Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)

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shahidpak said:
Im gonna say something that may offend some people here because of some french hatred that i faced here but anyway...

As some of you may know i pay in a cricket club in the NORTH of France so it's not so far from england but you have to take the ferry to get there.

The President of our club talked to the Mayor of a city not so far from my club named Liettres and the mayor confirmed that cricket was invented in Liettres and it was kinda "exported" from the english and forgotten in France there is even a road named "allée du criquet" = cricket alley. and there is a highway named "Autoroute des anglais" = highway of the english (people). So i dont care what anybodu says but cricket was invented in FRANCE !
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Give us some dates? This is probably not the right forum such a discussion, so should move if you're going to take it further?:D
 
Well there are only a few weeks of the season left, anyone got any targets they want to hit? I have 2 games, and need 3 more wickets and 13 more runs to hit my targets of 20 wickets and 500 runs (or alternately 119 more runs to break the club record).
 
Why doesn't anyone bowl medium paced leg spin anymore? you get the best of both worlds; You have pace to hurry up the batsmen, and also deception through spin and flight variation, while still getting drift.
 
Wayne Shorne said:
Why doesn't anyone bowl medium paced leg spin anymore? you get the best of both worlds; You have pace to hurry up the batsmen, and also deception through spin and flight variation, while still getting drift.
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At the professional level, because the pitches are too hard and too flat, and without any grip off the pitch, a medium pace spinner is just a slightly erratic medium pace cannon fodder.

At amateur level, where the pitches are often soft enough to take turn even when fizzed in at 60mph, I think what you might call medium pace spin is still a reasonably common style.

We have a bloke for our club who bowls medium pace cutters and swingers. 6 balls an over all on a flawless line and length, but no two balls alike. As a bowling purist, its an absolute joy to watch.

We also have myself, who bowls what you might describe as quick spin.

Both of us are very dependent on the pitch: on a sticky deck we can be virtually unplayable, but on a flat wicket we're vulnerable to good batsmen once they have got their eyes in. I find I have enough variation to survive for a few overs, but that's it.
 
SLA said:
At the professional level, because the pitches are too hard and too flat, and without any grip off the pitch, a medium pace spinner is just a slightly erratic medium pace cannon fodder.

At amateur level, where the pitches are often soft enough to take turn even when fizzed in at 60mph, I think what you might call medium pace spin is still a reasonably common style.

We have a bloke for our club who bowls medium pace cutters and swingers. 6 balls an over all on a flawless line and length, but no two balls alike. As a bowling purist, its an absolute joy to watch.

We also have myself, who bowls what you might describe as quick spin.

Both of us are very dependent on the pitch: on a sticky deck we can be virtually unplayable, but on a flat wicket we're vulnerable to good batsmen once they have got their eyes in. I find I have enough variation to survive for a few overs, but that's it.
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I find it interesting the best two bowlers ever statistically were medium fast spinners, or in Sydney Barnes' case, a fast medium spinner. Maybe the pitches were more conducive to fast spin back then. But I can't help but imagine Shane Warne or Stuart Mcgill could get spin, if they bowled off a medium pacers run up. Here's an article I read about it.
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2011/may/17/the-spin-twirlymen-andy-bull
 
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Back then, of course, pitches were uncovered. If you look at the bowling records of all decent bowlers prior to covered pitches you will see they all took huge amounts of wickets. Covered pitches became the norm from the 1960's onwards. Of course, there are plenty of batters who had very impressive batting records in the era of uncovered pitches. I just think there were more wicket taking bowlers back then and, most likely, different types of bowlers - such as quick spin bowlers.

Most of the succesful legspinners I see in club cricket are the medium paced leg cutter types. But SLA is spot on, those types of bowlers are easy to face for good batsmen, unless the pitch is a poor pitch. Generally, whenever I bowl quicker against batters in the nets (on those all-weather pitches that are nice to bat on), they enjoy it. Once they pick the line of the ball, they stay on that line because the ball almost always does too. If it turns, it is not enough to cause them any trouble. Once I ball it a little slower and bring in drift and dip, it cause them more problems.

I spotted this legspinner playing for South Africa 'A' recently (Eddie Leie), there's footage of him bowling one delivery around the 0.49sec mark:



He's got quite a quick and busy run-up and gets it through at a decent pace. Always difficult to judge and I wouldn't say he is a medium pace legcutter, but he does look to be in the 55mph-60mph range to me.
 
SLA said:
Well there are only a few weeks of the season left, anyone got any targets they want to hit? I have 2 games, and need 3 more wickets and 13 more runs to hit my targets of 20 wickets and 500 runs (or alternately 119 more runs to break the club record).
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No targets for me. I'm not even sure how many wickets I have. I think I had about 13 a game or two ago and I took 3 in the last match, so I should be around 16. I'd have wanted 30+ if I'm honest, but I haven't bowled a lot of overs really. If I do have a target, it's to get a 50 with the bat before the end of the season.
 
There's also the point that its ****ing difficult to bowl genuine spin at 70mph. There's a reason Barnes is regarded by many as the greatest bowler who ever lived. Realistically, there is always a compromise somewhere between speed, revs and accuracy.
 
Cleanprophet said:
No targets for me. I'm not even sure how many wickets I have. I think I had about 13 a game or two ago and I took 3 in the last match, so I should be around 16. I'd have wanted 30+ if I'm honest, but I haven't bowled a lot of overs really. If I do have a target, it's to get a 50 with the bat before the end of the season.
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Our club record is 34 and anything over 28 gets you into the all-time top 10, so I am normally happy aiming for 20 in the league and 20 in the T20 games.

Funnily enough, although my average is bang on my career mark (15), my strikerate has deteriorated this year, its getting out towards the high 20s. Although swings and roundabouts, economy rate is the lowest its ever been at 3.3.


How many overs do you expect to bowl a year? I normally get 70-80 overs in the league and 30-40 in the T20.
 
SLA said:
Well there are only a few weeks of the season left, anyone got any targets they want to hit? I have 2 games, and need 3 more wickets and 13 more runs to hit my targets of 20 wickets and 500 runs (or alternately 119 more runs to break the club record).
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Only a team based one - stay out of the relegation zone and stay in this current league - with three matches left against 2 teams that have only a few more point than us and one team that's below us it may be possible. Oh and one more - implement my 'Short spell' tactic in one of these remaining games if the situation allows it.
 
SLA said:
There's also the point that its ****ing difficult to bowl genuine spin at 70mph. There's a reason Barnes is regarded by many as the greatest bowler who ever lived. Realistically, there is always a compromise somewhere between speed, revs and accuracy.
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Yeah, that's true too. If you can get lots of revs on the ball at 65mph or quicker then you will still get nice movement into the batter as well as a bit of turn. It was something we were talking about a week or two ago: the balance between speed and turn. The reality is, if you can bowl a legbreak at 65mph-70mph then a small amount of movement off the pitch is all your need (any more than that would probably make it a lesser delivery). It is, essentially, a bowling type that bridges the gap between spin and seam. A 70mph legbreak is just like an inswinging delivery that pitches and then seams away. If anyone has ever faced a bowler who swings it one way and then gets it to seam away you will know that it is possibly the toughest delivery to face. Of course, no seam bowler can bowl for swing and seam. The seam movement is largely down to how the ball reacts off the pitch and if the ball actually lands on its seam. A 70mph legbreak is different because, providing there is a bit of grip available in the pitch, every ball will move in, pitch and then move away. It's no surprise Sydney Barnes caused so many problems with that type of delivery. It is an incredibly difficult ball to bowl and possibly even more difficult to face.
 
Cleanprophet said:
Back then, of course, pitches were uncovered. If you look at the bowling records of all decent bowlers prior to covered pitches you will see they all took huge amounts of wickets. Covered pitches became the norm from the 1960's onwards. Of course, there are plenty of batters who had very impressive batting records in the era of uncovered pitches. I just think there were more wicket taking bowlers back then and, most likely, different types of bowlers - such as quick spin bowlers.

Most of the succesful legspinners I see in club cricket are the medium paced leg cutter types. But SLA is spot on, those types of bowlers are easy to face for good batsmen, unless the pitch is a poor pitch. Generally, whenever I bowl quicker against batters in the nets (on those all-weather pitches that are nice to bat on), they enjoy it. Once they pick the line of the ball, they stay on that line because the ball almost always does too. If it turns, it is not enough to cause them any trouble. Once I ball it a little slower and bring in drift and dip, it cause them more problems.

I spotted this legspinner playing for South Africa 'A' recently (Eddie Leie), there's footage of him bowling one delivery around the 0.49sec mark:



He's got quite a quick and busy run-up and gets it through at a decent pace. Always difficult to judge and I wouldn't say he is a medium pace legcutter, but he does look to be in the 55mph-60mph range to me.
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I had a go with a spreadsheet a little while back and calculated that for a ball to land on a good length while initially travelling neither up nor down the speed had to be around 56mph. So this bowler should be over that (if my calculations were correct).
 
Cleanprophet said:
Yeah, that's true too. If you can get lots of revs on the ball at 65mph or quicker then you will still get nice movement into the batter as well as a bit of turn. It was something we were talking about a week or two ago: the balance between speed and turn. The reality is, if you can bowl a legbreak at 65mph-70mph then a small amount of movement off the pitch is all your need (any more than that would probably make it a lesser delivery). It is, essentially, a bowling type that bridges the gap between spin and seam. A 70mph legbreak is just like an inswinging delivery that pitches and then seams away. If anyone has ever faced a bowler who swings it one way and then gets it to seam away you will know that it is possibly the toughest delivery to face. Of course, no seam bowler can bowl for swing and seam. The seam movement is largely down to how the ball reacts off the pitch and if the ball actually lands on its seam. A 70mph legbreak is different because, providing there is a bit of grip available in the pitch, every ball will move in, pitch and then move away. It's no surprise Sydney Barnes caused so many problems with that type of delivery. It is an incredibly difficult ball to bowl and possibly even more difficult to face.
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Yeah you are right. I bowl a gentle medium paced leg spin at around 105kms and get about a foot turn most of the time. Any faster than that and I would struggle to 1. Keep control and 2. spin the ball
 
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