AngryRanga
Member
In the nets I'm fine, I feel like this only happens in matches, which makes it very hard for me to practise. I think I tighten up or get nervous or something, and I just don't feel like I can release the ball.
Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)
- Thread starter Richard the Third
- Start date
In the nets I'm fine, I feel like this only happens in matches, which makes it very hard for me to practise. I think I tighten up or get nervous or something, and I just don't feel like I can release the ball.
boogiespinner
Active Member
There's a quote about musicians and practice - amateurs will practice until they can play a passage correctly, professionals will practice until they cannot play it wrongly.
Cleanprophet
Active Member
Nerves will certainly play a part. But as boogiespinner says, you can practice until your technique becomes repeatable under pressure. That takes a lot of time and effort, but it certainly works. The key thing is to make sure that your practice is correct. This is why it is best to have someone watch/coach you or to video your bowling and watch it back. Otherwise, you could be repeating an incorrect action over and over again. You certainly don't want to do that as that it worse than doing no practice at all.
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
I often wonder if I have this problem as well some of the time. I think if I'm relaxed, I do it, where as if I'm tense like 'Angry' says, I might bowl with a rigid wrist - rolling it instead of flicking it.
AngryRanga
Member
That's the plan, and it's what I've been trying to do for the majority of this season. I feel like if I can click and bowl in a game like I do in the nets once, I'll have the confidence to be right for the future.
Sometimes I do have people watching that I can ask advice from, but other times I mainly judge how I'm doing from turn/drift/accuracy.
Cleanprophet
Active Member
It's always best to be able to work out what is happening with the ball in relation to your action because you can't always rely on having someone there to watch and, of course, in a match it is largely down to you.
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
First net session of the year - went well, pretty accurate and turning the ball a mile, nice pace I reckon. Looks to me as though without any fitness training (yet), I'm in pretty good shape and carrying on from where I left off last season where I was bowling a lot better than I have been for some years.
boogiespinner
Active Member
That's interesting, I'd like to read more about this. Not convinced that it applies in every situation. For instance, I don't think a snooker player will improve much if the reds are different sizes. For piano, practising on a piano with uneven action is a bad idea. I think it would improve batting technique to practice with a narrow bat. But I think it would lead to bad habits to practice with a fat bat.
I'm not much wiser what they actually did in this study (from a brief read)
To me it means that the best practice is the one that offers the most variation of all variables and where your success is measured on the outcomes and not necessarily a perfect execution of technique. We do this all the time:
- Looking to hit wide of cover, ball is slightly too straight, bat face is opened at the last minute to get it there and a 4 is hit rather than a dot ball or out
- Plan is to bowl a legbreak with lots of topspin, batsman charges unexpectedly, delivery is changed into a mangled insliding legbreak and the batsman is yorked and stumped rather than hitting a lofted six over mid-off
In a game like cricket, where you are not in control of all the variables, the ability to alter your technique to adjust to the conditions and what others are doing is important. This is something most of us learn through match practice but what professionals have time for is to accelerate their learning of this through intelligent practice and observation.
Cleanprophet
Active Member
Yeah, there were bits of it that were interesting, bits that were actually already standard practice and bits that made little sense. Essentially, I think the main thrust of it is, you don't want to create robotic players because players like that are not adaptable. In terms of practice, it is a tough one. You do need to drill certain techniques I suppose. Equally, how many players have we seen down the years who have had their own technique that worked well, only for a "coach" to come along and try to "improve" that technique with the end result being a big old fail with the player having to revert back, with difficulty.
It's very important for a coach to have an open mind. Shane Warne would always talk about how it doesn't matter what the technique looks like, only what happens with the ball at the business end of the pitch. That is true and if a bowler is bowling good stuff, then it is surely only important to get a really good handle on what that bowler is doing and use that as the 'drawing board' to return to in times of difficulty. So many players will look back at old footage of their batting/bowling to try and get back to what they were doing before. Now, if the bowling/batting isn't getting results from the start, then you do need to look at technique and probably drill some of the more accepted aspects of technique that underpin that discipline.
This is where I suppose this business is most of an issue, in beginners. Pakistan is well known as a place where they do little coaching with young players. They just let them bowl and if the delivery is a good delivery, then they don't worry too much about technique. There's so much, especially in England, written about the right way and the wrong way to bat/bowl and it produces coaches who focus heavily on drilling technique and not allowing players do discover their way to play and, most importantly, their instinct to play. Really, coaching is a tough job because you do have to have a broad knowledge of technique as well as being skilled in indentifying individual skills/talents and harnessing that skill/talent. Unfortunately, at youth level, too many coaches are simply not good enough and this is the stage where coaching is most vital. You tend to find that those players who make it to pro cricket, either make it through having been fortunate enough to have found a good coach when they were young or by being belligerent enough (usually with the help of having their parent/s in their corner with them) to stick to their guns when they feel a coach is not coaching them in the right direction.
It's very important for a coach to have an open mind. Shane Warne would always talk about how it doesn't matter what the technique looks like, only what happens with the ball at the business end of the pitch. That is true and if a bowler is bowling good stuff, then it is surely only important to get a really good handle on what that bowler is doing and use that as the 'drawing board' to return to in times of difficulty. So many players will look back at old footage of their batting/bowling to try and get back to what they were doing before. Now, if the bowling/batting isn't getting results from the start, then you do need to look at technique and probably drill some of the more accepted aspects of technique that underpin that discipline.
This is where I suppose this business is most of an issue, in beginners. Pakistan is well known as a place where they do little coaching with young players. They just let them bowl and if the delivery is a good delivery, then they don't worry too much about technique. There's so much, especially in England, written about the right way and the wrong way to bat/bowl and it produces coaches who focus heavily on drilling technique and not allowing players do discover their way to play and, most importantly, their instinct to play. Really, coaching is a tough job because you do have to have a broad knowledge of technique as well as being skilled in indentifying individual skills/talents and harnessing that skill/talent. Unfortunately, at youth level, too many coaches are simply not good enough and this is the stage where coaching is most vital. You tend to find that those players who make it to pro cricket, either make it through having been fortunate enough to have found a good coach when they were young or by being belligerent enough (usually with the help of having their parent/s in their corner with them) to stick to their guns when they feel a coach is not coaching them in the right direction.
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
Or just look at the state England are in with their one day cricket, when everyone else around them seems to be playing with a sense of freedom and expression, England look like they've just been reading from a manual and they're sticking to what they've just read!
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
2nd Net session tonight, went exceptionally well. I'm getting far more creative and able to come up with solutions to problems when batsmen start to do specific things. I think it's also down to increasing accuracy and the fact that I am spinning the ball harder I believe and able to change the angle of the seam at the release point at will. I had a particularly good batsman today in my net and had to adapt and I realised his un-doing would be a top-spinner. My conventional grip top-spinner has faded into a half decent leg break these days and the only thing I could think of was to bowl it in a really fingery leg -break grip. First attempt would have had him stumped and then twice more I got him with the toppie mixed in with Leg breaks. The Leg Breaks he could deal with, but the top-spinner amongst them had him done. Good feeling so early in the year, looks very promising.
boogiespinner
Active Member
I'm still waiting for a net. The first net was cancelled, no-one told me! But I haven't been able to make the other two - 10am on a Sunday is just really hard for me as I have erratic sleep patterns and it's really hard to break them. I'm thinking of changing to a team that has evening nets and might even give me a bit more of a bowl in the summer. I think I bowled less than 10 overs last one. :-(
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
Yeah that's terrible, I'd be off I reckon looking for another club. Having been the captain last year I'm going to be in a position where I'll be looking at the team sheets wondering if I'm going to get a game. Last year we were well short of blokes hence the reason I captained games with small boys in, on one occasion 6 boys under 16 with 2 that were 12! Whether that's been addressed this year or not I don't know, will have to wait and see. If I don't get a game I'll just rock up to random cricket matches or our games and play for the opposition or anyone who wants me - mercenary style.
Definitely change if you play to bowl and they won't bowl you. No point playing for them if you're not enjoying it.
This may not apply to you but sometimes there's more to it than what you think you should be doing for the team. We used to have a quick bowler at the club who thought he could really bat and should be in the top 4. He could bat but he was more Cairns than Kallis and so he would always get the new ball and bat 6 or 7. He ended up leaving the club because of this and at the new club he...batted 6 and took the new ball because that's what he was good at.
boogiespinner
Active Member
Well that's a measure of your success as captain/organiser, if the team you created is now getting competitive! keep up with the practice, sounds like you are bowling better than ever!
It was hard for me last season, I averaged a wicket every two overs, but there was a surplus of established bowling talent - and it's hard to crack that with erratic slow bowling, although I was getting a nice loop and occasional big turn either way
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
Two wickets a game off of 4 overs I reckon I'd take that, unless I was going for loads of runs. 5 an over or less and I reckon I'd get to bowl for at least 10 overs at that rate! Yeah, my bowling's looking pretty good at the minute, need to do more general exercise and fitness stuff though over the coming month.Well that's a measure of your success as captain/organiser, if the team you created is now getting competitive! keep up with the practice, sounds like you are bowling better than ever!
It was hard for me last season, I averaged a wicket every two overs, but there was a surplus of established bowling talent - and it's hard to crack that with erratic slow bowling, although I was getting a nice loop and occasional big turn either way
boogiespinner
Active Member
I probably went for an average of 6-7 an over for that 1/2 wicket. Room for improvement. When I was obviously bowling a fair amount of loose stuff and getting hit, it was hard for the captain the throw me the ball in a competitive 40 over match when there were plenty of safer options. I only really bowled when victory was already assured.
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someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
There's talk of our club coming out of timed 50 over league format where you can play for draw and go for a shorter version or a straight win or lose 50 over format, something to do with the fact that they reckon we'd get more players if the format was changed and the games made shorter. I can hear my old club beckoning if that's what they go for especially if it's short like 40 overs, as you say there's less chance of getting a bowl.