What Made You Decide To Be A Spin-bowler?

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hi E eiglow_ welcome to the boards!

I am just wondering are you doing all your practice with a full-size ball? It looks like your hands may well grow a fair bit and I'd recommend practising with a ball that you can easily get your hand around to develop your spinning action.

Your grip for finger spin looks wild! But I guess if the thumb isn't used in the spinning it's quite reasonable. I wonder about your legspin grip. Are you using the middle finger to apply the spin? I know there is a bowler that did that (Warwick Armstrong?) but it's not common. I've had a go but couldn't get it to really work.
 
boogiespinner said:
hi E eiglow_ welcome to the boards!

I am just wondering are you doing all your practice with a full-size ball? It looks like your hands may well grow a fair bit and I'd recommend practising with a ball that you can easily get your hand around to develop your spinning action.

Your grip for finger spin looks wild! But I guess if the thumb isn't used in the spinning it's quite reasonable. I wonder about your legspin grip. Are you using the middle finger to apply the spin? I know there is a bowler that did that (Warwick Armstrong?) but it's not common. I've had a go but couldn't get it to really work.
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For both grips I use my thumb a fair bit, and with the wrist spin grip I mainly use thumb and middle finger. I do get a good amount of revs but I tend to have trouble with seam alignment, maybe because of the odd way I release the ball. I'll have to post a video of my bowling action someday.

EDIT: Forgot to add that I do practise with a full size ball.
 
eiglow_ said:
EDIT: Forgot to add that I do practise with a full size ball.
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I don't know what others would say about this but I'd so recommend smaller ball practice - the point is your hands are going to grow, but a full-size ball is not, so the full-size ball is effectively going to become smaller for you over the next few years.

I also think that practicing with a small ball can be valuable - there's history for this - Bosanquet developed the googly as a result of playing 'twisti-twosti', a game which involved spinning a tennis ball across a billiard table. And Jack Iverson pioneered his method as a result of spinning a table-tennis ball. But I don't think the reverse is true for larger ball. It's just harder to spin a large ball.

I made a purchase last year of twenty cricket balls for solo practice - it's amazing to have them, but something that irks me is that they are just a little bit on the large side compared to the balls I get to bowl in matches. I wish they were a bit smaller.

I'd be concerned that you are relying on the thumb/middle finger spinning couple for legspin and having the thumb involved in offspin because you are compensating for ball size. Maybe not but the way to find out is to use a ball proportioned to how large your hands are going to be.

I know that you will be wanting to be match ready as soon as possible but I hope that your practice is geared towards being an awesome legspinner when you are 18-60!
 
eiglow_ said:
(a) for me. Left arm wrist spin, left arm because I always threw with my left arm and wrist spin because it just feels the most natural way for me to spin it. Took me a good year or so of bowling tennis ball on concrete for me to figure out finger spin. I don't play cricket for a club yet, but I am planning to join one next season (I live in Australia btw). I am 13 years old so I still have time to develop my skills thankfully. I have very odd grips with finger spin and wrist spin, here are some pictures:

Wrist spin:
ezoys1S.jpg
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I've been a legspinner for 20 years and this grip is the same as mine!
 
boogiespinner said:
I don't know what others would say about this but I'd so recommend smaller ball practice - the point is your hands are going to grow, but a full-size ball is not, so the full-size ball is effectively going to become smaller for you over the next few years.

I also think that practicing with a small ball can be valuable - there's history for this - Bosanquet developed the googly as a result of playing 'twisti-twosti', a game which involved spinning a tennis ball across a billiard table. And Jack Iverson pioneered his method as a result of spinning a table-tennis ball. But I don't think the reverse is true for larger ball. It's just harder to spin a large ball.

I made a purchase last year of twenty cricket balls for solo practice - it's amazing to have them, but something that irks me is that they are just a little bit on the large side compared to the balls I get to bowl in matches. I wish they were a bit smaller.

I'd be concerned that you are relying on the thumb/middle finger spinning couple for legspin and having the thumb involved in offspin because you are compensating for ball size. Maybe not but the way to find out is to use a ball proportioned to how large your hands are going to be.

I know that you will be wanting to be match ready as soon as possible but I hope that your practice is geared towards being an awesome legspinner when you are 18-60!
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I would say definitely use a smaller ball till your required to, it'll make it so much easier for all aspects of the game, otherwise you're doing yourself a disservice. I'd say get into a club this season, sooner you get in the sooner you'll get the match scenario to play in and coaching as well.
 
I started bowling leg spin age 36 and three quarters. I hadn't played cricket for years and was invited along to some nets. I bowled my bog standard medium (slow) seamers and there was a batsman there coping with me comfortably, this annoyed me as he was making it look too easy. At the next net session I started to mess about with leg spin at the end of the session. I had never bowled it before apart from in the famous back yard cricket at uni days, when I was improvising and could bowl right handers around their legs so must have had some aptitude for it. Anyway, at the end of that net session when I was experimenting again I had no plan to become a spinner but one of the guys said something which stuck with me which was "any ball which spins is a good ball".

So that night I went home and got stuck into google. Found a blog by "Someblokecalleddave" and read it all, it was like a foreign language and all seemed a little bit scary. But one thing which appealed to me was the technical part of it and the challenge. In football I liked trying technical moves like step-overs and drag-backs, so the technical skill required got me interested. Another thing was Dave talking about how single minded and basically obsessed you must be to become any good at leg spin, these are characteristics I have when I apply myself to something in life so it bode well. And from there I started watching all the youtube vids, got the Philpott book and practiced hard until I was at a level where I could bowl it in a match. I wish I had discovered leg spin when I was 15 and had fallen in love with it then, but I wanted to be Malcolm Marshall instead and found Shane Warne quite boring back then. What an idiot!
 
Thanks for the endorsement there! I sometimes wonder if I'm whistling in the wind, so it's good to hear that people do actually read it and draw some inspiration from it! Wish I'd discovered cricket before I was 46!
 
My dad was a leg-spinner with a heavy spinning stock ball and a good slider, so he taught me how to bowl spin when I was 9/10 years old. Plus 1993 was the year Shane Warne and Tim May toured England and were on tv every day and you couldn't really find a better inspiration.

I guess for me, bowling has always BEEN spin bowling. I didn't learn to bowl, then learn to spin it. I learnt to spin the ball and then bowl it.

So I just developed a love of spinning the ball hard and try to see how far I could spin it in both directions. I've never been a leg spinner or off spinner, I've always bowled a mixture of both.

To be honest, I probably wouldn't still be bowling spin right now if I didn't have a moment of realisation in my teenage years that whilst spinning the ball hard and getting big turn was addictive, getting good batsmen out and winning games was much, much better, and that these things aren't necessarily the same thing.
 
My journey has been a rather interesting one, I'll need to break it down a little so that you can all get a rough idea of what types of things I had to go through.

1st Season:
I already knew how to bowl before I started playing the organized formats of the game so it was natural for me to stick with what I was comfortable with, that being my Seam up, mediums pacers (We only had an under 16's competition for juniors, I was however above average pace for my age). I went well enough in my first season so I decided to stick with this style of bowling come next season, unfortunately this wasn't going to be the case.

2nd Season:
First game of the season and I have to bowl on a shitty carpet pitch... It was a little damp that day and I couldn't seem to grip the ball properly, I had small hands and the ball was slipping out and coming towards the batsmen at waist/head height. In my second over I decided that enough was enough, I would attempt to bowl my dinky Off-Spin (I couldn't even turn the ball) that I sometimes bowled in the nets. To my amazement I was able to pick up 4-22 and we won the game.

Season Figures:
Matches: 10
Overs: 50
Maidens: 16
Wickets: 16
Runs: 104
Strike Rate: 18.75
Economy Rate: 2.08
Best Bowling: 4/21*
Average: 6.50

*The interesting thing about this season was that my last 2 games I didn't bowl Off-Spin, that game where I got 4/21 was actually with Wrist Spin. Basically a week or so before the game I got tired of bowling my Off breaks and decided to try out my quickish leg breaks. I had no real variations but that didn't stop me from being successful with the ball, I was fast through the air and turned the ball a decent amount so I was able to trouble the batsmen.

3rd season: Not a lot spectacular happened this year, I became better with the bat and my bowling developed a little more after I decided to go back to Off-Spin, it was still rather bad but good enough against the minnows. Later on in the season we I went to the Shaun Brown cricket coaching where we had Ray Bright, Graham Yallop and a bunch of spuds come down and help us out for the 2 days. We were doing a practice game and Graham was coaching/umpiring, we didn't know if I was trying to bowl pace or spin as I quite often ended up firing the ball in without giving it much or a rip. I took his minimal tips on board and bowled a hell of a lot that day to try and change, he watched me as I went on and kept prompting me to slow down my approach and try to stop at the crease, he didn't help me with my pivot but it was enough to steer me in the right direction. I was a little pissed as this stage because I had to change so much of what felt natural but it was my goal to win Ray over come the next day. I bowled much better and he seemed to like what I was doing in the nets, I was slowing my bowling down and giving it a good rip that day so I can at least say that Graham's advice was crucial in the development as an Off-Spinner.

4th season: I was appointed captain after the loss of our top aged players, we had very little to work with as it was pretty much myself and my brother carrying the team. I further developed my batting and went rather well throughout the season, whilst this happened my bowling played second fiddle.

Start of season: I was a much better bowler now as I had slowed thing down and worked on giving the ball a good rip, I bowled a little too flat and fast but it was a hell of a lot better than before. Things did however change as I often needed to bowl according to the need, we lacked genuine pace bowlers so at times I ended up taking the new ball, I wasn't very accurate with a 2 piece as my hooping Out-Swingers produced too many wides. Lucky for me Country Week was coming around and I couldn't wait to bowl with the 4 piece, a ball that I could actually control as it didn't move around so much. I ended up sneaking into the under 14's country week side and scared the crap out of some of the lesser teams, I think I got 8 wickets in 4 games so I did fairly well in the scheme of things. After this I went back to bowling spin, I got bored at times and tried to bowl pace in a game but after too many wides I knew it was time to stick to what I knew best.

5th Season: Our team was rubbish and I had to accept that we had very little chance of winning, we constantly fielded with <9 players so it was hard to take bowling seriously. Yet again I got bored of bowling spin as I was getting smacked around in the higher grades, even if batsmen didn't respect my bowling I couldn't go back to pace again... I thought wrong, unfortunately I tried it one last time so that I could yet again open the bowling at Country Week. I played a practice game and bowled well so I was sold on the idea, unfortunately the second practice game was terrible and for once in my life I couldn't control the 4 piece, this time leg side wides were my killer. A few weeks before the tournament I switched back to spin, some people were a little pissed with my decision but it's my body and I couldn't handle the stress.

6th season: I changed leagues as I wanted to take my game to the next level, this was the first time that I actually took bowling Off-Spin seriously, it was now a role and not something I did because I felt like it. I did bowl pace in the nets from time to time but it was only for fun.

I rock up to the nets and quickly attract attention as I'm bowling batsmen from balls pitching near the wide mark. Throughout that season I got a lot of praise/ respect from opponents, coaches and umpires as they hadn't seen an Off-Spinner turning the ball that much. I could quote all the stuff that they said but I wouldn't want to sound like a knob head for trying to sound like the best thing since sliced bread. I ended up quitting cricket after a rather successful season, I took out the clubs bowling averages for 3rd division so I guess my 1 year stay was worth it. At 16 I figured that it was better to focus on Baseball, school and not getting burnt to a crisp watching some grass grow on a 40 degree day.

I'll probably return to play at the end of this year, I guess I'll just wait and see what happens with my work commitments. And yes, I will be sticking with Off-Spin if I do end up playing again.

---

There's probably a bunch of spelling/grammatical errors so I'll look to fix those up in the morning.
 
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SLA said:
My dad was a leg-spinner with a heavy spinning stock ball and a good slider, so he taught me how to bowl spin when I was 9/10 years old. Plus 1993 was the year Shane Warne and Tim May toured England and were on tv every day and you couldn't really find a better inspiration.

I guess for me, bowling has always BEEN spin bowling. I didn't learn to bowl, then learn to spin it. I learnt to spin the ball and then bowl it.

So I just developed a love of spinning the ball hard and try to see how far I could spin it in both directions. I've never been a leg spinner or off spinner, I've always bowled a mixture of both.

To be honest, I probably wouldn't still be bowling spin right now if I didn't have a moment of realisation in my teenage years that whilst spinning the ball hard and getting big turn was addictive, getting good batsmen out and winning games was much, much better, and that these things aren't necessarily the same thing.
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What's your stock ball, 2nd and 3rd option?
 
someblokecalleddave said:
What's your stock ball, 2nd and 3rd option?
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Depends whether they're left or right handed. In general, the best stock ball is to spin it away from the bat, and the variation is to spin it towards the bat. Also mix up pace, line, amount of turn, amount of dip, and arm height (lower arm = lower bounce) a bit depending on what I'm trying to achieve. I normally try to spin the ball about 6 inches at about 50mph - any more turn than that and it becomes easier for the batsman to play because it gives them an angle to work with.
 
SLA said:
Depends whether they're left or right handed. In general, the best stock ball is to spin it away from the bat, and the variation is to spin it towards the bat. Also mix up pace, line, amount of turn, amount of dip, and arm height (lower arm = lower bounce) a bit depending on what I'm trying to achieve. I normally try to spin the ball about 6 inches at about 50mph - any more turn than that and it becomes easier for the batsman to play because it gives them an angle to work with.
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So with your name SLA I'm guessing you bowl finger spin to right handers and Chinaman leg breaks to lefties?
 
someblokecalleddave said:
You sound like you get bored quite quick! So your 16 at the minute and not sure if you're going to continue?
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I quit when I was 16, I'm 18 now and will probably play again when the next season comes around.

I've done a few net sessions with my brother and bowled frequently in the backyard, it was more or less out of boredom but it sparked my interest once again (I haven't bowled much recently due to Baseball). I'd say that I still have the same bowling ability, obviously less turn but I'd definitely say I'm a smarter bowler now compared to back then. I think the best thing for me was actually reading up on this style of bowling, I never really got taught how to bowl Off-Spin so I welcomed any new found information, regardless of how "correct" it was.
 
No long winded answer required to this question, 2005 Ashes series simple as that. Hadn't played cricket for years and that series woke something in me that had been sleeping a long time. I always find it amazing how many people say the same thing too.
 
GoldenArm said:
No long winded answer required to this question, 2005 Ashes series simple as that. Hadn't played cricket for years and that series woke something in me that had been sleeping a long time. I always find it amazing how many people say the same thing too.
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Terrestrial TV best thing for getting people into the game, you can't beat it.
 
GoldenArm said:
No long winded answer required to this question, 2005 Ashes series simple as that. Hadn't played cricket for years and that series woke something in me that had been sleeping a long time. I always find it amazing how many people say the same thing too.
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Liverpool champions of Europe after being 0-3 down at half time. Best year of sports evah!
 
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