Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)

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I have done a fair bit of analysis of my videos and watched a lot of Warne's video to see where my action differs. http://www.youtube.com/user/chippyben1?feature=mhum#p/f/0/AyHX7GsrMlo
As you all know I have a very high arm action that sometimes goes past the vertical. After a lot of watching the videos and standing in front of the mirror just trying various things I have noticed the main difference. I have been trying not to lean so far to the right in the picture above. To correct this I had been trying to get my weight on the top half of my body further to the right, leaning to the right of the red line. But still I ended up leaning way to the right as my delivery continued.
What I have discovered is whilst getting into a good position early, as I continue,
a) My head leans way to the right (in the picture)
b) The weight shift from the head opens up the left shoulder,
c) a and b in turn cause the top half of my body to lean way to the right of the picture,
d) This in turn brings the arm up into a very high position and
e) My front foot starts out pointing towards fine leg but because of my lean the front foot opens up and ends up pointing to the slips.
When you watch Warne his body stays a lot more vertical than mine.
I have just had a session at the nets trying to keep my head and upper body far more upright and it seems to be working nicely after a while. It felt quite strange as all all changes do but it started to feel a lot more 'correct' after a few overs. I really need to video it to see whether I am actually doing what I think I am.
I'm not really aiming to get a round arm and I have been bowling quite well with the big lean. I still like the high action I just want to eliminate the slightly past vertical arm that tends to cause the ball to go down leg side.
I also noticed I was getting more turn as my arm got slightly lower but on the downside the seam position on the deliveries was terrible and I have no idea why that changed.
 
Has anyone ever bowled or thought of bowling a flying saucer ball with a conventional leg spin action. I just thought about it but have never bowled it. I imagine you could bowl it with the palm of the hand facing down and with a rounder arm. In theory it could drift towards the legside and land on the the shiny surface of the ball and skid on low.
Or alternatively it could be bowled like a backspinner but with the palm facing the sky, and possibly drifting the other way towards the off side.
There seems to be no end of variations with leg spin!!
 
chippyben said:
Has anyone ever bowled or thought of bowling a flying saucer ball with a conventional leg spin action. I just thought about it but have never bowled it. I imagine you could bowl it with the palm of the hand facing down and with a rounder arm. In theory it could drift towards the legside and land on the the shiny surface of the ball and skid on low.
Or alternatively it could be bowled like a backspinner but with the palm facing the sky, and possibly drifting the other way towards the off side.
There seems to be no end of variations with leg spin!!
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I think Jim may have tried that, I'm sure someone had given it a go?
 
yeh I tried it for a while ages ago, think I landed one decent one once and it skids on. not sure theres any merit to it really though, its hard to bowl for no reward. if Richie Benaud can be trusted then this is how he bowled his flipper. there are far easier deliveries to bowl that will land off-seam consistently and skid on if you use backspin. backspun deliveries can drift pretty big as well.
 
chippyben said:
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I have done a fair bit of analysis of my videos and watched a lot of Warne's video to see where my action differs. http://www.youtube.com/user/chippyben1?feature=mhum#p/f/0/AyHX7GsrMlo
As you all know I have a very high arm action that sometimes goes past the vertical. After a lot of watching the videos and standing in front of the mirror just trying various things I have noticed the main difference. I have been trying not to lean so far to the right in the picture above. To correct this I had been trying to get my weight on the top half of my body further to the right, leaning to the right of the red line. But still I ended up leaning way to the right as my delivery continued.
What I have discovered is whilst getting into a good position early, as I continue,
a) My head leans way to the right (in the picture)
b) The weight shift from the head opens up the left shoulder,
c) a and b in turn cause the top half of my body to lean way to the right of the picture,
d) This in turn brings the arm up into a very high position and
e) My front foot starts out pointing towards fine leg but because of my lean the front foot opens up and ends up pointing to the slips.
When you watch Warne his body stays a lot more vertical than mine.
I have just had a session at the nets trying to keep my head and upper body far more upright and it seems to be working nicely after a while. It felt quite strange as all all changes do but it started to feel a lot more 'correct' after a few overs. I really need to video it to see whether I am actually doing what I think I am.
I'm not really aiming to get a round arm and I have been bowling quite well with the big lean. I still like the high action I just want to eliminate the slightly past vertical arm that tends to cause the ball to go down leg side.
I also noticed I was getting more turn as my arm got slightly lower but on the downside the seam position on the deliveries was terrible and I have no idea why that changed.
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I have some difficulty with some of these more in depth analytical discussions. I just had a look back through the thread where Doctortran first picked up on your balance issue and used the Red and Grey lines and I'm not sure what it is that he's getting at. I've just had a look at my videos in comparison to yours as I bowl with a very vertical arm as well and I don't lean as much as you do. I noticed that despite the lean you keep your head in pretty much the same place right through the bowling action. The other thing I noticed that seems to get my action side on right from the outset, where as you bowl with a more open chested approach is the fact that when I land coming out of the bound I plant my foot pointing deliberately as far round towards Mid-wicket as I can (May be the cause of my knee issues)? I think most of the time it's pointed more towards square leg than mid wicket and this set me side on. But, I'm no expert and I do feel that too many people coming at you with ideas can cause more problems than create answers.
 
Shawmit Choudhary said:
hi,
can anyone tell me the importance of a strong front arm at the point of release. does it result in more spin or better accuracy.
Thanks
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I think it has to do with accuracy and where you're aiming to bowl. If you read Philpott he doesn't dwell ion it that much and is far more concerned with rhythm. He does say that it needs to be high and strong and says that it's integral to the getting side on and getting the shoulders to come over one another rather than round each other. The shoulders coming over keep the energy and action going towards the batsman.

"The Shoulders during the delivery should rotate over one another in a line towards the batsman, not around one another towards gully or point. Thus the body chases the ball rather than falling away.
To help this, the front arm coming down from the 'Reach for the sky' position should tuck into the ribs before it is thrown away. Both these aids will keep the bowler in his side-on psoition a little longer".

The high strong arm affects shoulders coming over one another and therefore improves both accuracy and spin. Tucking that arm in is one thing I don't do as I recall and when I've tried it, it has made a difference.
 
Shawmit Choudhary said:
hi,
can anyone tell me the importance of a strong front arm at the point of release. does it result in more spin or better accuracy.
Thanks
Click to expand...

the front arm can actually make or break your bowling action in some cases, but at the same time I don't want to make it sound like its the only factor at play. on a bad day of practice when I'm not landing things right, simply going back to basics on the leading arm and paying attention to what it is doing can turn my session around.

you need it to be strong, but I don't necessarily think "high" is the right word. The arm itself (as in from the shoulder) needs to be quite high, but it can be bent (like Warne), dead straight upright, pointing forwards, that is a personal thing. As you move through your delivery it should pull down so that your elbow tucks in to your abdomen or around your left hip, and then in the follow-through it will most likely arch out sideways to balance and encourage good rotation.

timing/rhythm is hugely important in conjunction with the actual movement though. this is what Philpott refers to. the arm itself is a critical aspect of the action, but the rhythm of the action and when the arm makes its movements will determine whether they are useful or not. the arm "leads" the action, so it can be responsible for everything that follows in some actions, such as pulling the hips and legs through with it. in other cases its probably not as important.

I used to be a lazy front arm bowler, and it made little difference for me. now that my action has evolved somewhere closer to being a good action my arm has become very important and I really have to focus on ensuring I am using it correctly or my action falls apart (but the same can also be said for many other aspects of my action).
 
Jim2109 said:
yeh I tried it for a while ages ago, think I landed one decent one once and it skids on. not sure theres any merit to it really though, its hard to bowl for no reward. if Richie Benaud can be trusted then this is how he bowled his flipper. there are far easier deliveries to bowl that will land off-seam consistently and skid on if you use backspin. backspun deliveries can drift pretty big as well.
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Not worth bothering with then. I'll give them a bit of a go next time I'm up but won't spend too much time on them.
 
someblokecalleddave said:
I have some difficulty with some of these more in depth analytical discussions. I just had a look back through the thread where Doctortran first picked up on your balance issue and used the Red and Grey lines and I'm not sure what it is that he's getting at. I've just had a look at my videos in comparison to yours as I bowl with a very vertical arm as well and I don't lean as much as you do. I noticed that despite the lean you keep your head in pretty much the same place right through the bowling action. The other thing I noticed that seems to get my action side on right from the outset, where as you bowl with a more open chested approach is the fact that when I land coming out of the bound I plant my foot pointing deliberately as far round towards Mid-wicket as I can (May be the cause of my knee issues)? I think most of the time it's pointed more towards square leg than mid wicket and this set me side on. But, I'm no expert and I do feel that too many people coming at you with ideas can cause more problems than create answers.
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You picked up on something else that I noticed. The top half of my body isn't fully side on. My legs are side on but my shoulders point towards the slips. Ive been working on fixing that too.
 
someblokecalleddave said:
I think it has to do with accuracy and where you're aiming to bowl. If you read Philpott he doesn't dwell ion it that much and is far more concerned with rhythm. He does say that it needs to be high and strong and says that it's integral to the getting side on and getting the shoulders to come over one another rather than round each other. The shoulders coming over keep the energy and action going towards the batsman.

"The Shoulders during the delivery should rotate over one another in a line towards the batsman, not around one another towards gully or point. Thus the body chases the ball rather than falling away.
To help this, the front arm coming down from the 'Reach for the sky' position should tuck into the ribs before it is thrown away. Both these aids will keep the bowler in his side-on psoition a little longer".

The high strong arm affects shoulders coming over one another and therefore improves both accuracy and spin. Tucking that arm in is one thing I don't do as I recall and when I've tried it, it has made a difference.
Click to expand...

For me when I'm bowling well the leading arm is doing a lot. It gives my action a lot of power. Recently I started bowling with my leading arm like Warne. If you watch the first few seconds of this video you see his arm starts bent but as the arm goes foward the straightening of the arm gives added momentum. I have found this gives me a lot more power.
As for bowling with the shoulders rotating over one another, the idea I think he is trying to convey( because its physically impossible to do it literally) is that the front shoulder starts high and the back shoulder low. Then as the delivery is bowled the front shoulder pulls down and the back shoulder comes up. This is what Warne talks about bowling up or "spinning up".
This is opposed to the shoulders just staying at the same height and rotating around one another as Dave says above. You can see it in the first few seconds of the video too.
http://www.youtube.com/user/chippyben1?feature=mhum#p/f/0/AyHX7GsrMlo
For me too I tend to fall into the habit of bowling with my right arm rushing ahead of the action and not working with everything else, a fall back to my fast bowling action. When I concentrate on my leading arm the rest of the action tends to fall into place and work in unison.
 
Had a 3 hour practice session this evening and it went pretty well. I'm definitely bowling spells of just fantastic stuff, much better than I ever have before. But there are still spells of awful deliveries, and still the odd rank ball in amongst good ones. It needs to sort itself out pretty fast because there are apparently friendlies this weekend and I may get a game if I'm lucky.

Touching on my leading arm comments from earlier, they certainly held true today. I started out bowling ok, as I always do straight up before I've had a chance to think about what I'm doing. I don't really push through my action though, but because I'm relaxed and taking it easy I find some rhythm and bowl decent balls on a good line and length, but at about 70% effort. After that things went quickly downhill as usual and it took me quite a while to figure out why. I was putting a lot of effort into ensuring a high front arm that was leading my action, and the arm itself was doing what it should be, which had me confused. But when I looked at what was going wrong, there were 2 different issues. The first, and most obvious, was balls dragged down the off side. These were simply lack of rhythm balls that I failed to release from my hand in time, and would fix themselves as soon as I found some rhythm. The other bad balls were full and leg side, and the ones causing my confusion. But looking at my leading arm, I noticed that it would point across my body, open me up too much, and then my action would follow the arm (I was also stepping in front of the stumps through my follow through because of it). I pushed my arm out to the offside and sure enough problem solved!!

Then I found some rhythm, and bowled about an hour at around 60% good balls, 30% decent balls, 10% bad balls. If I can find that sort of rhythm in matches early-season then I should go alright. Wickets are my target, ideally I don't want to go at 10 an over because its a quick way for a captain to drop you, but its inevitable I will be expensive and wickets will solve everything.
 
I've been bowling a little in the paddock, working my way back to fitness, not trying to over-do things and so far so good. Bowled this morning and it was awful. Came back thought about it a bit and had another session and that went okay. After the practice on 3rd March with the new action, my current action which is off 2 or 3 steps just looks dead slow, but I'm turning the ball quite nicely. I'm tending to bowl far too full, but the lines good and my Wrong Un, which I'm not so fearful of these days is pretty good as is the Top Spinner. My Flippers are okay as well and at the minute I'm mucking about with the 'Wrong wrong un' which has gone from being ridiculously slow, loopy and obvious a couple of years ago, to a bit of faster variation of a ball that breaks to leg but looks like I'm bowling a Wrong Un. Tonight bowling it I realised that it's getting so good I may have to compile a video where I bowl both the conventional wrong un and the wrong wrong un in order that I can have a look at how similar or different they look.
 
Hi everyone, got my first match of the season on Saturday, and because we're both in the same league it's Stafford 3rds vs Stafford 4ths. The mind games have already begun within the club and it should be a pretty interesting match...

My bowling's really improved heaps over the winter and lots of guys at the club are paying me compliments. Lots of the batsmen don't seem able to handle the dip I can produce and I've had plenty of likely stumpings in the nets, not least the 4ths team captain - on one day I got him four times in the space of a couple of minutes!

On Sunday night I spent about two hours bowling in an empty net and it all seemed to be working pretty well, still the odd bad ball but I suppose that's to be expected. Stock ball was turning nicely and my length was consistently good, top-spinners were bouncing nice and high but had quite a bit of turn, and when I practised zooters I hit the stumps 4 times in 5 balls at one point. My wrist still seems to have a limited range in terms of the seam angle I have available, I tried to bowl a few googlies but just couldn't get beyond a slightly turning top-spinner. I'm not too fussed about it but it feels as if at some point I'm going to have to give it a lot of effort - remembering of course not to neglect my stock ball.

I've probably slightly overdone the buttering up of my captain but he seems impressed with what he's seen and has said I'll get a few overs and a fair amount of input into the field I bowl to. I think my biggest problem on Saturday will be nerves, as I've barely bowled in matches before and I've probably built myself up a bit too much. We'll see I suppose...
 
Spiderlounge said:
Hi everyone, got my first match of the season on Saturday, and because we're both in the same league it's Stafford 3rds vs Stafford 4ths. The mind games have already begun within the club and it should be a pretty interesting match...

quote]

Good luck Spiderlounge, hope you get a bagful and don't get the yips! What you like at holding yourself together when it all starts to go pear shaped - wides down the legside, that kind of stuff?
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someblokecalleddave said:
Good luck Spiderlounge, hope you get a bagful and don't get the yips! What you like at holding yourself together when it all starts to go pear shaped - wides down the legside, that kind of stuff?
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The thing that really scares me is - I have absolutely no idea!

I'd like to think I'm pretty calm and level headed, but we all like to think that don't we? I did bowl part of an over against the 3rds in a pre-season friendly last year and got smacked about a bit and it didn't seem to bother me, but the difference is then I knew my bowling was shocking, and now I know it can be deadly or it can sometimes still be shocking. Anyway, I'm trying to do all I can - I got another two hours of practise under my belt tonight. Lots of little things to remember but ultimately I'm just telling myself that if I give it a good rip and land it on the spot the rest should take care of itself.

The big prize on Saturday is going to be Ali, the 3rds team captain and while he's a great bloke in the bar afterwards he's a bit of an arse on the field. Lots of guys in the 4ths flatly refuse to play under him. I dread bowling at him as he's a left-hander with plenty of experience, but get his wicket and I immediately become a 4th team hero. We shall see, but I have a feeling I may be getting a wicket or two at least, provided I can keep my composure.
 
chippyben said:
Has anyone ever bowled or thought of bowling a flying saucer ball with a conventional leg spin action. I just thought about it but have never bowled it. I imagine you could bowl it with the palm of the hand facing down and with a rounder arm. In theory it could drift towards the legside and land on the the shiny surface of the ball and skid on low.
Or alternatively it could be bowled like a backspinner but with the palm facing the sky, and possibly drifting the other way towards the off side.
There seems to be no end of variations with leg spin!!
Click to expand...

I bowl one occasionally, it does nothing off the pitch. However it drifts enormously due to the Magnus effect - the same phenomenon that makes a topspinner dip and a flipper float. Its very hard to control due to this.
 
across both innings in that match Borthwick took 26.5-13-54-4. 2 things to take note of here....

firstly, in the first innings he only bowled 1.1 overs, and took the final wicket in that spell. so had he got more overs, theres a decent chance he would have taken a few more!

secondly, 13 maidens in 25 overs in the 2nd innings!!!! thats serious control.

contrast those figures with Adil Rashids in the same match (both innings combined).... 45-4-158-1

and you can see why I just don't rate Rashid at all, and think Borthwick is most likely to make it as a test spinner. hes not even 21 yet, and hes far from the finished article, but hes getting a good amount of cricket at Durham and improving all the time. Rashid didn't even score any runs to justify his bad bowling, I think sitting on the fringes of international cricket has probably knocked him back a bit, but at the same time he was never equipped to be there in the first place. his figures in county cricket hugely exaggerate his ability in my opinion. hes not really a "spinner" (even though he seriously spins it), more of a slow bowler that occasionally turns the ball. the fact he has been measured as putting the most revs on the ball of all spinners measured with that new ECB spin tool thing is a bit ridiculous. having all those revs and zero ability to present a clean seam is just a waste.

changing the topic though, I might have 2 games at the weekend! cant wait. even one would be nice enough, provided the weather holds out. the met office cant make their mind up between glorious sunshine or light rain showers, but its meant to be hot either way. hot and rainy is playable lol. had another practice last night and I'm somewhere close to ready, will just have to see how it goes come game time.
 
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