FrustratedLeggie
New Member
Same here. First few are beauties, but then progressively worse. Perhaps the first few balls have my full concentration and then I get complacent?
Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)
- Thread starter Richard the Third
- Start date
Same here. First few are beauties, but then progressively worse. Perhaps the first few balls have my full concentration and then I get complacent?
boogiespinner
Active Member
Cleanprophet
Active Member
The thing is, if you don't take risks running then you have to take extra risks with the shots you play to maintain a competitive run-rate. I would argue that for the majority of situations, there is a greater risk/reward payoff to be had by stealing quick singles and running 2s on the arm rather than attempting to hit the ball through the fielders and risk getting caught.
Obviously if the field close right in then this isn't necessarily true.
Cleanprophet
Active Member
Running on the arm is something that not enough batters do. You can see quite early on in an innings which fielders have a good arm. At my club we have about 30-40 regular players and I would say maybe less than 10 have really good arms. Most of them are in the 1st team. If you are playing 2nds and 3rds then you may find only one or two players who can throw the ball in from the boundary on the full. The vast majority of players you can take a run on their arm, even from only 50 yards away, with the ball in their hands.
boogiespinner
Active Member
My trick is that in the case your partner is not looking for a further run, and the fielder is nearest to his end, you can safely
sneak a good way down the track without drawing attention, then you can actually wait for the throw itself, and if it's the routine lob back to your partner's end you'll know you can beat it, and further if you know if you can beat it your partner will be safe too assuming you can shake him from his mooring.
sneak a good way down the track without drawing attention, then you can actually wait for the throw itself, and if it's the routine lob back to your partner's end you'll know you can beat it, and further if you know if you can beat it your partner will be safe too assuming you can shake him from his mooring.
Cleanprophet
Active Member
That's the other part of the equation. You need a batting partner who can run and is looking to pinch runs. You have to size up your partner and the fielders and then pinch some runs. As a bowler, it is annoying when batters pick up singles, tick the scoreboard over and get off strike. I watched a couple of batters open the batting last week and they were not taking any singles at all. The scoring was very slow (I think they got 8 or 9 runs off 7 or 8 overs) and you could see a wicket was coming, which it did. If they had picked up a couple of singles per over they would have been on 20+ runs rather than 8 or 9 - they probably would have put pressure on the bowler a bit, got a bit more confidence and possibly have hit a boundary or two.
On some of these club pitches we play on, the outfield is hardly Lords and some of the pitches don't give consistent bounce. If you hang around for only 4's, you will get stuck. Pick up the singles and you will get going nicely. Pick up cheap singles, turn ones into twos and twos into threes and you will be right on top and your confidence will grow quickly.
Spin King23
Member
How are you working out how many revs you are getting on the ball?
boogiespinner
Active Member
Any match reports? I couldn't play as was at a festival.
It was our bye week, and the week before I had off for a wedding (game was rained off anyway) so I've only played midweek t20s for the past fortnight. Got a cheeky 1-1-0-1 in the match last week. I have 3 T20 games this week then 2 games at the weekend. All in all, 260 overs of cricket coming up in the next 7 days.
Cleanprophet
Active Member
I had a bowl yesterday. I didn't bowl very well early on. I was facing a few 1st team batters and they were slogging away. I need to improve my bowling in those situations because when batters are more circumspect and respectful I am far more effective because I get comfortable and relaxed. Of course, good batters will always try to put pressure on a legspinner because it can work. It's tougher in these friendly games because the batters don't value their wicket and so it is hard to put pressure on them.
Anyway, I bowled some good balls but it seemed to be a mixture of beating the bat, balls being mishit into areas where there were no fielders and me bowling a bad ball that gets punished. Not much luck. I was bowling with a 35 yard legside boundary. Thinking back, I probably should have taken the pressure off and bowled at the other end. I ended up switching to seam for an over, took a wicket and then switched back to spin. After that point, I bowled much better. I reckon I still only bowled one or two balls that were bowled at full effort in terms of spin and just getting through my action. I took one more wicket with the legspin (bowled an ordinary batter through his legs). The pitch was very bouncey. One ball bounced over the keeper's shoulder and another was edged by the batter and lobbed over the slips. A nice bouncey pitch is good, but you have to get that length perfect.
I was batting with my brother (at 11) we were losing horribly but there was still hope. Il not such a good batsman and there were about 25 runs from 4 overs left. Because they played with a very defensive field my brother ans i ran for Every ball even when the ball didnt go in the outfield . the fielders were under pressure but we still lost and i made 10 runs
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
What's with all the Jim 2109 references? Is someone digging up all his old posts?
Cleanprophet
Active Member
I've had an interesting week with my bowling. About 2 or 3 weeks ago I was bowling to one of the 2nd team batters in the nets. In the nets he bats like it's the final over of a T20 game (not sure why, but it's not uncommon for batters to bat very aggressively in the nets when they don't in matches). I was causing him some problems with the legspinner, but the ball that caused him big problems was my version of the slider. This is the slider in the more well known form, the form that Warne bowled it at the back end of his career. Out of the front of the hand with the ball sliding out and, pretty much, straight onto the batter.
I call it "my version of the slider" because I don't bowl it like Warne did. When Warne bowled it, it was reasonably flat and quick. When I was bowling it, I was flighting it more and getting a decent bit of turn away from the bat. I just assumed this batter was struggling because the ball wasn't coming on as much and he was getting through his shot a bit too early (to an extent, that was happening). But I realised this week that that was only half of the story. My grip has always been quite loose and with this slider it can be looser still with the tips of my fingers on the seam and no part of them touching the other side of the ball. On Tuesday, I was bowling them and noticed they seemed to be drifting a fair bit and some of them turning back very sharply. Effectively, with this loose grip I am imparting quite a lot of spin and that is coming mainly from the fingers, so the ball isn't behaving like a slider but a normal legspinner or, more accurately, a sidespinner.
On Thursday night, I was decided to bowl these balls as my stock delivery whilst bowling to batters in the nets and I had someone stand behind me to tell me how much the ball was drifting. According to the bloke stood behind me, the ball was drifting a long way. I could see some of them drift quite a bit myself and it's usually tough for me to see any drift from my position in the follow through. I have more control over these deliveries than my normal legspinners too.
One thing I found very effective was to bowl these sliders and then throw in a legspinner. The legspinner, having overspin on it, was kicking and pushing through and that was catching the batters out. Just like bowling legspinners and then throwing in a topspinner.
The only problem was that there is no dip on this delivery. Lots of drift, but no dip. One batter, who normally doesn't use his feet, was able to get to the pitch of the ball quite a bit. In my experience, very few batters will try to use their feet so you don't really need dip. The drift alone will cause them plenty of problems. If the batter is using his feet, then throwing in a legspinner every 3rd or 4th ball can really expose him (I bowled one quick legspinner and would have had him stumped).
I call it "my version of the slider" because I don't bowl it like Warne did. When Warne bowled it, it was reasonably flat and quick. When I was bowling it, I was flighting it more and getting a decent bit of turn away from the bat. I just assumed this batter was struggling because the ball wasn't coming on as much and he was getting through his shot a bit too early (to an extent, that was happening). But I realised this week that that was only half of the story. My grip has always been quite loose and with this slider it can be looser still with the tips of my fingers on the seam and no part of them touching the other side of the ball. On Tuesday, I was bowling them and noticed they seemed to be drifting a fair bit and some of them turning back very sharply. Effectively, with this loose grip I am imparting quite a lot of spin and that is coming mainly from the fingers, so the ball isn't behaving like a slider but a normal legspinner or, more accurately, a sidespinner.
On Thursday night, I was decided to bowl these balls as my stock delivery whilst bowling to batters in the nets and I had someone stand behind me to tell me how much the ball was drifting. According to the bloke stood behind me, the ball was drifting a long way. I could see some of them drift quite a bit myself and it's usually tough for me to see any drift from my position in the follow through. I have more control over these deliveries than my normal legspinners too.
One thing I found very effective was to bowl these sliders and then throw in a legspinner. The legspinner, having overspin on it, was kicking and pushing through and that was catching the batters out. Just like bowling legspinners and then throwing in a topspinner.
The only problem was that there is no dip on this delivery. Lots of drift, but no dip. One batter, who normally doesn't use his feet, was able to get to the pitch of the ball quite a bit. In my experience, very few batters will try to use their feet so you don't really need dip. The drift alone will cause them plenty of problems. If the batter is using his feet, then throwing in a legspinner every 3rd or 4th ball can really expose him (I bowled one quick legspinner and would have had him stumped).
boogiespinner
Active Member
played on Saturday but alas I'm not really likely to bowl legspin in a league match which is all we have for a little while. Had a bat though and we put on 20 for the last wicket which helped win the game. I scored 8 before getting run out in precisely the issue earlier discussed. Turned a ball which went through leg slip. I ran two but partner only one. Ah well.
boogiespinner
Active Member
shoulder much more solid. can sidearm balls in without problem.
That's your call to come back, how could he not have run? I hope you gave him a right rocketing.
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
Yeah I had a good game yesterday, second draw under my captaincy, everyone had a bowl as well, which I was pleased about. We were put into bat and scored 180 odd which was our best batting performance, game was played as a massive thunderstorm circled us for the last 2 hours and almost scuppered the game at the end as the lighting got within 1/2 a mile away and we had a bit of rain. I managed to get everyone to go out again and we bowled the last 3 overs. We took 8 wickets but run out of overs. I got 2 wickets one through the gate and one caught at mid wicket and one put down at slips. Didn't look at the score book, so not sure what my figures were like, but bowled okay, so didn't go for many.
As soon as the game finished the rain came down like a monsoon, very fortunate to have seemingly been in the middle of what appeared to be the rain circling us for most of the afternoon.
I'm still in a position of being surrounded by 3 or 4 far more experienced players, so still don't feel 100% confident of implementing all of my plans over their advice, although they always say... "You're the skipper, it's your call" when I consult them. Yesterday, every player including the wicket keeper was a bowler or an all-rounder and everyone of them wanted to have a bowl. Fortunately my older son Ben pulled up with a toe-nail problem after 5 overs and we generally bowl him for his full allocation of 12 overs, so there was loads of spare overs to bowl with and I was able to implement my bowling plan and get everyone a bowl. One bloke who doesn't bat that well yet, who does okay in the nets, but to-date has bowled ropey when thrown the ball earlier in the season was gagging to have a go and we were running out of overs. The rest of the experienced blokes who don't get to see this bloke in the nets (they don't go to nets) were up for bringing their mate back on, but I pulled rank on them and the bloke got me my 8th wicket and bowled really well, so he'll be bowling again.
I still haven't had the balls to go for the full-on implementation of my statistics based approach as yet, but I've still got it in mind for later in the season and will implement it in the coming weeks. The bloke who acts as my on-field 'Consultant' - I suppose 'Vice captain' does go with it on the odd occasion in short bursts, but is very much up for having the pace bowlers do their stuff at the start in longer spells, but when confronted with far more superior batsmen e.g. the league leaders, he suggested exactly that approach and it worked in that, the quick changes kept them on the back foot and they weren't able to settle and scored very few runs and loads of chances came that we weren't able to capitalise - a few catching chance weren't taken. So, I'm still up for it and determined to try it at least once in the last games.
I'm also going to collect some of the scorebooks and have a look at the data and see if I can firm up the evidence further.
Another thing happened - one of the blokes recognised me from my blogs and youtube channel!
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Cleanprophet
Active Member
I bowled 10 overs yesterday. I opened the bowling, so I bowled 3 overs of seam to start with and then 7 overs of legspin. The pitch was really slow and not great for bowling on at all really. But, I bowled reasonably well bowling lots of those slider/sidespinner deliveries. No idea how many play and misses there were. Probably a good 15 or more. There was a total mishit over my head by about 10 yards and there was a dropped catch as well. I picked up one wicket from a stumping, but the keeper tells me there were 3 or 4 clear stumpings just not given. The one I got was about the 3 blatant stumping on the same batter and his mate at square leg had to give him after turning down other obvious ones.
Still, that's friendly cricket for you. The slider was drifting in plenty and provided the stumping. The ball drifted into legstump and spun back past offstump and into the keeper's gloves. I wanted to bowl a quicker legspinner to catch the batters out after bowling a few slower sliders, but the pitch was so slow that the quicker ball was actually just nice to hit. It was easier to flight these sliders up and enjoy the batters struggling to hit the ball. There was one good shot hit off my bowling (a four to long-on). I think it was the legspinner and it was a touch short. The batter waited for hit a decent shot down the ground.
Still, that's friendly cricket for you. The slider was drifting in plenty and provided the stumping. The ball drifted into legstump and spun back past offstump and into the keeper's gloves. I wanted to bowl a quicker legspinner to catch the batters out after bowling a few slower sliders, but the pitch was so slow that the quicker ball was actually just nice to hit. It was easier to flight these sliders up and enjoy the batters struggling to hit the ball. There was one good shot hit off my bowling (a four to long-on). I think it was the legspinner and it was a touch short. The batter waited for hit a decent shot down the ground.