Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)

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someblokecalleddave said:
The googly involves twisting everything you can possibly twist in order to get the wrist into position, your wrist, elbow joint and shoulder joint ...
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that was it! My lifelong passion for the googly came about when I was a youngster trying to bowl leg breaks with a tennis ball. I just tried to twist everything as much as possible counterclockwise, and found a huge off break as a result.
Cleanprophet said:
I've tried all kinds of techniques with the googly, including spinning the ball towards myself. It is a good technique I think. For me, it was a psychological thing. I was possibly over-thinking it. I was getting into position and, at the last moment, my hand pulled into a legspin release. It was just one time a couple of weeks ago that I ran up and bowled a topspinner without thinking about too much. Since then, I've filmed myself bowling the topspinner and trying to bowl the googly. Everything looks as it should, including that flick of the wrist. I still don't get the back of my hand facing the batter. It's more towards the slips area.
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Yes it's a paradox that when developing a skill you are analysing like crazy but the breakthrough might be when you drop the analysis and just do it. I think that's just the way it works sometimes. In fact I think that's what's happened with my legspin work. It seems obvious now about spinning my fingers 'over the ball' with emphasis on the wrist flick - how could it be any other way? But it took intense and passionate practice with the help of you guys too to get there.

With the googly and wrist action - If I bowl one, I just can't imagine attempting a strong spin-imparting flick like in the legbreak. Rather, I can only visualise having the back of the hand facing the batsman pretty much from the beginning. I really think you can do it, and spin hard too, with absolutely minimal (rotational) * wrist movement at the point of release.

* there is maybe something of a flicking of the back of the hand towards the batsman
 
Liz Ward said:
The supraspinatus is an instigating muscle and is only responsible for sideways elevation to 30 degrees. If this is the one inflamed the issue is definitely mechanical. When it is recovered, post your pace action and we will see where the issue is. I assume you are bowling pace front on?

Have a look at - http://www.pitchvision.com/how-to-protect-your-shoulder-from-cricket-injury/
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hi Liz,

Thanks for that.

I think it's possible I just overdid it. I'm not so young, and suddenly with my own bucket of balls, a net, and no batsman, for the first time ever, I got to bowl over and over again as fast as possible. I'm not sure how many balls I bowled. Maybe 30 overs. And then while sore I bowled more a couple of days later.

However I have identified one thing which I think might be an issue, which is that for the rise of the arm, I have always brought it up with the back of the hand to the sky. As if preparing a googly. No-one ever told me not to do this. But I think it results in loss of pace and maybe a significant jerk and muscle stress as the arm would near the vertical. I've been experimenting gently with a completely different action for seam up.
 
someblokecalleddave said:
I'll do one for you, leave it with me for a few days as I'll have to video it and edit the video. It's raining here in the UK for the next few days, so it may not be till next weekend. If I don't mention it again in the next few days remind me on here or send me a personal message.
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Thanks for offering your help. Yesterday I was watching a video of Bob Woolmer's coaching and saw him doing it. So you don't have to make the video. Thanks again.

I will disturb you with some questions again within a few days if that's okay.
 
boogiespinner said:
I've been picked for tomorrow's team... opening the batting at no. 2! erk! :eek:
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The best thing you can do is try to get into the mindset of just enjoying it and when you're out in the middle, focus on the basics of watching the ball onto the bat and keeping your head still and over the shot.

I'd quite like to come in up the order. I've decided to play for the friendly team tomorrow so that I can get a bit of batting in and, more importantly, get a long spel of bowling in.
 
boogiespinner said:
I've been picked for tomorrow's team... opening the batting at no. 2! erk! :eek:
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Well if those Grimmett books you ordered have arrived yet you should look up his advice for legspinners as far as batting goes. Basically dont hang around too long because batting is no good for your bowling!

He reckons he would not score anymore than 25 runs and that was it, he would get out somehow! I love where he reckons because he was an expert on batting as well as bowling he could have scored many more runs if he had wanted to, but that was the batsmans job!

Good excuses for tomorrow if you need them :D:D:D
 
someblokecalleddave said:
Gutted
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And tomorrow's opposition have pulled out due to lack of numbers! Although we are apparently looknig for another team to play instead so hopefully there will still be a match. There was a flurry of games which went ahead the other week but I was up North with friends and had other commitments.

I kind of don't mind as I am really enjoying practicing. I plan to do a massive session at some point, say 5-6 hours, to see if I can handle it. Obviously with breaks in between.
 
I got the day confused. It was today. Journeyed out of London to play in Kent, which was great.

I was concerned about my shoulder so was hoping to bat and maybe pass on bowling. I was in fact not chosen to open and didn't get a bat as our guys put on 250 for 5 or so before declaring.

I was in fact also nervous about my accuracy with legspin. I am in progress of completely overhauling my action. A couple of practice balls in the nets went horribly wrong. But sometimes you just have to go for it. I was put on just before 6:30pm after which there were 20 overs to take 5 wickets.

First ball - my legbreak gets hit hard. But the left-handed bat had beautifully picked out deep midwicket, who held onto the catch.
Third ball - another lefthander takes a scythe and it's an easy catch for gully.
Fourth ball - it's a slow looping legbreak and the batsman comes forward but foolishly lets it bounce. It turns enough to beat the bat and he is very closely stumped.

Three wickets in one over! Somewhat fortunate but never mind!

Second over I get hit quite badly by the set batsman but I did force a mishit from him which would have been an easy catch had point been in place. Altogether I bowl quite a few wides (legbreaks wide to the off, googlies down leg).

Another legspinner (the really good one) takes two wickets at the end opposite from his two overs and the match is over. We have won! I have figures of 3 for 23 from 2 overs :)
 
boogiespinner said:
Another legspinner (the really good one) takes two wickets at the end opposite from his two overs and the match is over. We have won! I have figures of 3 for 23 from 2 overs :)
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That is legspin for you. I picked up just the one wicket. Not sure what my figures were but one of their better batters certainly slogged-a-plenty to cow corner. I reckon I probably had figures around 1 for 40 from 8 overs. Quite infuriating when batters line you and slog like mad men. I bowled quite a few to one batter just outside legstump and nearly bowled him around his legs 2 or 3 times, as well as nearly having him stumped a couple of times. Just no luck. One big heave to cow corner went straight to the fielder who took the catch on the boundary rope only to step back and turn a catch into a six.

The problem of playing in friendly games is that your fielders are often awful. We had 3 old guys who can't run or throw and one young lad who had a dodgy hamstring.

Our pitch was dry and hard. Quite nice for bowling spin on. The one wicket I got came from the batter trying to slog to cow corner, but the ball bounced more than he expected. It hit his gloves and went straight up for the keeper. It is hard to bowl legspin in these games because the batters put no value on their wicket at all. They're happy to swing hard and if they get out, they get out. You can't really build pressure, especially if you bowl first (which our captain absolutely loves to do). I could bowl some simple 65mph seam and cause more problems to these types of batsmen and that is annoying.
 
We were on a bit of a cabbage patch with the ball keeping very low. We won the toss and from being on 40-0, we bowled the oppo out for 88.

I went 10-2-23-5, with 4 bowleds and an lbw, shows the value of bowling full and straight on bad pitches.

However, one of the bowleds was a bit embarrassing, as the ball was short outside off, shot along the ground and actually bounced twice before hitting the stumps. Fortunately, it spun on both bounces, haha. The batsman saw the funny side and later tried to bowl the same ball to me when I was batting.
 
Since i'm playing cricket inFrance, our cricket club went to england to play 2 matches against Davington Priory CC and Whitstable CC, in those 2 matches i took 1 wicket against each team. In my first match i bowled a batsman with a legspinner pitching on middle/leg stump line and hitting off stump. In the second match i got an edge with a leg spinner. A Whitstable batsman hit me for a slog sweep six on a googly that i risked, because i overheard himm talking to the non striker about the slogsweep that he was going to play. But because i pitch it on the leg/middle stump line i saw that in both matches, the batsmen tried to sweep me, (even if they missed the ball 75 % of the time ) its the only offensive shot they played against me. So what should my reaction be to that?
 
I don't think you can do anything about that unless you're prepared to change your line to middle/off. Your googly will certainly be more effective bowling that line.
 
Interesting that the slogsweep has been mentioned. A batter used that a fair bit against me yesterday. I was bowling a line on middle stump with the odd ball onto leg stump. It was turning plenty, but I should have had more of a line just outside off stump.

Apart from that, does anyone have any useful plans to combat the slogsweep?

One plan I intend to use next time is to get tight into the stumps and bowl a line from stump-to-stump and maybe even angle across the batter, slightly down the offside. One thing a batter slogsweeping likes is the ball being angled into him. As long as he gets to the pitch of the ball he can go with the angle of the ball and hit through the ball. If you can angle across him rather than into him, he has to fetch the ball a bit more, increasing the chance of a top edge.
 
Stay on off stump or just outside, liberal doses of top-spin for more drop and bounce. Put a bloke at cow.

Also, give him your best fast-bowler 'come at me bro' stare. Stick it to the man.
 
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