Simple Method For Calculating Speed Of Spin Bowling From Video

Top Contributors
B

boogiespinner

Active Member
1) Take a ball that hits the stumps
2) Upload video to youtube
3) Adjust the settings so it is playing at 0.25 (quarter speed)
4) Play the video, with a stopwatch record the time from the release to hitting the stumps
5) Calculate 200/[time]

that is the speed from the hand in mph!

roughly.... I make no guarantees of accuracy. It should be pretty close though
 
boogiespinner said:
1) Take a ball that hits the stumps
2) Upload video to youtube
3) Adjust the settings so it is playing at 0.25 (quarter speed)
4) Play the video, with a stopwatch record the time from the release to hitting the stumps
5) Calculate 200/[time]

that is the speed from the hand in mph!

roughly.... I make no guarantees of accuracy. It should be pretty close though
Click to expand...
Ah - I wondered how you'd come up with the speed for my bowling! I'll have to upload some more vids using my new faster action.
 
boogiespinner said:
new faster action? already?
Click to expand...
Yeah it's something I've tried on a number of occasions and rejected over the last few years, but all the games I got wickets in were with an intermediate approach - faster than the video, but not as fast as I bowled today and yesterday. The McGrath thing seems to have worked for me, I'd tried the Warne 8 step approach before and a Stuart MacGill approach but without any idea of what I should be doing and why. The McGrath explanation was a bit of a potential epiphany - it looks like it may be something to work with? I bowled 4 x 6 balls tonight and using the long run-up/fast technique and it was fast and accurate (hitting the little mat at least 4 times out of the 24 balls). If the weather's good tomorrow, I'll video it.

Too me it feels more MacGill-esque, than anything else, but once filmed I might be embarrassed with making that connection!!!
 
Last edited:
Kris said:
Any way to calculate the revs on the ball? ;)
Click to expand...
hmm maybe!

I propose this method:

you will need:
1) two tone ball (or a white mark on the ball)
2) a camera that films at high speed/slow motion
3) a friend to do the filming

So if you set the camera to film at the highest speed (e.g. my samsung galaxy S4 will do 1/8) bowl the two tone ball with a scrambled seam (actually the red ball with the white mark may be better on the seam) then you might be able to manually count the revolutions in a second of footage. Of course multiply by the slow motion rate of the camera and there's your answer. Putting it into a video editor where you can actually count exact frames (and scroll through them) may really help.

Perhaps the best would be a red/white two-tone ball spun on the seam but with a blue or other coloured marking to track the spin.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top