Drift

[macca]

Just thought I'd add this to the conversation: http://terryjenner.blogspot.com/2009/01/drift.html
Also this video where T.Jenner talks about Warne's drift ability about 30 seconds in:



RIP T. Jenner

Poor old TJ. He was a top bloke. I couldn't believe it when I emailed him a few times with questions about Grimmett and his flippers and every time he replied and answered all my questions.

I was lucky to have seen Terry Jenner bowl in his prime.

 

[Spiderlounge]

this is at odds with Woolmers analysis in his book.

I wouldn't worry about it. Woolmer was a great coach, to be sure, but from reading his book and watching his videos he seemed to know as much about spin as I do about flower arranging. His analysis totally fails to recognise that the ball spends a significant proportion of its flight travelling downwards.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

I wouldn't worry about it. Woolmer was a great coach, to be sure, but from reading his book and watching his videos he seemed to know as much about spin as I do about flower arranging. His analysis totally fails to recognise that the ball spends a significant proportion of its flight travelling downwards.

Interesting point, there's an all round general acceptance that because many of these eminent bowlers have years of experience in certain areas of cricket and written a few books they are authorities on the subject, whereas if you listen to the diverse opinions of some of the people on this forum who's business it is to examine other associated facets of the different specialities, you realise that much of it is in fact based on little more that anecdotal evidence or superficial research. All this is then forced to the fore seemingly with their fingers crossed behind their backs often in their capacity as commentators required to say something quickly with some sense of authority e.g. Bull **** baffles brains approach.

 

[funk192]

About drift, if I remember correctly I think the times that I used to get the ball to drift where to let go of the all after I've turned my body from one side to the other in the body pivot, almost pushing up in the air with my bowling arm at release and then dragging my fingers down the side of the ball almost pushing the ball to the right and up on the underside of the ball the trying to encourage/will the ball to drift, letting gravity & the air do it's work and not forcing the ball down with my arm/hand. It used to work for me but now something is a miss with my action.

Edit: I was also thiking about keeping the trajectory as flat as possible too, but making sure I don't force it down. This was because I was bowling as fast as I can. I remember at the time one guy said that my action looked like I was bowling bouncers, but really it was just my fingers dragging down the side of the ball while I'm bending at the hips while bracing with my left leg, left hand on my knee for support with my bowling reaching up and out while maintaining and round fairly round but high arm, not past the perpendicular

 

[someblokecalleddave]

I've had a bit of discourse with Menno Gazendum regarding this - he's probably the most professional person other than Jenner that's ever answered any of my questions on spinning, althought I never got round to asking TJ anything as I was in the process of organising meeting him at one of events here in the UK when he was struck down by heart attack. Menno's credentials sound pretty impressive and at the minute he seems quite willing to answer my questions on his Facebook page. The long and short of it is that he's of the opinion that there's no real way or even a requirement that you'd be able to bowl consecutive balls with drift. He wasn't 100% certain how important the angle of the seam presentation was, but differing degrees of angle would afford differing amounts of drift in the air. Rather than this difference being perceived as being a lack of control he sees it as being another aspect of the spinners armoury, the fact that we can't bowl like bowling machines and replicate the affects of spin as seen in a wind tunnel is something to embrace rather than be too concerned about it. The variation created by anomalies in all aspects of our bowling are potentially assets including whether we're able to produce drift consistently or not.

The fundamentals are as described here on the thread, spin it hard and align the seam somewhere between 45 and 57 approximately and the ball might drift, one ball might, one ball might not, if the balls roughened up it seemingly increases the chances of it drifting, through my own experience I know that it drifts as slow as 35mph and obviously watching Warne and people like Afridi anything up to 60mph. So I reckon for my own purposes I've resolved my own question and for me its been clarified - sometimes it will and sometimes it wont and nobody can on demand and no-one can ball after ball when asked to.

 

[macca]

I've had a bit of discourse with Menno Gazendum regarding this - he's probably the most professional person other than Jenner that's ever answered any of my questions on spinning, althought I never got round to asking TJ anything as I was in the process of organising meeting him at one of events here in the UK when he was struck down by heart attack. Menno's credentials sound pretty impressive and at the minute he seems quite willing to answer my questions on his Facebook page. The long and short of it is that he's of the opinion that there's no real way or even a requirement that you'd be able to bowl consecutive balls with drift. He wasn't 100% certain how important the angle of the seam presentation was, but differing degrees of angle would afford differing amounts of drift in the air. Rather than this difference being perceived as being a lack of control he sees it as being another aspect of the spinners armoury, the fact that we can't bowl like bowling machines and replicate the affects of spin as seen in a wind tunnel is something to embrace rather than be too concerned about it. The variation created by anomalies in all aspects of our bowling are potentially assets including whether we're able to produce drift consistently or not.

The fundamentals are as described here on the thread, spin it hard and align the seam somewhere between 45 and 57 approximately and the ball might drift, one ball might, one ball might not, if the balls roughened up it seemingly increases the chances of it drifting, through my own experience I know that it drifts as slow as 35mph and obviously watching Warne and people like Afridi anything up to 60mph. So I reckon for my own purposes I've resolved my own question and for me its been clarified - sometimes it will and sometimes it wont and nobody can on demand and no-one can ball after ball when asked to.

Menno's been around a while and he is very helpful and pretty funny as well dont you reckon?

I am definately going to buy his book.

 

[Tumo]

Menno is a wonderful person to have around online. always willing to help, whether through twitter, facebook, or his website. We should probably see about getting him on here...!

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Menno is a wonderful person to have around online. always willing to help, whether through twitter, facebook, or his website. We should probably see about getting him on here...!

You should ask him if you've already established an on-line friendship with him, it'd be good to have his input.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Just found this on Youtube explaining the magnus effect, have a look at the sequence towards the end which mirrors the effect of Benuads 'Flying Saucer' Flipper spin, this is amazing and links in with some of the conclusions I'm coming to in my attempst to describe Drift and how to obtain it.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

I've managed to make contact with a bloke who's a Dr of Physics at Sydney Uni and a another bloke who's making a video today with him explaining the dynamics of spin bowling and cricket. It seems that a lot of the research I've already done all leads back to the same bloke, so this bloke seems to be one of the more eminent authorities on the matter, but what I like about his approach is that he turns the physics into descriptions of practical applications. What I'm hoping to get out of him as he's offered to answer a question or two is his opinion on the optimum seam presentation to gain maximum drift. Whether its that simple or not, I'll soon find out. (In fact its the two blokes in the video above)!

The other area that I'm finding loads of information in is Baseball. I know that it used to be common in Australia for Cricket players to play Baseball in the Off-season, I think Peter Philpott used to? Are there any of you Aussies out there that do this and are half decent pitchers of the 'Curve Ball'? There's loads of Seppo's (Americans) that bowl curve balls, but they don't seem that interested in the amount of spin. There's plenty of stuff out there that explores the Curve Ball and they mention spin and it seems integral to getting the Curve ball to swerve (Drift) but no-one dwells on it in the same way that Spin Bowlers do. The little slo-mo footage that there is of the curve ball (This applies to footballs as well) shows that they don't spin it a great deal and still the ball swerves massively, additionally they don't allow the ball to get particularly worn and scuffed up and its the Umpires job to check the ball and replace it seemingly to reduce the chance of a H&S incident due to a massive curve off a curve ball (Some bloke was killed by a curve ball some time back). So the question is -

Why does a baseball drift so much more than a cricket ball, yet it spins so little? It seems the answer may be connected to either---

* The seam and its configuration
* The Speed the ball is travelling (70mph)

Anyone have any idea?

And here's his website with some useful stuff http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~cross/

 

[SLA]

I've managed to make contact with a bloke who's a Dr of Physics at Sydney Uni and a another bloke who's making a video today with him explaining the dynamics of spin bowling and cricket. It seems that a lot of the research I've already done all leads back to the same bloke, so this bloke seems to be one of the more eminent authorities on the matter, but what I like about his approach is that he turns the physics into descriptions of practical applications. What I'm hoping to get out of him as he's offered to answer a question or two is his opinion on the optimum seam presentation to gain maximum drift. Whether its that simple or not, I'll soon find out. (In fact its the two blokes in the video above)!

The other area that I'm finding loads of information in is Baseball. I know that it used to be common in Australia for Cricket players to play Baseball in the Off-season, I think Peter Philpott used to? Are there any of you Aussies out there that do this and are half decent pitchers of the 'Curve Ball'? There's loads of Seppo's (Americans) that bowl curve balls, but they don't seem that interested in the amount of spin. There's plenty of stuff out there that explores the Curve Ball and they mention spin and it seems integral to getting the Curve ball to swerve (Drift) but no-one dwells on it in the same way that Spin Bowlers do. The little slo-mo footage that there is of the curve ball (This applies to footballs as well) shows that they don't spin it a great deal and still the ball swerves massively, additionally they don't allow the ball to get particularly worn and scuffed up and its the Umpires job to check the ball and replace it seemingly to reduce the chance of a H&S incident due to a massive curve off a curve ball (Some bloke was killed by a curve ball some time back). So the question is -

Why does a baseball drift so much more than a cricket ball, yet it spins so little? It seems the answer may be connected to either---

* The seam and its configuration
* The Speed the ball is travelling (70mph)

Anyone have any idea?

And here's his website with some useful stuff http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~cross/

I can throw a pretty decent curveball. I wouldn't say a baseball curves any more than if I threw a cricket ball in the same way, except its a quarter of an ounce lighter. It's just a matter of getting as much spin on it as possible.

You have to remember that a curveball is mainly a topspinner, so its not going to drift in the same way as an offbreak or legbreak. A slider has the same movement as a offbreak technically.


Here's a curveball - notice how it breaks straight down:

 

[someblokecalleddave]

I can throw a pretty decent curveball. I wouldn't say a baseball curves any more than if I threw a cricket ball in the same way, except its a quarter of an ounce lighter. It's just a matter of getting as much spin on it as possible.

You have to remember that a curveball is mainly a topspinner, so its not going to drift in the same way as an offbreak or legbreak. A slider has the same movement as a offbreak technically.


Here's a curveball - notice how it breaks straight down:

Nice one! Yeah I know what you mean, but the professor bloke at the Uni uses a side-arm in one of his demos and the ball goes away from him ridiculously and looks more obvious when the dip is turned on its side as such. But, more importantly do you reckon you get much spin on your curve balls - as much as you would with a top-spinner in cricket?

 

[SLA]

Nice one! Yeah I know what you mean, but the professor bloke at the Uni uses a side-arm in one of his demos and the ball goes away from him ridiculously and looks more obvious when the dip is turned on its side as such. But, more importantly do you reckon you get much spin on your curve balls - as much as you would with a top-spinner in cricket?

Yeah I think so. When you teach kids to bowl offbreaks you get them to throw it first - which is basically getting them to throw curve balls. You do this because its (even) easier to throw an offbreak than to bowl it.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

About drift, if I remember correctly I think the times that I used to get the ball to drift where to let go of the all after I've turned my body from one side to the other in the body pivot, almost pushing up in the air with my bowling arm at release and then dragging my fingers down the side of the ball almost pushing the ball to the right and up on the underside of the ball the trying to encourage/will the ball to drift, letting gravity & the air do it's work and not forcing the ball down with my arm/hand. It used to work for me but now something is a miss with my action.

Edit: I was also thiking about keeping the trajectory as flat as possible too, but making sure I don't force it down. This was because I was bowling as fast as I can. I remember at the time one guy said that my action looked like I was bowling bouncers, but really it was just my fingers dragging down the side of the ball while I'm bending at the hips while bracing with my left leg, left hand on my knee for support with my bowling reaching up and out while maintaining and round fairly round but high arm, not past the perpendicular

Funks point here with regards to the body alignment is scratching the surface of what I believe is the crux of the matter. It may come down to the fact that it will come back to the fact that you have to spin the ball hard at 45 degrees (52's on the clock), but for us as non pro's without any coaches, we have to be aware that integral to making the ball spin hard is the whole body action if this isn't right we're not going to get the amount of spin on the ball in order that it begins to drift on a more frequent basis?

 

[chippyben]

Something I have tried to see what works to get drift is bowl from 10 metres behind the stumps so your effectively bowling 30 metres. You notice that nearly all deliveries drift at this distance. Then just take note of what drifts more and try and repeat it over 22 yards.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Something I have tried to see what works to get drift is bowl from 10 metres behind the stumps so your effectively bowling 30 metres. You notice that nearly all deliveries drift at this distance. Then just take note of what drifts more and try and repeat it over 22 yards.

That's interesting, I wonder why that happens?

 

[funk192]

That's interesting, I wonder why that happens?

Well for one thing, it stays in the air longer so it has more time to interact with the air, therefore any drift that happens will be exaggerated. I have thought about experimenting with this also, but not to that extreme as chippyben wrote.

There should be a lighter leather ball just for practicing drift, perhaps having a tennis ball inside of a leather cover (I think i'll copyright that just incase I make that one day ) Just like there is a reverse swing ball for learning reverse swing, those half tennis ball/smooth rubber balls.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Well for one thing, it stays in the air longer so it has more time to interact with the air, therefore any drift that happens will be exaggerated. I have thought about experimenting with this also, but not to that extreme as chippyben wrote.

There should be a lighter leather ball just for practicing drift, perhaps having a tennis ball inside of a leather cover (I think i'll copyright that just incase I make that one day ) Just like there is a reverse swing ball for learning reverse swing, those half tennis ball/smooth rubber balls.

The Kookaburra pudding/training balls with their seam, drift quite readily as I recall from last summer. I've just been watching some of Robelindas videos of Warne and on there Gower was saying about the fact that Gatting and others were seen as good players of spin. He then went on to say, but what they weren't used to was drift in the manner that Warne produced. You'll see when drift is produced well, it occurs late in the flight, so the likes of Gatting are already set to attack the ball on a pre-determined trajectory, only to be un-done by the fact that the ball veers completely off the expected line and we all know what the outcomes are like...

I'm still not sure though what the best seam angle is to get maximum drift- my own experience seems to be the ball with the 45 degree seam. Anyone out there get it to drift at will and if you do - where's your seam pointed?

 

[Shivam_ipl]

Hi Someblokecalleddave,
Well what ever you have said above could be the art to Drift.But if you have the Art and science of cricket of Bob Woolmer,The analysis of the ball of the century that is something else.The Peter Philpott book the art of wrist spin bowling has other explanation.The video above Terry Jenner has some other explanation.And can you drift the ball.I sometimes get drift,when the ball is wrongly released.

 

[funk192]

The Kookaburra pudding/training balls with their seam, drift quite readily as I recall from last summer. I've just been watching some of Robelindas videos of Warne and on there Gower was saying about the fact that Gatting and others were seen as good players of spin. He then went on to say, but what they weren't used to was drift in the manner that Warne produced. You'll see when drift is produced well, it occurs late in the flight, so the likes of Gatting are already set to attack the ball on a pre-determined trajectory, only to be un-done by the fact that the ball veers completely off the expected line and we all know what the outcomes are like...

I'm still not sure though what the best seam angle is to get maximum drift- my own experience seems to be the ball with the 45 degree seam. Anyone out there get it to drift at will and if you do - where's your seam pointed?

Today I tried a few square seam leggies with a rounder arm action and got about a foot & a half of in-drift, it wasn't late drift but at least I got some drift for once, as my overspun leg breaks aren't getting any drift, just dip. As I released the ball square seam I pulled back on it with the back of the hand facing my face. It might have been forcing me to pivot around much more because of the release. Now if only I can get the late drift with overspun leg break, something tells me I need much more fizz on the ball to get it warne like.