their research if they want to. It also helps if they watch a lot of cricket - they will soon pick up the basic mechanics of the bowling action. If they tend to be too round arm of are still throwing the ball when they try to bowl, have them do a Graeme Swann double arm rotation. By rotating the arm around one time and releasing it on the next rotation it will be almost impossible for them to still throw the ball if they understand what to do. Also helps with some extra energy. That's all you need to teach them in the short term.
Maybe some of them want to be fast bowlers, in which case you teach them the basic release for an outswinger and inswinger?
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I like this, I like the Swanne idea of the double rotation which I'd probably point people to look at Harbijan Singh rather than Swanne. If that's what you meant?
 
Spin Lizard said:
I would suggest that if you can't bowl slow-medium tripe, then you cant bowl spin. "Try and hit the stumps" would be my first idea.
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This is what I've always advocated, learn a basic bowling action first, then allow the kid to look at all kinds of bowling and then make your mind up from there? But, over here increasingly kids for instance in schools never or rarely get to play cricket and the whole culture is one absolutely dominated by football. So quite often several kids will turn up to play cricket/join the club and have never bowled in their lives. But, I like the idea that Chino suggests, show them what a spinning ball is capable of and maybe point them in the direction of a Warne video or two? Get them spinning the ball first and impress on them how important that is.
 
someblokecalleddave said:
So quite often several kids will turn up to play cricket/join the club and have never bowled in their lives.
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Probably a silly question but do Pommy kids play in the backyard much or in the schoolyard or park? Or do you struggle for the room to do that a lot? That's how Aussie kids generally pick up the game.
 
Kram81 said:
Probably a silly question but do Pommy kids play in the backyard much or in the schoolyard or park? Or do you struggle for the room to do that a lot? That's how Aussie kids generally pick up the game.
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Not a silly question at all. When I was young we did. I don't think it's anything like as common these days. Society became less tolerant of children hitting balls around without adults or properly defined spaces. It's a shame.
 
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Kram81 said:
Probably a silly question but do Pommy kids play in the backyard much or in the schoolyard or park? Or do you struggle for the room to do that a lot? That's how Aussie kids generally pick up the game.
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No it's not a daft question at all. Have a look at this image here. The smaller square-ish circle is our backyard, you can see from the cars just above how big a car is. My garden isn't much bigger than 20x 20. Have a look at this link here http://mpafirsteleven.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/english-suburban-gardens-can-you-play.html Yeah there are school yards, but often there are restrictions about what you can and can't do in them (H&S) and cricket just isn't encouraged. Parks, yeah there's a load of them for the most part. But rarely with free to use cricket facilities and there is this working class/footballer kind of thing where people that don't have any contact with cricket assume it's a middle class thing.
English%2Btown%2Bsuburban.jpg
 
I think the danger with youngsters and spin bowling is the pressure that comes with net practice against batsmen. No-one suggested to me that I do anything else, but it is a dangerous way to kindle a developing talent. When young I could rip the ball but do little else. After bowling tennis balls as a child to Brearley and doubtless impressing him, spinning both ways, he invited me to a net with his son. A great honour, but I could not repeat the feat with a cricket ball over 22 yards. I was embarrassed, and felt I couldn't do the thing. If only someone had said, there's potential there, here's how you bowl seam up, meanwhile practice your spin over short distances.
 
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