Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)

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Cleanprophet said:
That's something you will have to be careful of. You don't want to get into a position where you are not relaxed. You need to keep your expectations in check I think. Just go out there with an open mind and don't expect to nail it straight away. Have the attitude that you are probably not going to get it right but you're going to give it a good go.
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Yeah definitely, the arm thing didn't work straight away and I became frustrated. If I get a chance today I'll go back a step and just do the getting the leading arm hand up around the ears for a start as this isn't a wholly natural thing to do and I still have to think about it, so trying to think about two things as Menno Gazendum says... "
Don't think about it
If you start thinking about it then you know there is a problem.

If you do not have rhythm in your run-up you will know it by the fact that you are actually thinking of what you are doing when you are running up.

Counting your paces, or shuffling to ensure you land right. As soon as this happens you know something is not right.

Have a run-up that is natural to you and makes you forget about what you are doing when you run in.
http://www.pitchvision.com/how-long-should-your-run-up-be#/
 
Absolutely. You want it to be as natural as possible and that means not having to think about anything other than landing the ball in the area you want it to land in.

In training, I think it is different a bit and you can think about things but I think you need to keep it to one thing at a time really. I was at the nets today and was trying to get over that front foot, into the line of the stumps, stay much more upright and pull the front arm at the target. It's just a bit too much. I didn't even bother with the front arm (although it was directed reasonably well when I watched it back). I just focused on the first two things. What I found was that when I got over the front foot, which wasn't often, I tended to drop the left shoulder and when I stayed more upright, I didn't get over the front foot! I could make one thing happen but not both.

I was bowling to a batter today and did get a few balls out pretty well off a full run up. But, as I say, I wasn't getting my movement over that front foot right at all. One thing I noticed was that as my front foot lands, it lands on the heel. That tells me that my weight is too far back. The likes of Warne and MacGill land that front foot on the toes and that tells us their weight is further forward. Pravin Tambe lands flat footed, so he is somewhere inbetween. I think the way I can work on getting that front foot issue sorted is to get onto the toes and not on the heel. Looking back at my old action when I landed my front foot on the same line of my back foot, I can see that I used to land it flat footed and not on the heel. This landing on the heel is something new.

Other than that, I'm quite confident I can get my balance much better at the crease. That should help the dropping of the left shoulder issue.

As for your issues Dave, have you tried just bowling of a step start and/or bowling over a shorter distance? Just slow the action down a bit to give you a bit more time to use that front arm as you are trying to. I always wondered why I had no problems bowling over 14 yards. Having just watched footage back, I can see that over those shorter distances I am landing the front foot almost on the toes, nowhere near the heel. So I know that the balance issues come from the jump into the crease and I know now what I have to do. Bowling over those shorter distances allow you to break things down a bit and focus on really good remedial work.
 
Cleanprophet said:
As for your issues Dave, have you tried just bowling of a step start and/or bowling over a shorter distance? Just slow the action down a bit to give you a bit more time to use that front arm as you are trying to. I always wondered why I had no problems bowling over 14 yards. Having just watched footage back, I can see that over those shorter distances I am landing the front foot almost on the toes, nowhere near the heel. So I know that the balance issues come from the jump into the crease and I know now what I have to do. Bowling over those shorter distances allow you to break things down a bit and focus on really good remedial work.
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I managed to get out for an hour and half today and bowled against my son. I left the arm out of the equation and just looked to get the leading arm in the gather up around my ears again and it worked well. Good accuracy, line and length and a good degree of control over the specific deliveries - when I felt my son was going to come down the wicket I bowled with more overs spin and got the ball to dip more. So overall a good session. I've not looked at the footage yet, but I'm hoping the arm reaching forwards might come together on its own? But for now I'm just going to keep things simple and bowl as I am until it feels wholly natural and I no longer have to think about getting that hand up around my ear. More here.
 
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hi someblokecalleddave someblokecalleddave I think I worked out what it is you are doing a lot... it is a mixture of two things. What I think you are doing is bowling with quite a heavy roundarm style, but combining that with a big lean to the left (of the front foot).

This means it doesn't look so roundarm, but I don't think they go well together!

Mushtaq has a similar lean to the left, but it is largely matched with the bowling arm which comes past the vertical. There is not much difference between the angle of his front foot and bowling arm.

All my instincts are saying that you should try to straighten it out.

Please look at your delivery on your last video around 30 seconds where you have the front foot vertical, and the bowling arm coming over perfectly in line above it, and see how good it looks
 
boogiespinner said:
hi someblokecalleddave someblokecalleddave I think I worked out what it is you are doing a lot... it is a mixture of two things. What I think you are doing is bowling with quite a heavy roundarm style, but combining that with a big lean to the left (of the front foot).

This means it doesn't look so roundarm, but I don't think they go well together!

Mushtaq has a similar lean to the left, but it is largely matched with the bowling arm which comes past the vertical. There is not much difference between the angle of his front foot and bowling arm.

All my instincts are saying that you should try to straighten it out.

Please look at your delivery on your last video around 30 seconds where you have the front foot vertical, and the bowling arm coming over perfectly in line above it, and see how good it looks
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Yeah I'm aware of this, but I'm not at the stage where I'm addressing it yet. Once I've got the current things sorted out, getting up on the toes and twisting at the ankle are on the agenda. Liz Ward mentioned this years ago and was trying to get me to do it, but it never worked that well because there were all sorts of other issues. I know that getting on the toes for some reason puts so much more spin on the ball and when I have focused on doing it the result have been very significant. I bowled 50 consecutive balls today and towards the end I did try it a couple of times as I did in the video you've mentioned, I'll have to have a look and see if it made any difference today?
 
someblokecalleddave said:
Yeah I'm aware of this, but I'm not at the stage where I'm addressing it yet. Once I've got the current things sorted out, getting up on the toes and twisting at the ankle are on the agenda. Liz Ward mentioned this years ago and was trying to get me to do it, but it never worked that well because there were all sorts of other issues. I know that getting on the toes for some reason puts so much more spin on the ball and when I have focused on doing it the result have been very significant. I bowled 50 consecutive balls today and towards the end I did try it a couple of times as I did in the video you've mentioned, I'll have to have a look and see if it made any difference today?
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But Dave I am guessing I am totally with CP here: I would seriously recommend ironing out ALL faults from standing starts / one pace / minimal run-up (off shorter distances if necessary) before increasing to the full run up. Surely the danger is that the more you do something wrong over a full run up, you will be ingraining the 'mistake'. I think it's brilliant that you have determined your full run up so it is comfortable and consistent, that's awesome, but I wouldn't rely exclusively on it for practice. I will always be practising over the shorter stuff until absolutely certain it is mastered, and if that ever happens, then I'll still probably do it anyway so it would stay that way.

Musicians well understand the importance of practice at less than the performance speed of a piece - they will slow it down to the speed at which they can play all the notes perfectly and return to slow practice even when the piece can be played faster: this is how they end up playing the fastest passages smoothly, not by trying to play fast but by always practising under control. I think legspin is much the same and while it is alas not possible to bowl a ball in slow motion we can do shortened runs and distances.
 
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Yes, I agree. Bowling off a standing start or step start (I prefer the step start myself) and over a shorter distance is the way to go. Bowling off the full run up makes it the hardest it can be to get away from bad habits and introduce something new.

That issue of getting up on the toes is something I've started looking at. As I mentioned above, I used to land flat footed and immediately get up on the toes as my weight came foward and I rotated/pivoted. I now land on the heel, something you will never find any spinner do because it is a sure sign that the weight/momentum is not moving foward in the manner is should be. I watched back that side-on footage of Warne's run in and you see that he lands that front foot on the toes or the ball of the foot and never actually touches the ground with his heel at all.
 
I tried getting onto the ball of the foot today and it felt a lot better. Certainly felt more natural. The more I thought about it, if I was landing that front foot on the heel, it was because too much weight was on the back foot and that would lead to me not getting over the front foot fully and leave me releasing the ball a bit too early.

Getting on the toes certainly had me feeling like I was getting much more into the delivery. The release looked pretty good too. However, I still tended to lean a little to the left and drop that left shoulder a little bit too much with the odd ball slipping out of the hand. I'll keep on getting onto the ball of the foot, but I also need to keep working on staying more upright.

I was also speaking to our 1st team captain today and he mentioned that he's good friends with Pravin Tambe and if Tambe comes back to the North West next season (he's played a lot for Rainford CC in recent times), he will get him to come down to our nets to help me out. That would be good. Just to see someone like Tambe bowling in the nets.
 
Cleanprophet said:
I watched back that side-on footage of Warne's run in and you see that he lands that front foot on the toes or the ball of the foot and never actually touches the ground with his heel at all.
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Are you sure? This is an important point for me, my belief has been that that all the top spinners release with their heels grounded. I'm a bit puzzled by the 'get up on the toes' maxim.
 
boogiespinner said:
Are you sure? This is an important point for me, my belief has been that that all the top spinners release with their heels grounded. I'm a bit puzzled by the 'get up on the toes' maxim.
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I don't know why it is, but just getting up on the toes makes the ball spin 'Better'. I've used it as a way to vary my bowling in the past, no up on the toes and the balls a basic leg break, up on the toes and it spins more, turns more and dips, I just didn't have the necessary control over the ball to work with it consistently.
 
attached is the still of Warne I think I might have referred to before. Post-release picture, that left heel looks totally grounded to me. Note that Warne plants at an angle.

source: www.you tube.com/watch?v=96tevBt8jpA
 

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leftie600 said:
The 'get up on your toes' mantra is more a reminder about pivoting and following through with energy, it isn't an end to itself.
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That's how I always thought of it too. It's not something that boogiespinner should over think. I've seen clips of Warne where his whole foot seems to be grounded and other times his heel doesn't quite touch the ground. It's all much of a muchness. Even if his heel does touch the ground, most of the weight is on the ball of his foot (look at the front cover of Philpott's book and that image of Warne). I would suggest that the more weight you have on the heel, the more likely you are to find the ball being released a fraction early. If you are over your toes a lot, I suspect you are likely to produce a few drag downs. It's all about transference of power from the back foot to the front. Just like a golfer's swing. It only has to be off a slight bit to have an impact of significance. This is where you have to play around with your action and see what works for you. I used to land with my whole foot, but I can clearly see that the momentum is keeping most of the weight off that heel:



I'm not up on my toes at the point of release. I'm reasonably flat footed with the weight around the ball of my foot. But then, I'm not bowling with the sort of energy that the likes of Warne bowled with. Compared to Warne, it is quite gentle. I would think Warne's front foot position is largely determined by how hard he is running in and not something that he even thinks about.
 
Cleanprophet said:
Compared to Warne, it is quite gentle. I would think Warne's front foot position is largely determined by how hard he is running in and not something that he even thinks about.
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Well yeah, he's transferring his weight 100% through his action like what a golfer does, this is what all bowling actions should be doing.

However, keeping the heel off the ground with 100% weight transfer for all deliveries puts enormous strain on your foot. Having gone through a number of injuries I do not recommend it at all unless you have a gentle action.
 
leftie600 said:
Well yeah, he's transferring his weight 100% through his action like what a golfer does, this is what all bowling actions should be doing.

However, keeping the heel off the ground with 100% weight transfer for all deliveries puts enormous strain on your foot. Having gone through a number of injuries I do not recommend it at all unless you have a gentle action.
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The main concern I would have about being up on the ball of the foot all the way is balance. If you are leaning a little to the left, you are probably more likely to fall to the left if you are up on your toes.
 
I was doing some more work at the nets yesterday and it was very promising. I was getting onto that front foot much better (not always onto the ball of the foot, sometimes on the flat of the foot). One thing I realised was that I was still releasing the ball a touch too early, hence the ball sliding out of my hand and down the legside. I focused on getting the ball nice and full to ensure I released the ball a little later and get those fingers dragging over the ball. I hardly ever produce drag downs because I tend not to release the ball too late. It's always spot on or too early.

I'll post some clips of the bowling later today. I set up the camera in such a way that you can't quite see the release (I was focusing on watching the approach and feet at the crease), but you can see how the ball reacts off the surface to know there is a good amount of sidespin.



 
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Cleanprophet said:
I was doing some more work at the nets yesterday and it was very promising. I was getting onto that front foot much better (not always onto the ball of the foot, sometimes on the flat of the foot). One thing I realised was that I was still releasing the ball a touch too early, hence the ball sliding out of my hand and down the legside. I focused on getting the ball nice and full to ensure I released the ball a little later and get those fingers dragging over the ball. I hardly ever produce drag downs because I tend not to release the ball too late. It's always spot on or too early.

I'll post some clips of the bowling later today. I set up the camera in such a way that you can't quite see the release (I was focusing on watching the approach and feet at the crease), but you can see how the ball reacts off the surface to know there is a good amount of sidespin.



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Shadows are long, are you getting in straight from work and going over there? I've just checked the weather on XC weather and it looks like I'll be able to have a bowl. On my other blog I've been posting a load of stuff and links relating to getting up on the toes and bracing the leg so I am contemplating introducing that into the bowling action. I suspect it'll initially be wayward, but despite this I may give it a go. These two vids look nice.
 
someblokecalleddave said:
Shadows are long, are you getting in straight from work and going over there? I've just checked the weather on XC weather and it looks like I'll be able to have a bowl. On my other blog I've been posting a load of stuff and links relating to getting up on the toes and bracing the leg so I am contemplating introducing that into the bowling action. I suspect it'll initially be wayward, but despite this I may give it a go. These two vids look nice.
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They were recorded in mid-afternoon (around 2pm). It was a nice warm day on Wednesday as well. I'll probably go up to the nets again today for 30mins or so. There's so many things to think about that it is easy to forget about the basics. Sometimes the best thing you can do is clear your mind and keep to the basics. I was tending to drop short when bowling to the stumps and was only looking at the release from the hand. I should have still been looking to hit a target, like you do Dave with that mat.

When I go down to the nets today, I will have a target on the ground and look to carry on with getting onto that front foot like I have been, staying more upright and aim for that target.

If you are going to look to do that front foot work Dave, then I'd forget all about doing any work with your front arm. If you are going to focus on getting up on your toes and bracing the front leg, then I'd do that and that alone.
 
Cleanprophet said:
They were recorded in mid-afternoon (around 2pm). It was a nice warm day on Wednesday as well. I'll probably go up to the nets again today for 30mins or so. There's so many things to think about that it is easy to forget about the basics. Sometimes the best thing you can do is clear your mind and keep to the basics. I was tending to drop short when bowling to the stumps and was only looking at the release from the hand. I should have still been looking to hit a target, like you do Dave with that mat.

When I go down to the nets today, I will have a target on the ground and look to carry on with getting onto that front foot like I have been, staying more upright and aim for that target.

If you are going to look to do that front foot work Dave, then I'd forget all about doing any work with your front arm. If you are going to focus on getting up on your toes and bracing the front leg, then I'd do that and that alone.
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Okay, I'll see how it goes. I'll need to get the starting point in there with the hand up around the ear. I'm not looking to get the arm reaching out, so hopefully I'll be able to cope with that.
 
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