I can't seem to get it, I have a leg-break, top-spinner, slider and I'm very slowly developing a flipper. However I can't seem to learn the googly. Once I got it right, and it spun a bit, but since then I haven't done it, I can't seem to turn my wrist properly or get my alignment right, even if my shoulder dips. Any tips on how to get a googly going?
Learning The Wrong'un
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What's your action like? Some leggies naturally bowl topspinners and googlies, others find sliders easier. There is no reason that you have to be both types at once. Recognise what type of leggie you are and work with that rather than fighting against yourself.
Darth Spin
Active Member
Treat it with caution but if you're absolutely determined I'd use the Philpott method (Philpott is the answer to everything), i.e. underarm, round arm & finally overarm, and also trying the delivery from 10 yards, 15, 18 etc. until it turns over 22 yards. That's how I learned mine but I always finished with 10-15 minutes on my leg break.
A quick video of your action would be needed, even slider type bowlers have different actions. Be careful with pursuing the wrong'un if it's not a natural delivery for you, many a bowler has stuffed themselves up doing so.
CancelledUser2014
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If you were a chinaman bowling from around the wickets, what line would you bowl your googly? (Assuming the batsman doesn't pick it at all) If I bowl it on leg stump most batsmen play for leg spin, but I'm worried that someone will pick it someday and dispatch it if it is on that line. A line outside the off stump disguises it better, but is it really necessary to disguise something that is already disguised enough for most batsmen?
45DegreeLeggy
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Hi , I'm new . I'm a good leggy with an excellent googly ( although I say so myself ) . And hell no I'm not a leggy whose googly is the leading wicket taking ball and whose leggy is his go to ball . I just find it easy and it really rips without a noticeable change in my action ( people at my club says it is “ unpickable ” and that coming from a guy who is 5 years my senior and who have scores many centuries and went from S.A ( where I'm living ) to england to lead the batting averages with 95 in some league . I bowl it scrambled seam and it drifts and turns a large amount ! It is realy scary to see it lol ! But if you're struggling with it , maybey try to bring your bowling arm higher ? Like 11 or almost 12 o clock ? It helps me to bowl it with a higher arm position . And then keep practicing , but remember not to much , we don't won't those leggies to deteriorate because of the googly syndrome lol . Cheers mate .
CancelledUser2014
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For me a lower arm googly works better. It might not rip as much but it's much more difficult to pick if you bowl it at a good batsman. The minno's at club level can't pick anything if you bowl it well, but as you move up the cricketing ladder more and more batsmen will pick it and that's when you have to start thinking of ways to make it more difficult to pick, not to make it spin more (which isn't even necessary in a googly, it only has to turn the width of a bat to beat the inside edge) The good players of spin at county and international level know that a googly requires a high arm action and will be on an off side-ish delivery like vultures if they noticed any change in arm height. If you can keep your googly's arm height the same height as your leg breaks', they won't pick it up as easily or as fast.
A far better ball than a square ripping googly is a googly that dips a lot and turns a bit with extra bounce. If your googly has lots of side spin the batsman won't have to reach forward at it and he won't be in a bad position, but if your googly has dip it will bring him forward and drop short of him before kicking into his gloves or even his helmet.
The big spinning googly is better if you want to use it as a stock ball (ala Mushtaq Ahmed, Imran Tahir...) and the small spinning but dipping and kicking googly is better if you utilize it as a variation (ala Stuart Macgill, Shane Warne)
45DegreeLeggy
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Tahir bowl the googly a lot . But it is definitely not his stock ball !
CancelledUser2014
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He plays at international level, there they use their best delivery more often (most accurate, most spin etc.) In Tahir's case it's his googly. Recently he has started using it less, but only after the Protea coaches and players had a chat with him about it. Before that he bowled his googly more, simply because it was his best delivery! Lots of right arm leg spinners deny that their googly is their stock ball, it's an ego thing. But there's no denying the truth, look at Anil Kumble for example. His stock ball was a straight ball, I can't really see the seam of his deliveries but the people that have say that his stock ball was the top spinner. He also frequnetly bowled googlies and sometimes off breaks. He bowled a handful of turning leg breaks in his career (on spin conducive wickets) so is he really a "Leg Break Bowler" ?
I didn't mean "stock ball" in the sense of bowling it 90% of the time, but rather that it's your go-to ball. The ball you take wickets with or bowl maidens with. The Tahir / Mushtaq googly is better suited for that, but the Tahir / Mushtaq leg break isn't. Few people can pick their googlies because their leg breaks are so close to the googly (more top spin than side spin) and they bowl them with a scrambled seam (less turn) If you want to be a Warne-type, your leg break is much more important and the googly is just an occasional variation. But we aren't Warne, he had his strengths, some people are simply better suited to bowling googlies and can be just as successful.