Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)

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chippyben said:
When I played over in England there seemed to be no end of these medium pace bowlers who bowled boring balls on a good length and never tried anything. Occasionally you would get a batsman who had a bit of attacking flair and predicted where they would pitch it every ball and belted them but that was rare. We played 45 over matches and it seemed that keeping runs down was top priority. To be fair it worked well for us one season as we won the league with only one batsman and 5 very accurate bowlers. ( I second topped scored for the season aggregate, that shows how rubbish our batting was)
It was boring though, I remember one game where we made 150 odd and the other team ran out of overs with there score in the 80's. The grounds we played on were tiny too so scores should have been a lot higher.
When I started playing back in Australia it was strange to see run rates of 5 or 6 an over and scores of 300 being scored.
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Apparently back in the day there didn't used to be a maximum of 10 overs per bowler, and the club I now play for had 2 medium pacers that would bowl 21 overs each!! Scores would rarely hit triple figures. I'd have rather not played cricket than have featured in games like that, its awful. I don't mind being on the wrong end of a 400 run innings just because at least you're witnessing something interesting and impressive.

Scores of 300+ are fairly common at my club though. The straight boundaries are fairly close, and depending on which strip you're playing on there is one very short (and one very long) side boundary as well. Pretty much anyone can hit a 6 if they time the ball decently but that isn't to say its easy. The wicket tends to be very slow and low bouncing, and in previous years has been very uneven. But they've been doing some intensive ground work the past few winters to level off the square, and its definitely getting loads better. Having to drag a few tons of loam across it using a weighted ladder last November wasn't much fun though!!
 
My release is going through a bit of a transformation at the moment which is yielding some positive results. I noticed a long while back the pictures of Peter Philpott in TAWSB that as soon as he's released the ball his thumb is tucked right into his hand and that his hand almost looks like a clenched fist. I realised that this was in total opposition to my hand straight after the release as my fingers are probably extended, where I'm trying to get the fingers left on the ball for as long as possible.

So, for some time now I've been playing around with a modified release that still flicks the ball off the fingers but uses a completely different and seemingly easily controlled method. I'll now try and explain it. This is very rudimentary and basic, but if you put a ball in your hand and try it you may be able to see what I mean......
Hold your hand out with the plam facing up with the fingers extended and just snap the fingers closed as fast as you can like a clam trying to catch a fish. I stopped at this point and quickly knocked up a video to illustrate what I'm attempting to demonstrate.

The interesting thing about this approach is that I can't do (Bowl) it without cocking my wrist, so that kind of suggests that it's potentially a better technique than my old methosd? Again without the Hi-speed video technology I can only guess what happens in the bowling action, but it does seem to work quite well and it seems less complex when bowling and far more natural?
 
Jim2109 said:
the problem is those dibbly dobbly 40mph medium pacers or 30mph part-time offies that land 60 perfect deliveries a match and go at 2 runs per over. theyre the bowlers stealing my 10 overs in the middle, because in 42 over cricket, captains rarely look at the bigger picture of taking 10 wickets. you can win the game simply by restricting the runs if you bowl first, and if youre bowling second then youve got to take the 10 wickets, but then they look at the "expensive" leg spinner as giving away valuable runs they cant afford, rather than as a wicket taking threat. the plight of a developing leg spinner!!
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I guess I'm lucky then, because my team doesn't have another good spinner and my captain lets me bowl every week (even if I got smacked for 28 in an over the week before). Because of this, I was the top wicket taker for my team this season and 2nd in my grade.
 
Jim2109 said:
Apparently back in the day there didn't used to be a maximum of 10 overs per bowler, and the club I now play for had 2 medium pacers that would bowl 21 overs each!! Scores would rarely hit triple figures. I'd have rather not played cricket than have featured in games like that, its awful. I don't mind being on the wrong end of a 400 run innings just because at least you're witnessing something interesting and impressive.

Scores of 300+ are fairly common at my club though. The straight boundaries are fairly close, and depending on which strip you're playing on there is one very short (and one very long) side boundary as well. Pretty much anyone can hit a 6 if they time the ball decently but that isn't to say its easy. The wicket tends to be very slow and low bouncing, and in previous years has been very uneven. But they've been doing some intensive ground work the past few winters to level off the square, and its definitely getting loads better. Having to drag a few tons of loam across it using a weighted ladder last November wasn't much fun though!!
Click to expand...

That would have been boring and I bet it turned a lot of blokes off cricket. We don't have a limit on overs you can bowl in our two day games so in theory you could bowl 35 in a normal day or even up to 40 if you get through the overs quickly. Ive seen one bloke bowl 20 overs straight last season. Ive bowled 14 straight once.
 
someblokecalleddave said:
My release is going through a bit of a transformation at the moment which is yielding some positive results. I noticed a long while back the pictures of Peter Philpott in TAWSB that as soon as he's released the ball his thumb is tucked right into his hand and that his hand almost looks like a clenched fist. I realised that this was in total opposition to my hand straight after the release as my fingers are probably extended, where I'm trying to get the fingers left on the ball for as long as possible.

So, for some time now I've been playing around with a modified release that still flicks the ball off the fingers but uses a completely different and seemingly easily controlled method. I'll now try and explain it. This is very rudimentary and basic, but if you put a ball in your hand and try it you may be able to see what I mean......
Hold your hand out with the plam facing up with the fingers extended and just snap the fingers closed as fast as you can like a clam trying to catch a fish. I stopped at this point and quickly knocked up a video to illustrate what I'm attempting to demonstrate.

The interesting thing about this approach is that I can't do (Bowl) it without cocking my wrist, so that kind of suggests that it's potentially a better technique than my old methosd? Again without the Hi-speed video technology I can only guess what happens in the bowling action, but it does seem to work quite well and it seems less complex when bowling and far more natural?
Click to expand...


Certainly different Dave, if you do it with the spinning finger doing the work it sort of feels natural. It'll be interesting to see what happens when I put a ball into the equation.
5mins later
The more you do it the easier it gets, you might be onto something. Its like your following through with your fingers rather than stopping with the fingers extended.
Page 19 in Philpotts book shows perferctly what you mean about a clenched fist at the end.
 
chippyben said:
That would have been boring and I bet it turned a lot of blokes off cricket. We don't have a limit on overs you can bowl in our two day games so in theory you could bowl 35 in a normal day or even up to 40 if you get through the overs quickly. Ive seen one bloke bowl 20 overs straight last season. Ive bowled 14 straight once.
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We can only dream of spells like that here. Most I've ever bowled was 8 overs back to back and it was briliant it allowed me to to really get into the batsmen and try things out, it was one of the best games I've played in. In particular with one batsman it was like duel.
 
chippyben said:
Certainly different Dave, if you do it with the spinning finger doing the work it sort of feels natural. It'll be interesting to see what happens when I put a ball into the equation.
5mins later
The more you do it the easier it gets, you might be onto something. Its like your following through with your fingers rather than stopping with the fingers extended.
Page 19 in Philpotts book shows perferctly what you mean about a clenched fist at the end.
Click to expand...

It feels as though because all of the fingers are flicked in unison you get more flick and seemingly more control with the flick and the ball is still propelled off of the 3rd finger. WIth me it also seems that my brain isn't having to focus on the precise timing and release of individual fingers and I'm able to focus on gettin the wrist round more towards the karate chop position and therefore better seam presentation. The whole feeling is that it's a far more natural and simple way of flicking the ball from the hand and therefore potentially easier?

Later...... Just bowled a few balls at my younger son who plays my spin fairly well. Four overs - 5 wickets. This looks to be a bit of an epiphany, Wrist Spinning never ceases to amaze me in that 5 years in and there's still shed loads of new discoveries and things to learn. Looks to me as though I'm on to something with this.
 
Dave, your new method is basically the same way that I spin the ball, give or take a few details. The principle of it is exactly the same, although I never consciously did it by thinking of closing my fist, its just my natural action. But when I just tried it now I realised it was just my normal action lol.

Sometimes I leave my fingers extended, sometimes I close them in, often I leave my pinky out as if I'm a posh person drinking a cup of tea haha. Ultimately it makes zero difference though as the wrist and fingers do the same to the ball, its just a question of where they finish up. Closing the fingers up makes no actual difference to keeping them open for me, they spend no extra time on the ball. I've tried all ways for long periods of time and never settled on one or the other.

Just lately I've been dragging my fingers down the ball a lot (sometimes down the back of it, my stock ball now is pretty much a slider because I think I drag down the back more often than I release one cleanly lol, I generate enough revs though that they still either skid on really low or turn massive if theres a bit of side spin mixed in there), and when it comes out right you keep the fingers on the ball a lot longer and it results in a lot more revs on the ball. I'm not sure whats causing it, but its working for consistency of line so I'm not changing it.

I had a practice the other day whilst the sun was out, and it wasn't a great practice. But I did land one absolutely stonking off-spinning flipper! It came out absolutely perfectly, the first one I've bowled that well in a long time (18 months+). It turned from about 8" outside off stump to about 12" past leg stump with very sharp turn at a very quick pace (lots faster than my leg breaks), and the best part is I caught it on stump camera!!! The downside is that its a wide angle GoPro and the wide angle lens makes it look like it hardly turns at all which was very disappointing. It looked way more impressive from where I was standing. I might throw the video up at some point though anyway.
 
Jim2109 said:
Dave, your new method is basically the same way that I spin the ball, give or take a few details. The principle of it is exactly the same, although I never consciously did it by thinking of closing my fist, its just my natural action. But when I just tried it now I realised it was just my normal action lol.

Sometimes I leave my fingers extended, sometimes I close them in, often I leave my pinky out as if I'm a posh person drinking a cup of tea haha. Ultimately it makes zero difference though as the wrist and fingers do the same to the ball, its just a question of where they finish up. Closing the fingers up makes no actual difference to keeping them open for me, they spend no extra time on the ball. I've tried all ways for long periods of time and never settled on one or the other.

Just lately I've been dragging my fingers down the ball a lot (sometimes down the back of it, my stock ball now is pretty much a slider because I think I drag down the back more often than I release one cleanly lol, I generate enough revs though that they still either skid on really low or turn massive if theres a bit of side spin mixed in there), and when it comes out right you keep the fingers on the ball a lot longer and it results in a lot more revs on the ball. I'm not sure whats causing it, but its working for consistency of line so I'm not changing it.

I had a practice the other day whilst the sun was out, and it wasn't a great practice. But I did land one absolutely stonking off-spinning flipper! It came out absolutely perfectly, the first one I've bowled that well in a long time (18 months+). It turned from about 8" outside off stump to about 12" past leg stump with very sharp turn at a very quick pace (lots faster than my leg breaks), and the best part is I caught it on stump camera!!! The downside is that its a wide angle GoPro and the wide angle lens makes it look like it hardly turns at all which was very disappointing. It looked way more impressive from where I was standing. I might throw the video up at some point though anyway.
Click to expand...

Well that's good new as I know your turn the ball big, so it does seem that I'm onto something here. Today I've been having a go with it and it's working quite well, I'm just impeded by my knee at the minute, I can't really get any oomph into my run up which is frustrating. The Off-Spinning Flippers one of the ones I've got for this season if it happens, I call it that, but it rarely turns, I think it has more back-spin for some reason and it really digs in and stalls, so it's useful either way.
 
someblokecalleddave said:
My release is going through a bit of a transformation at the moment which is yielding some positive results. I noticed a long while back the pictures of Peter Philpott in TAWSB that as soon as he's released the ball his thumb is tucked right into his hand and that his hand almost looks like a clenched fist. I realised that this was in total opposition to my hand straight after the release as my fingers are probably extended, where I'm trying to get the fingers left on the ball for as long as possible.

So, for some time now I've been playing around with a modified release that still flicks the ball off the fingers but uses a completely different and seemingly easily controlled method. I'll now try and explain it. This is very rudimentary and basic, but if you put a ball in your hand and try it you may be able to see what I mean......
Hold your hand out with the plam facing up with the fingers extended and just snap the fingers closed as fast as you can like a clam trying to catch a fish. I stopped at this point and quickly knocked up a video to illustrate what I'm attempting to demonstrate.

The interesting thing about this approach is that I can't do (Bowl) it without cocking my wrist, so that kind of suggests that it's potentially a better technique than my old methosd? Again without the Hi-speed video technology I can only guess what happens in the bowling action, but it does seem to work quite well and it seems less complex when bowling and far more natural?
Click to expand...


Great observation Dave! I've never really thought about the release in that great a detail. The only thing I've focussed on is the position of the wrist. Now that you have shown the video, I realize that I have been always doing it this way - with the thumb folding back into the fist at the end of the delivery. I did it because, I felt I needed to trail all of my fingers as long as possible to impart max friction and before the days of youtube (where warne, jenner showed us the 2-up, 2-down grip in close-up), I thought the thumb should also take part in the action. Which is why, when I'm bowling the thumb also assists in imparting anti-clockwise motion. You'll understand this better if in the small clip you posted, in stead of sticking the thumb out at the beginning, you lay it flat near close enough to touch the ball, and then repeat the movements you showed in this clip.

Also touching on a slightly controversial topic here - Has anyone tried to bowl a leg break with the seam running through your first two fingers? I've noticed that whenever I do it, I get considerably more bounce than if it is spinning on the seam( or close to -I can't get it to spin on the seam perfectly yet)
 
Depends, do you still flick the wrist or drag the fingers down the back of the ball. I do the latter sometimes as a 'Slider' variation.

Just had a bowl 72 balls incorporating the bound in the paddock, went okay, more interested at this point in strengthening my leg rather than getting too critical with the bowling outcomes, although the odd one was good. Leg seems okay at the minute have to see how it fairs the rest of the day.
 
someblokecalleddave said:
Depends, do you still flick the wrist or drag the fingers down the back of the ball. I do the latter sometimes as a 'Slider' variation.

Just had a bowl 72 balls incorporating the bound in the paddock, went okay, more interested at this point in strengthening my leg rather than getting too critical with the bowling outcomes, although the odd one was good. Leg seems okay at the minute have to see how it fairs the rest of the day.
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Even with the seam running straight through, I flick the wrist. I have no idea why it bounces more , but to hazard a guess, I would say it is because on this axis of rotation, the ball is out of shape (or irregularly shaped) as opposed to rotation about the seam when the shape is that of a circular ring/disc. So, if it grips, it is going to jump up suddenly.
I have been bowling on a concrete pitch with no matting and smooth as a marble. Yet, I can see this sudden change in direction very clearly.
 
hi everyone,
while bowling, sometimes when the ball does not come out right i end up dropping it so short that it goes to the batsman on two or three bounces. till about a few months back i would bowl such a ball once in every 2 or 3 net sessions but now i do it once almost everyday. because of this i have completely lost confidence and faith in my bowling. does this happen to anyone else. can anyone please tell me why this is happening. please help.
Thanks.
 
Shawmit Choudhary said:
hi everyone,
while bowling, sometimes when the ball does not come out right i end up dropping it so short that it goes to the batsman on two or three bounces. till about a few months back i would bowl such a ball once in every 2 or 3 net sessions but now i do it once almost everyday. because of this i have completely lost confidence and faith in my bowling. does this happen to anyone else. can anyone please tell me why this is happening. please help.
Thanks.
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My drag downs usually come when I try and put a bit more effort in and it tenses up the wrist and so the ball doesn't release properly and gets stuck in the hand.
It is a vicious cycle because the more you bowl these short balls the more you get worried and tense the wrist up more, making the problem worse. I think you have to really try and relax, and relax the wrist and hold the ball loosely.
Hope that helps
 
chippyben said:
My drag downs usually come when I try and put a bit more effort in and it tenses up the wrist and so the ball doesn't release properly and gets stuck in the hand.
It is a vicious cycle because the more you bowl these short balls the more you get worried and tense the wrist up more, making the problem worse. I think you have to really try and relax, and relax the wrist and hold the ball loosely.
Hope that helps
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Thanks a lot, i hope that helps.
 
Shawmit Choudhary said:
hi everyone,
while bowling, sometimes when the ball does not come out right i end up dropping it so short that it goes to the batsman on two or three bounces. till about a few months back i would bowl such a ball once in every 2 or 3 net sessions but now i do it once almost everyday. because of this i have completely lost confidence and faith in my bowling. does this happen to anyone else. can anyone please tell me why this is happening. please help.
Thanks.
Click to expand...

If you read Philpotts Art of Wrist Spin Bowling he puts a lot of emphasis on the need to be relaxed, Warne talks about it too in some of his videos mentioning as ChippyBen has the tightening up of the wrist. Maybe go back to basics, bowling on your own and use the standstart drill and work from there, going forwards step by step - stand start, 1 step then 2 steps etc, not necessarily bowling fast, just looking to get the ball spinning and on the length you want?

While you're at it have a look at the full version of the standstart drill video, it's one of the best resources out there on the internet.

Shawmit, I recognise your name, have you come over from Facebook or Youtube?
 
someblokecalleddave said:
If you read Philpotts Art of Wrist Spin Bowling he puts a lot of emphasis on the need to be relaxed, Warne talks about it too in some of his videos mentioning as ChippyBen has the tightening up of the wrist. Maybe go back to basics, bowling on your own and use the standstart drill and work from there, going forwards step by step - stand start, 1 step then 2 steps etc, not necessarily bowling fast, just looking to get the ball spinning and on the length you want?

While you're at it have a look at the full version of the standstart drill video, it's one of the best resources out there on the internet.

Shawmit, I recognise your name, have you come over from Facebook or Youtube?
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Thanks a lot. yeah i hav come over from facebook. infact it was you who had asked me to join the site.
 
Frustrating start to the season. only got three overs near the end of a game when we only put 152 on the board on a very dodgy wicket. the figures weren't pretty 4-0-27-0. youch. but they really don't reflect what was going on, i was under orders to go searching for a wicket so i bowled with a lot of flight and had three dropped catches, a blatant stumping not given and several that span past everything from outside leg stump, looked great but achieved nothing! my callous is also split and in a bad state from over practice this week so i wasn't bowling with full confidence and through a fair bit of pain as well, it also meant i couldn't use my top spinner or googly as those just about rip my finger to shreds when its in this state. needs a week to heal properly now. lets hope next week is more fruitful...anyone else have a game today??
 
GoldenArm said:
Frustrating start to the season. only got three overs near the end of a game when we only put 152 on the board on a very dodgy wicket. the figures weren't pretty 4-0-27-0. youch. but they really don't reflect what was going on, i was under orders to go searching for a wicket so i bowled with a lot of flight and had three dropped catches, a blatant stumping not given and several that span past everything from outside leg stump, looked great but achieved nothing! my callous is also split and in a bad state from over practice this week so i wasn't bowling with full confidence and through a fair bit of pain as well, it also meant i couldn't use my top spinner or googly as those just about rip my finger to shreds when its in this state. needs a week to heal properly now. lets hope next week is more fruitful...anyone else have a game today??
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Jesus you're out early! I think the Bazzo boys are stirring and there are games next weekend, but I wont be involved unless I'm the 12th man! (Knee issues). Yeah that's bad luck, but you've got to be philosophical about the catches not being taken and hope they registered on the captains radar.
 
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