someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
Yeah that makes sense. Watch it though because if you develop the Googly Syndrome it may take a while to get your leggie back.
Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)
- Thread starter Richard the Third
- Start date
Cleanprophet
Active Member
Fawad Ahmed does mention that in that little masterclass. He warns that developing the googly could lead to you losing your leggie. If you look at someone like Badree, I think he is now incapable of bowling a genuine legspinner because he bowls the googly so much. That's not a big problem of course, especially in T20 cricket, because the topspinner/googly is hugely effective if it is bowled well.
I always thought the issue with losing the leggie due to working on the googly was the hand position being lost. It may well be in some cases. But it looks to me that the main issue is the body shape/position that is lost. That certainly seems to be the case with me. Every legspinner I have seen bowls the ball from a reasonably upright position, pivoting around the front leg. You watch my bowling, when bowling with real effort, and then watch bowlers like Badree and it is clear that the body is less upright and the weight is falling to the left much more. The shoulders, in particular, are the big give away. When bowling the googly, that left shoulder does tend to drop (more so for some than others) and that gets the hand into the topspinner/googly release position. Working a lot on the googly may well lead to you developing a lower left shoulder and you are then no longer able to put any more than a small amount of sidespin on the ball. In my case, I have to now work on getting back to being more upright and stopping that left shoulder from dropping so much.
Cleanprophet
Active Member
Been to the nets today and tried a few things out. I'm still leaning away a little and not as upright as I'd like to be. But, long story short, I was still producing balls that were mostly topspinning deliveries. I did produce a few out-and-out leggies. This is leading me to think that, although I do need more balance in my action and need to be a little more upright, I just need to work on the release. It's the conclusion I didn't want to come to, but I just think that the main problem is that I am simply not getting my hand into the correct release position. That's annoying because I'll have to do plenty of work to fix that and I'll have to stop bowling the googly until the problem is fixed.
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
Yeah - what you think you're doing with your hand and wrist and what actually happens for me are problematic too. I would work with your Leg break and keep the top - spinner. Get the leg break working well again and then look at the Googly later perhaps?
Cleanprophet
Active Member
I've always found that when I think I'm doing something (with the hand, but also other things like your approach to the crease, foot position etc), I'm actually quite mistaken. Filming my bowling has proved equally valuable and frustrating because I'm learning things that I need to learn but things that are disappointing to discover. Bottom line is, filming your bowling is essential. There's a quite a few things I used to do that I fixed after filming my bowling. There's always something else you find or something else pops up - such as this problem I'm having.
I filmed my bowling from front on today as well, something I don't usually do. Most of the balls I could see the back of my hand. Of course, what I should be seeing is most of the palm of my hand, so I've got an issue that needs sorting.
I've come to the conclusion (my latest conclusion in a series of many!) that I need to do a couple of things to sort it. Firstly, I have to start using a ball at home to practice the correct release. Just spinning the ball from the legspinner/sidespinner position with the back of my hand facing me. Just do that over and over and get that feeling back. The other things I'm going to do is the opposite of what you do when bowling the googly. With the googly, I drop my left shoulder shoulder quite a bit and my bowling arm is at 12 o'clock (completely vertical). It's the position most people need to get into the bowl the googly. I'm now tending to bowl with a lower left shoulder than I used to and a higher arm for all deliveries. So I'm going to look to bowl as upright as I can, without the left shoulder dropping very much at all and drop the bowling arm a little lower (around 1 o'clock) - basically, make it as difficult as possible for me to bowl with overspin.
boogiespinner
Active Member
Had an encouraging practice today. I arrived and the three nets were full of players. I am so spoilt that my thought is now 'what are these people doing in my net?' but I joined them for a while and eventually I had a net free to practice solo after the various interlopers went home.
I was just practising standing from 16-17 yards but I felt that I had a topspinner action that I was happy with, and more importantly a legspinner action that I was happy with. By 'happy' I mean, I had an idea what I was trying to do. topspinner = seam always in right direction, nice 'snap' on release. legspinner - good chest drive, bring ball around from back to front of hand without going over the top, snap so that the left hand side of the ball comes down. Something like that anyway. When I got a few nice ones I tried to groove more without thinking too much was I was doing. I think I had a small breakthrough in synchronising the chest drive with the spinning action which came from the free practice.
I've unearthed my powerball and am going to use that daily. You should get one of those
someblokecalleddave
! I think they are beneficial and safe. I have the one with the autostart feature and am pretty happy with that. (there is a leg attachment you can get too which I think is good for foot rehab but it's quite tricky to do).
One thing that is puzzling me greatly is that often I will bowl an attempted topspinner, and it will break noticeably. That's not too puzzling, but now quite often I am bowling the legbreak, it looks good coming down in that I can just see the white half of the ball rather than red, or mostly, and it felt like I spun the thing, but it doesn't turn. Could that be it skidding through? It's an artificial net, maybe a touch damp today but I think it happens on dry days too.
I was just practising standing from 16-17 yards but I felt that I had a topspinner action that I was happy with, and more importantly a legspinner action that I was happy with. By 'happy' I mean, I had an idea what I was trying to do. topspinner = seam always in right direction, nice 'snap' on release. legspinner - good chest drive, bring ball around from back to front of hand without going over the top, snap so that the left hand side of the ball comes down. Something like that anyway. When I got a few nice ones I tried to groove more without thinking too much was I was doing. I think I had a small breakthrough in synchronising the chest drive with the spinning action which came from the free practice.
I've unearthed my powerball and am going to use that daily. You should get one of those
someblokecalleddave
! I think they are beneficial and safe. I have the one with the autostart feature and am pretty happy with that. (there is a leg attachment you can get too which I think is good for foot rehab but it's quite tricky to do).One thing that is puzzling me greatly is that often I will bowl an attempted topspinner, and it will break noticeably. That's not too puzzling, but now quite often I am bowling the legbreak, it looks good coming down in that I can just see the white half of the ball rather than red, or mostly, and it felt like I spun the thing, but it doesn't turn. Could that be it skidding through? It's an artificial net, maybe a touch damp today but I think it happens on dry days too.
boogiespinner
Active Member
I am still a bit scared to film my bowling. Perhaps I should get over that.
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
Do it once you're happy to do so. I know that CP has said about the value of doing and that is true, but there's a point where eventually through over-analysis you get in a right mess and you don't go forwards anymore. I think we have to do it; without coaches and people standing there watching us saying do this or do that, the 'Journey' can be a long and torturous one with many pitfalls, but that's the way it's got to be. I've video'd three different ways that I approach the crease now looking to somehow find the form I had before my Achilles injury, but I don't think I can take too much notice of any of them otherwise I'm going to end up in a total mess, I think it is a case of full fitness returning and then being relaxed and not that fussed on the outcome on the day - just try and enjoy your bowling. I think if I can get back into that mind-set and be relaxed I'll bowl fairly well. I'm also starting to believe that the psychology aspect is very important, the last time I bowled well - was in the presence of a particular wicket keeper, who keeps well, but gives the impression that he believes that I can do it, he says all the right things, comes down the wicket and makes suggestions - stuff like that, with him there and the 'Regular team' I just start off well and just grow in confidence. Whereas recently I've played in a slightly modified version of our team with blokes that don't give off that same vibe - sending the fielders to the far corners of the pitch - that kind of stuff - having loads of people on the leg-side defending as opposed to attacking.
This bloke is back this weekend, so it'll be interesting to see how I go, despite the fact all the video evidence says I'll be total pants!
Cleanprophet
Active Member
That's why you should film your bowling and make sure you get a good look at the hand position at the point of release. Sometimes the ball doesn't turn and sometimes, if it is wet, the ball can hit the pitch and move into the stumps even though there is no spin into the stumps. It is a bit unreliable. A two-coloured ball and then film it.
Cleanprophet
Active Member
The keeper is hugely important. A poor keeper makes a significant difference to your bowling. I've bowled to a keeper who knows my bowling very well (I've bowled to him plenty in the nets) and he offers advice about line, length etc. In fact, I often ask him to offer more advice. He's taken 7 or 8 stumpings off my bowling this season. However, he hasn't played for a month or so now and his replacement keeper is a young lad who really cannot keep at all. I've not had a stumping since (had several stumping chances that he has failed). I've found it much trickier to bowl to a poor keeper.
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
Gutted - teams been changed and that blokes been moved up to the 3rds. Normal keeper - he's okay, but doesn't offer advice and discuss things in the same way. The 'Good' keeper though is an ex 1st XI player who's played cricket all his life and has a wealth of knowledge about the game, whereas the bloke tomorrow is just an ordinary bloke like me who's come to the game later in life.
boogiespinner
Active Member
C
Cleanprophet
I had another look last night on the video footage, I managed to load them into iMovie, I don't know much about it but I was able to count the frames. iMovie allows you to do frame advance scrolling which is very helpful. The footage is listed as 30 frames/s. In your faster delivery the release point is perfectly captured in one frame (frame zero) and the ball has bounced off the net on the 38th frame after that. If we assume it's got there at frame 37, that would represent 1.23 s to travel to the net, if we reduce that by 5% to allow for the extra distance that is 1.17s, which was pretty close to the figure I was working from before.
I was comparing with a Yasir Shah delivery which was measured at 56.1mph, counting frames for that one, it has gone from hand to stumps in a maximum of 27 frames. Going by these figures gives your delivery an estimated speed of 43mph from the hand.
I'd need to do a few more of these to have confidence but I think I might not have been too far out.
I was comparing with a Yasir Shah delivery which was measured at 56.1mph, counting frames for that one, it has gone from hand to stumps in a maximum of 27 frames. Going by these figures gives your delivery an estimated speed of 43mph from the hand.
I'd need to do a few more of these to have confidence but I think I might not have been too far out.
Cleanprophet
Active Member
Sounds very forensic and detailed. The delivery felt more like 50mph to me, but the technical stuff you've looked into seems quite convincing.
I've just watched the real time footage and compared it with a Yasir Shah 49mph delivery (Warner clean bowled on Yasir Shah's debut) and the speeds match up quite well to me. Always difficult to say when matching up YouTube footage, but having paused my way through the frames on those two, the Yasir Shah does hit the stumps just before my ball hits the fence. That said, I did the same with a 54mph delivery from Yasir Shah that also hit the stumps and that one does get to the stumps just before his 49mph, so that may well suggest that the difference between his two deliveries is the same sort of difference between his 49mph delivery and my one - which puts my one around 43mph-44mph, just as you said.
I did some bowling in the nets tonight and was bowling fully flat out to a batter. I was definitely pushing it through quicker than that other delivery and was probably around 50mph and above. The problem is, if you're not bowling it very well or as you want it, then bowling it quicker just makes it more likely to go for runs.
Cleanprophet
Active Member
Bowled for a good 90mins at net practice tonight. God, it was frustrating stuff. I just couldn't help but bowl with loads of overspin. I was bowling with a two-coloured ball and could see the direction of the spin on almost every delivery. I'd estimate that about 60%-70% were out-and-out topspiners, about 20% were mostly topspin with a little bit of sidespin that produced a decent ball that turned a little and bounced, the other 10% or so were googlys and moved into the batter. I don't think I really produced one genuine legspinner that was 50% topspin and 50% sidespin. It seemed that the more I tried to bowl a leggie, the more likely I was to bowl a googly. I tried all kinds of things, including bowling from a standing start and trying to get my chest/hips rotated fully (in case they were not fully rotating).
The frustrating thing is, I remember going to the nets many times and trying to bowl a googly. I'd work on that hand position and release and then go to the nets to try and bowl a googly. The ball would come out of my hand, I'd think to myself "that felt like a googly" only to see the ball land and spin away from the stumps. I'd video my bowling and see that as my hand got to the position where you would produce the googly, my hand would pull into a legspinning release and produce a good amount of sidespin. Now, of course, I'm in the complete opposite position where I can't stop my hand slipping into the topspinner/googly release. I video my bowling and see that as my hand gets to the position where you produce the sidespin, my hand comes over the top of the ball and produces topspin. It's the classic case of googly syndrome and it's very frustrating.
I'm in two minds. Either have a break from bowling for a week or two or keep working on it. It's bizarre to think that I bowled with sidespin so naturally that I couldn't bowl a googly and now I bowl overspin so naturally that I can't bowl a legspinner!
Incidently, I have spotted a difference between my bowling in that first video of mine (ice cricket clip) and the final clip and it reminded me of something I did work on specifically when trying to bowl a googly. It's all to do with the hand position at the take back position, just before my arm is raised to shoulder height and then into the upright release position. If you look at the last video, my hand is the sort of position you would consider to be a standard position for a wrist spinner with the fingers pointing down. Most legspinners have their hands exactly like this and it is pretty much a vital position to produce the flick up for the topspinner and googly (which is why I worked on getting that hand position). In the ice cricket clip, you will see that those fingers are pointing to the right a bit and not towards the ground (the footage quality isn't great but you can see these differences). By the time my arm is upright and in the release position the palm of my hand in the ice cricket clip is already starting to face the batter. In the bottom video, the palm of my hand is still facing behind me. I suspect this is the key to understanding the problems I am having.
The frustrating thing is, I remember going to the nets many times and trying to bowl a googly. I'd work on that hand position and release and then go to the nets to try and bowl a googly. The ball would come out of my hand, I'd think to myself "that felt like a googly" only to see the ball land and spin away from the stumps. I'd video my bowling and see that as my hand got to the position where you would produce the googly, my hand would pull into a legspinning release and produce a good amount of sidespin. Now, of course, I'm in the complete opposite position where I can't stop my hand slipping into the topspinner/googly release. I video my bowling and see that as my hand gets to the position where you produce the sidespin, my hand comes over the top of the ball and produces topspin. It's the classic case of googly syndrome and it's very frustrating.
I'm in two minds. Either have a break from bowling for a week or two or keep working on it. It's bizarre to think that I bowled with sidespin so naturally that I couldn't bowl a googly and now I bowl overspin so naturally that I can't bowl a legspinner!
Incidently, I have spotted a difference between my bowling in that first video of mine (ice cricket clip) and the final clip and it reminded me of something I did work on specifically when trying to bowl a googly. It's all to do with the hand position at the take back position, just before my arm is raised to shoulder height and then into the upright release position. If you look at the last video, my hand is the sort of position you would consider to be a standard position for a wrist spinner with the fingers pointing down. Most legspinners have their hands exactly like this and it is pretty much a vital position to produce the flick up for the topspinner and googly (which is why I worked on getting that hand position). In the ice cricket clip, you will see that those fingers are pointing to the right a bit and not towards the ground (the footage quality isn't great but you can see these differences). By the time my arm is upright and in the release position the palm of my hand in the ice cricket clip is already starting to face the batter. In the bottom video, the palm of my hand is still facing behind me. I suspect this is the key to understanding the problems I am having.
Last edited:
boogiespinner
Active Member
I've just had a look at that Shah -> Warner delivery 49.8mph and it definitely gets there in 31 frames - maybe 30 - which is inline with the other Shah delivery. As a rough rule I think a 50mph delivery out of the hand should get to the stumps in around a second. I'm pleased that we've been discussing this because it is really helpful being able to scroll through video footage frame by frame, and it's obviously handy for video analysis.
What I've been finding helpful with the legbreak is going small, even back to underarm, back to sidearm, fooling around over short distances, then building it up. I have my theories on what happens but it might be possible to overthink things a bit too. I'm sure you can find it again CP. Stick with it! Then when you do find it don't lose it again! I reckon for practising googlies it is no bad idea to alternate them with legbreaks.
boogiespinner
Active Member
I'll post a drill that I invented recently soon, I hope you guys try it out.
Cleanprophet
Active Member
I described that bowling (which looks like it's about 43mph-44mph) as flat out. Watching it back, I don't think it was quite flat out. But it wasn't far off. I bowled a few balls last night to a batter where I bowled flat out, but I'm not sure it would be that much quicker. I'll have to video it and see if that can be synced up so I have an idea of what speed I'm bowling at when bowling the legspinner as hard as I can. I used to think that it was around 55mph, but it may well be nearere to 50mph. Not that it matters really. The speed is not really important compared to accuracy and variation of speed. A batter was using his feet to me on Sunday and it was a bit frustrating that I wasn't able to either use that to my advantage or force him back in his crease with a quicker ball.
As for my bowling issues. I did find that when I bowled over about 15-16 yards, the ball did turn a fair bit. Also, I was bowling some balls nice and relaxed and slow last week to help a young keeper (he had a batter stood in front of him, not trying to hit the ball but to give an indication of what the young lad would see when keeping in a game). Anyway, some of the balls turned a huge amount and I was probably bowling about a yard or two in front of the crease. So bowling off a shorter distance may help.
I'll give it a go!
Cleanprophet
Active Member
Right, I've been doing some work (remedial work I suppose you would call it). Firstly, just trying to get that hand position back to where it was before I had the problems with bowling with too much overspin. Looks like I have got to the bottom of the problem and am in the process of fixing it. I still tended to have my hand in the position it has been in recently and, as a result, produced the topspinner. But when I got my hand position right, I produced a genuine legspinner. I tried some standing start drills, focusing on the hand position at the take back point. I still tend to rotate a lot and my weight does fall away a bit to the left (the right leg swings right across the standing leg). But I'm not really worried about that at the moment. This is a small little slow motion (1/4 speed) of one standing start delivery where I got my hand exactly as I wanted it:
Maybe that's because on TV they measure the speed from the release not the overall speed because obviously it slows down after bouncing
boogiespinner
Active Member
That's correct shahidpak. In fact it slows down considerably in the air too.