Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)

Looks like a leg break in both instances and the title would suggest the same, just one has a scrambled seam.

One is coming a bit more from the front of the hand, like a slider. Whether you would call it a slider or not doesn't really matter. It's just a little bit of footage to show slightly different releases.

Adil Rashid has been bowling some very nice sliders this summer. He bowled one to Mitchell Marsh that was given LBW but then overturned on appeal. Very good ball.
 
After Sundays debacle and having to return to my Terry Jenner walk in after 3 overs, I came away from that game a little disillusioned and wondering if the new approach to the crease wasn't the right way forwards. I've not been able to practice since because our facilities over at the paddock have been ruined, so it's a lot more effort now to go somewhere, get set up and have a bowl. But tonight I did and instead of chickening out or trying to change anything I went straight into the new approach and right from the outset it worked. First ball straight on to a mat 12" x 16" and just missing the off-stump. 100 balls later I must have hit the mat 10 times and the ball was turning beautifully and the action felt good. So that begs the question what the hell happened on Sunday?????? Yips or two matches back to back Saturday and Sunday? So bloody annoying.
 
how is the achilles Dave?
Still not 100% and tonight having bowled, it felt a little tender. I'm not sure what to about it, I think at some point around the end of October the weather will get so bad I'll ease up on the physical stuff a bit and work on some of the physio I've seen, hopefully that'll help with it and it'll be in better shape come nets at the end of January?
 
After Sundays debacle and having to return to my Terry Jenner walk in after 3 overs, I came away from that game a little disillusioned and wondering if the new approach to the crease wasn't the right way forwards. I've not been able to practice since because our facilities over at the paddock have been ruined, so it's a lot more effort now to go somewhere, get set up and have a bowl. But tonight I did and instead of chickening out or trying to change anything I went straight into the new approach and right from the outset it worked. First ball straight on to a mat 12" x 16" and just missing the off-stump. 100 balls later I must have hit the mat 10 times and the ball was turning beautifully and the action felt good. So that begs the question what the hell happened on Sunday?????? Yips or two matches back to back Saturday and Sunday? So bloody annoying.

I think there's a lot to be said for visualisation and being relaxed. I also think that it is easy to fall back into old ways if you over do it a bit or lose concentration a little bit. A new action/tech has to be concentrated on quite a lot I think.
 
I think there's a lot to be said for visualisation and being relaxed. I also think that it is easy to fall back into old ways if you over do it a bit or lose concentration a little bit. A new action/tech has to be concentrated on quite a lot I think.
I certainly wasn't relaxed. There were a number of 1st team players in this Sunday side and I just felt like I needed to perform and get it right, they were good about it and I bowled 5 overs and they gradually got better as I relaxed more, but it was embarrassing!
 
I certainly wasn't relaxed. There were a number of 1st team players in this Sunday side and I just felt like I needed to perform and get it right, they were good about it and I bowled 5 overs and they gradually got better as I relaxed more, but it was embarrassing!
I remember my club first grade debut.

I still hadn't fathomed what level I was going to be playing so I went out the night before. Turned up to the game with a massive hangover and nearly threw up during the warm ups. The flip side was that I was so tired and sick that I couldn't get tense about my bowling and got 4 wickets for 40 off my ten :)
 
I remember my club first grade debut.

I still hadn't fathomed what level I was going to be playing so I went out the night before. Turned up to the game with a massive hangover and nearly threw up during the warm ups. The flip side was that I was so tired and sick that I couldn't get tense about my bowling and got 4 wickets for 40 off my ten :)

That would certainly help with any nerves, that's for sure!

Even in lower grade games you can get a bit tense if a batter is coming at you and batting aggressively. Being as relxed in a match as you are in the nets is tricky. This is where having a consistent and well grooved action helps because it is that which helps you relax. If you have any issues with your bowling, then an aggressive batter will make difficult to be relaxed enough to execute your technique as you want. Any doubts you have about your bowling will always show themselves against aggressive batters.
 
I've managed to film my new approach to the crease tonight, I don't know whether to edit it and just include the good stuff or all the crap as well. I've also filmed it from a new perspective with a longer focal length - so the image perspective is compressed and looks a lot less impressive from this perspective. It's uploading to youtube at the moment and looking at it there's still loads of work to be done, I'm considering a 5 step approach now having seen the footage of the 3 step approach. For me the key thing is that I've got rid of the stutter in my run up and increased it to 3 steps, I'm now wondering if I went to 5 steps would that increase the speed a little and could I quickly be able to add the 2 steps without too much aggro?
 
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I've managed to film my new approach to the crease tonight, I don't know whether to edit it and just include the good stuff or all the crap as well. I've also filmed it from a new perspective with a longer focal length - so the image perspective is compressed and looks a lot less impressive from this perspective. It's uploading to youtube at the moment and looking at it there's still loads of work to be done, I'm considering a 5 step approach now having seen the footage of the 3 step approach. For me the key thing is that I've got rid of the stutter in my run up and increased it to 3 steps, I'm now wondering if I went to 5 steps would that increase the speed a little and could I quickly be able to add the 2 steps without too much aggro?

I would think anyone could come off a 10 step approach and still be slower at the crease than some people who come off a one step approach. That's simply because it's not so much the length of the approach but the build of momentum in that approach. The key things are balance and rhythm because you can build momentum with that. If you see stills of Yasir Shah as he jumps into the crease, you can see huge energy going into the crease. Warne's is interesting because he does walk in and breaks into a bit of a sprint in the last 3 or 4 strides:



That 'explosion' at the crease is what it is all about and whatever length of approach it takes to get that with balance and rhythm is a good approach.
 
Did some work in the nets yeserday (camera didn't work so I couldn't watch it back). I had a net session tonight too. I started doing some 12/13 yard stuff on my own for a bit and then moved to about 14/15 yards, then 18/19 yards before finishing with a one step approach to a full length and to a batter. It was fairly slow stuff (maybe 35mph-40mph) but I was focusing on the release and nothing much else.

One thing I worked on yesterday was cocking my wrist fully. I've never cocked my wrist very much at all. I spotted that a couple of years ago when I first filmed my bowling. It was cocked until I started to lifting my bowling arm at which point the wrist opened and was cocked very little at the point you would normally flick the wrist open. But, I didn't worry about it because I had a loose grip and got good spin on the ball from the fingers. However, I decided I should try cocking the wrist fully and really trying to get a good wrist flick because that could well help with more control with the release.

It felt good yesterday. At the end of the session today, I filmed a couple of minutes. The footage isn't great because it was getting a little dark, but it felt good and came out nicely:



 
Still not 100% and tonight having bowled, it felt a little tender. I'm not sure what to about it, I think at some point around the end of October the weather will get so bad I'll ease up on the physical stuff a bit and work on some of the physio I've seen, hopefully that'll help with it and it'll be in better shape come nets at the end of January?
Mate I'll be honest, I'm concerned about you running in, if you can make it to the end of the season off the gentle run up I think that would be extremely sensible. Take this from someone who could not even run for a bus for literally years due to chronic achilles problems, and that was through my late thirties. It was only when I realised that I might never be able to walk again without problems that I totally cut out stressing it. As I understand it, it takes three months for any new cartilage growth to fully mature. Please treat this injury with a lot of respect. It's very easy not to, because you can easily run through it at the time... until you can't anymore.
 


Is there a reason you are bowling around the wicket? There's some obvious balance issues there. At the point of delivery you are falling away to the left quite sharply, hence the follow through. Incidently, some of those follow throughs do look quite funny the way you're walking away to your left whilst looking back over your right shoulder. It looks like you've just cracked a joke at the bar and then walked away with a little wink.

Above all else, the thing that stands out is that you're not really getting that explosion at the crease. I know you've always said you are more of a roller than a ripper. But, I think you could still do with a little bit more energy. It would probably help with the balance and follow through. There's inconsistency in the line and length and that's because of that position at the crease and follow through. As you know, you want that follow through to be a lot straighter. I had a very similar problem and I found a bit more momentum into the crease kept me on the line I wanted to be on.
 

It's really helpful to see you bowling off the gentle run-up because it is clearer to see what you are doing.

I have to echo CP Dave... your action is looking to me like there is something fundamentally not correct. I think it's your pivoting. Are you powering through the rotation by grinding the left heel into the ground or are you coming up on the toe before delivering the ball?
 
It's really helpful to see you bowling off the gentle run-up because it is clearer to see what you are doing.

I have to echo CP Dave... your action is looking to me like there is something fundamentally not correct. I think it's your pivoting. Are you powering through the rotation by grinding the left heel into the ground or are you coming up on the toe before delivering the ball?

It almost looks like his follow through is going to take him around the stumps and back to his starting position. It's got to be hard to get much fizz on the ball if your momentum isn't heading at the target. In terms of energy and power, it is the same for all bowlers. Any seam bowler who's follow through didn't take him towards the target would not have any pace at all. Obviously, a spin bowler looks to convert a lot of that energy into revs rather than pace through the air. If that energy isn't there, the ball won't have many revs on it. If it is bowled at about 40mph and has very little drift or dip, then a lot of batters will go at it hard. Unfortunately, the only way to combat that is to get the ball coming out at about 45mph-50mph with a decent amount of drift and dip. That means hitting the crease with lots of momentum and following through down the crease.

I reckon Dave could use his front arm a lot more too. He could pull that down a touch later and with a bit more effort.
 
I think though that there's a danger of the horse just running loose, if that makes sense. I think putting in more effort is not complicated. The tricky part is developing technique so that the extra effort is harnessed.
 
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