i also have a rotator cuff issue so I'm aiming for a quicker run up essentially and by concentrating on 'skipping' through the delivery stride will become shorter as the back leg cannot (in theory!) bend and straighten. I've tried shortening the delivery stride but this goes against my instinct. Changes against instinct require a lot of time which unfortunately I do not have, maybe at the end of this season.
Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)
- Thread starter Richard the Third
- Start date
i also have a rotator cuff issue so I'm aiming for a quicker run up essentially and by concentrating on 'skipping' through the delivery stride will become shorter as the back leg cannot (in theory!) bend and straighten. I've tried shortening the delivery stride but this goes against my instinct. Changes against instinct require a lot of time which unfortunately I do not have, maybe at the end of this season.
I stopped the video at 0:17 and 0:11 for the second.
What is noticeable (although it may be the camera angle) is that your hips in the second video are slightly more to the left than the first. This means either you are falling away/leaning to the left more than what you have been or your body is coming through sooner than your arm had done previously. If this is happening it means that to compensate and get the ball delivered straight your wrist naturally rotates in a position which is more topspin than leg-break (at an extreme level you would have googly syndrome or turn into Paul Adams!).
Outside of standing drills I'd suggest that you work on getting taller at delivery and following through more toward your target. This can be done by having a net to your left preventing you from going to far to the left and concentrating hard on keeping your head up. Start by getting this right at a slow delivery speed before gradually increasing to your normal bowling speed.
Cleanprophet
Active Member
Thanks for that. I'm glad you picked up on these things because they were some of the things that I was looking at too. It seemed to me (as you say, can be tricky to be sure because of the camera angle - I always put the camera behind the stumps, so they should be similar for line, just the issue with one being a little nearer to me) that my hips and chest were not getting around in time. I wasn't sure, so I'm glad you picked up on it. I was actually looking at the stripes on my tracksuit bottoms, especially around the hips, and they do seem to be rotated more in the first video.
My instinct was to try and get more chest on and to try and get a little taller. So again, I'm pleased that you have suggested that. I am a little bit taller in the first video. It only needs to be a slight difference for it to effect that hand position from a ball that has only 10%-15% sidespin and one that is 50% sidespin.
Following through at the target is a good idea too. Although I don't do that fully in the first video, I certainly move towards the target more so than in the second video. Falling away a little to the left is not too bad, but falling away quite sharply does certainly suggest serious balance issues. One thing I am focusing on is pulling that front arm down much harder and much more at the target.
But, the one thing I am going to do is lengthen my run up. Someone suggest to me yesterday that my run up was a little lazy. It was only about 4 strides and I tried a 7 stride approach yesterday and found it seemed to help. The person who suggested it said that the ball was coming out with more energy and more dip. More than that, my follow through was taking me straight down the pitch. Whether that hand position was correct, I don't know yet. The ball was turning nicely. I'll get up to the nets (maybe today) and video it. I'll use that 7 stride approach, which definitely added more momentum and will surely make rotation much more fluid, I'll pull that front arm down at the target a bit harder and try to get a bit taller too. I'll see how all that helps.
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Cleanprophet
Active Member
Tried that 7 stride run up and it felt pretty comfortable. I think I still need to quicken the approach a little but I am hitting the crease with more momentum. Previously, I was carrying such a small amount of momentum into the crease that I was having to generate most of the energy at the crease. More momentum from the run up means there is more energy coming into the crease. I was rotating to front on much better and getting a lot more energy on the ball. Once I get a little more pace in the run up, I should get a bit more energy.
I was still leaning away a fair bit, so that will need more work.
The ball was spinning a decent amount but the palm of my hand was still very much visible from behind me. I'm still not quite getting that wrist flick/hand position right. I was looking at this video about Warne's legspinner and topspinner comparison:
We're told the aim is to have the palm of the hand facing towards the batter for the legspinner and towards midwicket for the topspinner (more towards long-on for the googly). I know that and yet still struggle to get that hand coming across. I do wonder whether I am just having that trouble of slipping into a topspinning release position because it has been hard wired? There's no doubt that I needed to get more energy into my approach, more rotation and I need to be taller (that left shoulder dropping low would surely make bowling a legspinner make difficult - with a stand start, where I keep the left shoulder much more upright, I get that legspin release pretty much 100% of the time). The question is whether that drop to left is the reason I am bowling with too much overspin or whether it is a psychological thing or maybe a combination of the two?
The thing I was thinking about, and you see this clearly the above video, is not so much the position of the palm of the hand but the position of the inside of the wrist. Obviously, the inside of the wrist will always face the same way as the palm of the hand. I just wonder whether thinking about the position of the inside of the wrist might be better than thinking about the position of the palm?
In fairness, I really need to get bowling with a more upright action before knowing for sure what isn't quite working in my action. I have a very loose grip, so I know that I can't afford to drop that left shoulder very much and I can't afford to have that bowling arm too high or I will simply not be able to drag my fingers over the top of the ball. What is pleasing is that I was getting drift and decent turn (off a fairly wet artificial surface) whilst bowling with only a small amount of sidespin. It suggests that I am getting more revs on the ball with the longer and quicker approach to the crease - even if the direction of the spin isn't where I want it just yet.
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Cleanprophet
Active Member
Yet more work down at the nets today and it was easily the most promising work I've done for months. The main focus today was to stay as upright as I can and keep that left shoulder from dropping very much. It felt a little awkward, but watching the footage back I can see that I was more upright than I have been in recent months and the hand position was spot on. I'm now 100% sure that the problem was, as leftie said a few days ago, that I was not as upright as I needed to be and was falling away to the left. I ran in today, stayed much more upright and bingo! the legspinners were back. I'll post some little clips later today to show the action now with the longer run up (which still needs some work as it's a little ploddy and not really accelerating as it should be - I won't be skipping in like leftie and Imran Tahir, that's for sure. I'm not built for skipping!) and more upright position.
Here's some short (1/2 speed) clips of my bowling from earlier today:
Having watched back the 30mins of bowling I did today, there were about hald a dozen balls were the hand did flick up and produce overspin, so maybe there is some psychological element in there too. Thankfully, everytime I did that the next ball was a legspinner.
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someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
Yeah that don't look too shoddy at all. I feel a lot less inclined to comment about other people's actions these days for fear of over-complicating things. It does strike me that you've been massively analytical of what you're doing and I know from experience this can lead to making things a whole lot worse. But this looks very promising - how does the run-up feel and how does it compare to your approach to the crease say 3 months ago?
Cleanprophet
Active Member
It feels pretty good. I did try a longer run up in the past but I never spent much time working on that run up to make sure it was rhythmical and balanced. This time, I worked out what length suits me in terms of rhythm and balance as well as momentum.
I always thought my previous approach was fine and it probably was fine - but no more. The problem with it was that I had to generate most of my pace and momentum at the crease and that will put more pressure on technique. For example, a longer run means that any slight lean to the right will show in my follow through going a little to the left. With the old run up, any slight lean to the left would leave me falling to the left quite sharply. In other words, if anything went slightly wrong in my action with that old approach, it would cause big problems - as I discovered. This new run up probably gives me much more control and, crucially, much more consistency.
I'm quite hopeful because I've only really had a couple of 30min sessions with this new run up so it should get better as I get more used to it. I'm still having to consciously think and focus on being as upright as I can as well as the hand position. A few weeks should hopefully get me doing those things much more naturally.
Either I'm doing something completely wrong or I am just very lucky but I have never seemed to have this googly syndrome (more likely the former). I, like everyone else, started off by just bowling legbreaks, and started bowling the wrongun with out too much hassle once I found out how to do it. I can bowl both googly and legbreak without accidentally bowling the other. Maybe it is because I don't tend to constantly practise one kind of variation, I just kind of bowl it 5-10 times and then revert to legbreaks or other variations. I am just speculating though. I really don't know why I never got googly syndrome. Maybe I am yet to get it. I don't know.
Cleanprophet
Active Member
I think that's possibly the key thing. If the googly comes quite easily, then you are probably never going to suffer any problems with your legspinner. I'm not sure if it's a psychological thing or technical thing. I suspect it is technical. Some people's action is such that it doesn't allow for a googly to be bowled and in working on the googly, they lose their "normal" action as their position at the crease changes to accomodate the googly. That is most likely what happened to me. I found the googly very, very difficult to bowl. I just couldn't do it. Eventually, and somewhat inadvertently, I started leaning away at the crease and dropping that left shoulder - this then allowed me to bowl the googly. I suspect where I started to have problems is when I started ripping the topspinner/googly because that lead to a more pronounced pull to the left and drop of the left shoulder. This then became the new "normal" position for me at the crease. Unfortunately, it was a position that made putting sidespin on the ball very difficult and, at that point, the legspinner was gone and all I could produce was a small amount of sidepin.
Even today, at the nets, I found that as soon as leant just a bit too much to the left I start putting more overspin on the ball. It may be a good thing in the long run (if I can switch between upright and a slight lean to the left at will) because I could vary between legspin and topspin by simply changing how upright I am at the crease.
Intereatingly, I fould that a wider run into the crease got me leaning away a little and getting more overspin. Pravin Tambe goes wider to put more overpin on the ball. This may be an option for me and my technique.
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
That's the way! I did it wrong, I tried it and couldn't get it at all and kept trying and then suddenly out of nowhere one turned. So that was it - I'd done it once, so obviously if I kept going it would happen again. I think then one turned massively out of nowhere and then I was obsessed. I think I spent a month perfecting it - bowling nothing but wrong uns. Then the leg break was lost!
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
Just been over and had a bowl on the outfield of the ground we're playing on, Jesus it's wet and soggy. Back-spinning flippers landing on a good length were almost stopping and bouncing twice in front of the stumps sometimes. Can't see it happening this weekend unless there's a lot of sun and wind between now and 1pm on Saturday!
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
Shame it's the end of the season here, because I think my new approach to the crease holds real promise in the longer term. At the moment with the new approach I don't seem to be turning the ball as much as I have been recently and at the moment I can't crank up the spin in the way I have been with the 1 step in and bowl approach. So my development with this new approach is going to be held back potentially by the weather unless we're lucky here in the UK and are blessed with a dry Sept and Oct.
Cleanprophet
Active Member
Similar thing for me. I could do with some nice weather. Only two games left for me.
Cleanprophet
Active Member
I had nets tonight. The weather wasn't good, so it was cut short a bit. I don't video my bowling in a general net session, only when I'm down there on my own. Therefore, I don't know whether my release was correct tonight or not. However, I was coming off that longer run and definitely stayed more upright. The first team captain (who's played with and against good professional cricketers for years as well as working with England Lions from time to time, including Scott Borthwick) watched me bowl a ball and commented something along the lines of "whooaa! That's looking very good!" and he then turned to the pro spinner and said "that's looking very nice indeed isn't it?" and the pro spinner agreed. He said I was getting a really good loop on the ball. That was pleasing to hear but it had me thinking "hmmm, that probably means I'm getting mostly overspin on the ball". But I couldn't be sure if that was the case. What is for sure is that I wasn't getting much loop on the ball a week ago. So, either way, the new approach to the crease and the more upright action is getting much more revs on the ball. Once I get control over the release position and bowl legspinners and topspinners at will, I should be producing balls with much more zip than before.
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
Told you it looked good! I wouldn't worry too much about the over-spin personally, as long as it's turning a little and varying a little you'll get wickets. I'd say groove that action, get it so that it's mechanical and repeatable and work towards accuracy - but keep spinning it hard so that it loops and dips, the loop and vicious dip + a bit of turn targeting the middle and off or around there forcing the bat to play is going to bring dividends. Then slowly look at getting it to come out of the hand with more side spin?
boogiespinner
Active Member
I am getting winter blues already.
A friend of mine moved back to Australia recently and she's invited me over. That would be one way of dealing with winter!
A friend of mine moved back to Australia recently and she's invited me over. That would be one way of dealing with winter!
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
Bad news here in Langdon Hills, went to work in the morning and there was a couple of blokes in the Paddock removing the goal posts. Got home tonight and found they've taken down the roadside chain link 6' fence and replaced it with a low wooden fence that 18" high. Then on closer inspection discovered the 6' chain link fence behind the stumps has gone too. Some of their stuff is still there, so they're obviously back again tomorrow, whether they're going to replace the fence with another new 6' one or not remains to be seen, but I've got a sneaky suspicion they're not going to. In which case that's it the paddock days are almost certainly over and I'll have to go elsewhere to practice which is a real shame as it was so close and convenient. Or maybe string a net up every time I want to have a bowl which will be a real pain. I'm gutted.
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
Me too especially in view of my post just now...
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
Aussie sounds nice though.
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
When does your season start and finish?