Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)

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AngryRanga said:
Thanks mate. I originally thought it was some sort of nerves making me freeze up, but then it happened it the nets as well so I thought it had to be something to do with not warming up properly.
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It's actually a pretty good sign because it shows that your normal action produces a good flick of the wrist.

I don't get a huge amount of wrist flick on the ball. I grip the ball very loosely and so generate more spin with the fingers than most wrist spinners. The wrist flick I produce is enough because of the amount of spin my fingers put on the ball. For that reason, I've never had that problem of having to warm my wrist up. As you might expect, I have to ensure my fingers are warmed up.

Ironically, my wrong un has a full flick of the wrist. That's not ideal because a batter could probably spot that if he's really focusing. But when I try to bowl a legspinner with a full flick of the wrist, I struggle with it.
 
Cleanprophet said:
It's actually a pretty good sign because it shows that your normal action produces a good flick of the wrist.

I don't get a huge amount of wrist flick on the ball. I grip the ball very loosely and so generate more spin with the fingers than most wrist spinners. The wrist flick I produce is enough because of the amount of spin my fingers put on the ball. For that reason, I've never had that problem of having to warm my wrist up. As you might expect, I have to ensure my fingers are warmed up.

Ironically, my wrong un has a full flick of the wrist. That's not ideal because a batter could probably spot that if he's really focusing. But when I try to bowl a legspinner with a full flick of the wrist, I struggle with it.
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In the last 6 months or so, my wrist action might have got better, flicking the ball from hand to hand I can really get it 'Snap' out of the hand with very audible sound and loads of revs. I'm able to do this indoors much to my wife's displeasure and let it fall to the floor and spin on to a settee. The amount of turn I get in comparison to the last several years of doing this is far greater. I've just got to get it now so that the same action becomes integral to the bowling action. I've always thought of my self as primarily being a roller as opposed to being a flicker of the ball and this represents a potential advance in my technique!! It's only taken 7 years!!!!
 
Well I don't think Yasir Shah snaps his arm to his right ribs for starters.

You seem to be suggesting that changing the direction of follow-through is going to change the direction of drift. This I disagree with.
 
I reckon there's a definite place for stepping back and asking yourself am I over-thinking it. My own observations over the seven years I've been doing this is that there are obviously schools of thought regarding how you should do it, but then there's the issue of who are you looking at with regards to being the optimum example of 'The correct model'. Over and over again we've all discussed in some detail that Warne is without doubt the greatest exponent of the art that we have easy access to and therefore many of us have tried to emulate his action. But, I think that most of us now acknowledge this is a flawed generic approach as possibly none of us have the physique of Warne and that's one of the main things that enables him to have done what he did.

I think many of us have to go through the phase of trying to bowl like bowler A, B, C or D and then analyse it to death when it does or doesn't work, especially if you're determined to excel at it. Without an expert looking on and coaching you and we all know that's never going to happen on a regular enough basis to make a significant difference, this is probably the only way to go?

So whilst Chino's putting his ideas out there for comment which is brilliant, it's never going to be right for everyone and others might even feel that it's completely flawed. But someone might try an aspect of his advice and it may work for them and be really helpful? I did exactly what Chino is doing - analyse and try other people's approaches, sometimes it worked other times it didn't, but I think all these experiments are worth under-taking if only to eliminate them in the longer term. It strikes me that wrist spinning is like a big jigsaw puzzle with lots of bits, but you can force bits into the wrong spaces and work with an incomplete image as such and it takes a while to step back from it and think actually those bits are not right.

I don't think it's wrong, it's just a part of his development, it may be it'll work? But more importantly we all have to keep in mind that the right way for one person will be the wrong way for another.

I think the main thing is that its not biomechanically so stressful on the body that you end up injuring yourself. In the end you have to find a way that fits your physique and gets you overs in a game.
 
Chino#21 said:

Mark Lawson says there that the ball follows your bodyweight, but he only looks at it in a negative way. If you get it right you can use it to your advantage, bowling the ball towards outside of the off stump and making it drift back with your bodyweight. Rotating 180 degrees is very overrated, and so is snapping the bowling arm past the opposite ribs. It doesn't increase spin and makes it hard to retain balance if you have a fast run-up like Yasir's. I have always snapped my bowling arm past my dominant side's ribs and it is much more comfortable.
To explain: Hold a cricket ball above your head in a leg spinner's grip. If you want your arm to snap to the left you have to spin with your fingers/wrist from the bottom of the ball, up along the right side and then release it, bringing your arm around. But if you snap your arm to the right, you can use your fingers/wrist to spin the ball from the bottom of the ball, around the right side, over the top, around the left side, and then back down the bottom. Your arm will follow that path. Spinning the ball through 360 degrees will obviously produce more spin than spinning it through 180 degrees, and I've used the 90 degree leg break as an example but I think that it applies to other deliveries as well, except for the googly and off break. If you want to spin an off break more, you should snap your arm past your opposite ribs, since your index finger will then be able to spin from the bottom of the ball, back to the bottom again (360 degrees) and apply maximum spin. I'm no biokineticist so I don't have any idea how this works practically in an actual bowling action and I could be making an absolute fool of myself with this but it does have some intrigue. Warne's arm has a strange rotation and it stays almost in the middle of his body in the follow through.

Yasir clearly snaps his arm to his right ribs, and it does seem to work quite well for him.
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Yeah it looks like a very front on action, nothing like the Terry Jenner approach and his bowling arm does appear to end up on the right side.
 
boogiespinner said:
This is why I would measure turn a different way, as a velocity rather than an angle.

Consider two leg-breaks both delivered straight:

Ball 1
Forwards velocity after pitching - 15m/s
pitches 2.25m in front of the batsman
deviates to the off at 1m/s

Ball 2
Forwards velocity after pitching - 20m/s
pitches 3m in front of batsman
deviates to the off at 1m/s

Both the balls have the same time to reach the batsman after pitching (.15 seconds) during which time they will both deviate 15cm to the off. As a velocity change, it is the same turn. As a change of angle, the first ball has turned a lot more - 3.81 degrees compared to the second - 2.86 degrees. Which is harder to play?
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How did u calculate this stuff?
 
I've watched a fair few video clips of Warne in the last week or two (since seeing Yasir Shah) and Warne did quite often finish front on, just like Yasir Shah. But he mostly did rotate around a bit more than that most of the time.

From what I've seen of Yasir Shah, his arm finishes across his torso and not into his right hand side. But it is a little unusual how he finishes front on all the time (except for when he bowls the googly). I did try that today and, to be honest, I felt I had a bit more control without really losing many revs.
 
Cleanprophet said:
Imagine how you will be bowling in another 7 years time!
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Mate, if I could keep going for another 7 years I'd be well chuffed, not sure what'll go first, knees I reckon, or my heart? Need to keep on it though. I've had a rest since Sept, I have a knock about outside with the kids every now and then but nowhere near as frequently as we did when they were younger, but I can feel that I'm losing all my fitness. I kind of get back on it in Dec over the Christmas break, but I'm feeling like I should do something a bit earlier. I found there was a massive benefit from getting started early and trying to be match ready for the first game in May, so there's a definite incentive there.
 
Has anyone seen Ajantha Mendis bowling his reverse carrom ball? I watched him bowling in the last ODI between Sri Lanka and India and he got some wickets with, what looked like, a reverse carrom ball. He simply had his normal technique with the ball in his hand and the middle finger bent under the ball, flicking up at the point of release and imparting a bit of spin. However, he was bowling it with the back of his hand facing the batter so that the ball moved into the batter a little bit.

It's odd but very interesting because he is, on paper anyway, an off-spinner and this reverse carrom ball is just a small spinning off-spinner. But the batters get all caught up in the doosra, carrom ball and this and that and they are simply getting out to balls that do very little. Not to take anything away from the bowler. Mendis bowled the ball very well.
 
Chino#21 said:
So essentially it's a wrong 'un bowled with the middle finger? I think I've seen him do it before, and it can confuse you if you don't pick it from the hand, because it has the same seam position as his backspinning carrom ball.

Today I set a record at my club for the worst bowling figures ever, 1-89 after 7 overs! I didn't bowl badly, but the batsmen were extraordinary. Every delivery that's just marginally short or full was pounded. They got 363 after 45 overs and we got 220 odd runs, I made 8 not out and took two catches (one a caught and bowled) so I'm not too disappointed. I could have had 3 wickets as well, there were 2 dropped catches off my bowling and many other chances that would have been taken on another day. Their best batsman also said that he thinks I'll take loads of wickets against any team if I get into a rhythm and pitch the ball in the right areas 90% of the time. I haven't touched a cricket ball in two weeks so I really wasn't confident and my line and length was terrible. Luckily today has shown me that you should always be prepared and never lose your rhythm. Despite this absolute hammering my bowling average is a sound 15 and my batting average a surprising 23! That shows that my bowling has been excellent so far, it's just this one lapse that caused it to look significantly worse (before today my bowling average was 10) At least I fought until the end and eventually got their opener out for 132. The pitch was horrid, it was a typical Indian dustbowl, ironically I hate these pitches as any spinner can extract movement from them. You don't have to put revs on the ball, you can simply pitch it on the right spot and bowl flat and you'll do well. That's ideal for off spinners, but awful if you're a wrist spinner! I try to put maximum revs on the ball and change the angle of spin, use subtle variations to set the batsman up etc. But at the end of the day I could have gotten 5 wickets by bowling flat offies on the cracks (of course I refuse to do that, it would really hurt my inner leg spin purist) At least it wasn't a total disaster, I did get a wicket and a few runs and enjoyed it. On days like these it's better to use part-timers, which clearly showed since our part-time bowlers (one a keeper, 2 players that have never bowled before and are actually batsmen) took 6 wickets for about 100 runs, and the go-to bowlers got 4 wickets for 263 runs. Quite unusual but the conditions didn't suit "effort" bowling. Against sloggers of this magnitude you need someone that can be unpredictable and get lucky, hitting a few cracks or bowling someone off a double-bouncer.

My advice to anyone that doesn't want to break their club's record is:
1) Always bowl at least 100 balls per week
2) Stay positive until the end
3) Make sure your fielders are in the right positions
4) Observe the pitch and use the conditions
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100 balls per week shit how about 12 ? :p
 
Cleanprophet said:
Grimmett mentioned something about bowling front on as a way to purposely bowl with the same energy and effort but put far fewer revs on the ball. But he was talking about hitting the crease chest on so as to not rotate very much. Yasir does hit the crease side-on and rotates. He just doesn't rotate 180 degrees like most spinners do. That will definitely help with accuracy because you can control your bowling arm much more. For most people however, a 90 degree rotation would mean their arm doesn't come through quick enough to put the sort of revs you need. Yasir Shah has a very quick arm and that compensates for that little bit less body rotation he has. Essentially, he generates the arm speed he needs with less rotation of the body. That's not easy to do.
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180 degree pivot is not necessary, you only need enough of a pivot to add or aid in putting spin on the ball. In terms of arm speed Yasir is applying similar techniques to Qadir and Mushtaq. Personally I think the 180 degree pivot is over taught and recommended by coaches, there's usually other reasons why a developing spinner doesn't get the spin they should.
 
leftie600 said:
180 degree pivot is not necessary, you only need enough of a pivot to add or aid in putting spin on the ball. In terms of arm speed Yasir is applying similar techniques to Qadir and Mushtaq. Personally I think the 180 degree pivot is over taught and recommended by coaches, there's usually other reasons why a developing spinner doesn't get the spin they should.
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I had a good long go at bowling with the sort of 90 degree rotation that Yasir uses and found it a bit tricky. I'll stick to what I normally do, which is probably about a 150 degree rotation.

Without question, a full 180 degree rotation isn't needed to get big revs on the ball. For many people, it helps. But a lot depends on arm speed but also how quick you flick your fingers/wrist. You only need to watch cricket on TV and see spinners rotate at all varying degrees between 90 and 180. Ultimately, it all depends on what works for you. I never focused on rotating as much as I do, it just happened naturally as I bowled.
 
someblokecalleddave said:
During the summer even now that I practice far less I think I bowl around 100 balls a session and try and do that 2 or 3 times a week!:D
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Well i went to practice outdoors (football ground) and i was bowling very badly ive kind of "lost" my ripping spinning ability, i bowled after a month with a cricket ball and i dont do the hand to hand any more, my friend who bowls fast bowled better leg spin than me. + I have school from monday-saturday i only have time on sunday, i really need tobpractice , il have to buy ew cricket balls too.
 
shahidpak said:
Well i went to practice outdoors (football ground) and i was bowling very badly ive kind of "lost" my ripping spinning ability, i bowled after a month with a cricket ball and i dont do the hand to hand any more, my friend who bowls fast bowled better leg spin than me. + I have school from monday-saturday i only have time on sunday, i really need tobpractice , il have to buy ew cricket balls too.
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Yeah I am kind of obsessed and being an adult I was simply able at the start to go out and buy 36 cheap balls. Since then I've collected balls and bought more second hand and I've almost got a 100 I reckon. If in a game the balls go in the bushes and they give up on them, I go and have a look around after and find it, quite often if you do that you'll find another couple. It's a bit odd admittedly, but I'm tight and don't like the idea of a £10 ball just being left to rot!!!
 
leftie600 said:
180 degree pivot is not necessary, you only need enough of a pivot to add or aid in putting spin on the ball. In terms of arm speed Yasir is applying similar techniques to Qadir and Mushtaq. Personally I think the 180 degree pivot is over taught and recommended by coaches, there's usually other reasons why a developing spinner doesn't get the spin they should.
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What do you reckon then - what are the main faults that reduce spin? Do you not think that a technically correct whole action which might include the 180 rotation doesn't equate to a potentially better outcome? I always think of it in terms of using a whip, which starts off with a good solid base and ends up with all the energy going through to the crack at the end. I'm sure someone who is an expert with a whip would be far more accurate and powerful because of a combination of similar attributes, which are whole action/whole body?
 
someblokecalleddave said:
Yeah I am kind of obsessed and being an adult I was simply able at the start to go out and buy 36 cheap balls. Since then I've collected balls and bought more second hand and I've almost got a 100 I reckon. If in a game the balls go in the bushes and they give up on them, I go and have a look around after and find it, quite often if you do that you'll find another couple. It's a bit odd admittedly, but I'm tight and don't like the idea of a £10 ball just being left to rot!!!
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Hmmm il do that next time, and hopefully il also get a few balls that the coach would give me
 
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