Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)

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Had some much-needed encouragement today from some of the regulars at the nets who interrupted my practice to ask if they can bat against me. I'm still prone to half trackers and whatnot. Still haven't really settled on a way of bowling a stock ball. But, steady improvement. Going to bowl 300 balls every day this week, let's see how that goes. Make hay while the sun shines.

I'm experimenting with bringing my non-bowling arm back through the full circle, I'm liking this. I'm not sure why it is seeming to help, but it feels smooth.

Feeling my way into a short run up with a hop too. I've been practising throwing a right-handed punch with a short legspin runup, and then memorising the body motion pattern.

Still very roundarm, but I can't seem to feel natural any other way with the legbreak. Maybe this will gradually straighten. Bowling against the edge of the net to correct it isn't much fun so I'm just living with it for now.
 
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Neville Young said:
You must be single or about to be divorced.

Just how long do you take to bowl 500 balls?
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I take about 10 balls to the nets (used to be as many as 20) and probably bowl about 6 or 7 sets, so 60 or 70 deliveries. That takes me 20mins plus. It must be a couple of hours to bowl 500. For me, the equivalent of 10 overs is sufficient. You have to watch for fatigue. If you feel a little tired, your action won't be as tight and you could end up doing more harm than good. I think solid and intense bowling sessions are more productive. Quality over quantity I'd say.
 
Cleanprophet said:
I take about 10 balls to the nets (used to be as many as 20) and probably bowl about 6 or 7 sets, so 60 or 70 deliveries. That takes me 20mins plus. It must be a couple of hours to bowl 500. For me, the equivalent of 10 overs is sufficient. You have to watch for fatigue. If you feel a little tired, your action won't be as tight and you could end up doing more harm than good. I think solid and intense bowling sessions are more productive. Quality over quantity I'd say.
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Do you not find it difficult maintaining consistency bowling with so many different balls, that all have a different feel in the hand? Whenever a ball is lost in a game, it takes me a couple of deliveries to find the right grip and release point for the new ball.
 
Neville Young said:
You must be single or about to be divorced.

Just how long do you take to bowl 500 balls?
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Well I didn't time precisely, but today I bowled ~ 480 balls, and it must have been around 45- 50mins, I was back home in 1 hour 20 mins and it takes about 17 min to walk to the nets.

My bag has 32 balls in it and I did 15 bags, one pace, off a shortened distance. Not thinking about anything too much. Just going for spin. I generally pick up three at a time.
 
boogiespinner said:
Well I didn't time precisely, but today I bowled ~ 480 balls, and it must have been around 45- 50mins, I was back home in 1 hour 20 mins and it takes about 17 min to walk to the nets.

My bag has 32 balls in it and I did 15 bags, one pace, off a shortened distance. Not thinking about anything too much. Just going for spin. I generally pick up three at a time.
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Would it not be far more beneficial to do a fraction of that number, but do it properly, with 6 balls that are in similar condition (not cheap plastic ones or old balls looking like they've been chewed by a dog) a proper run-up and working on bowling a good over with subtle variations from ball to ball? Try to pitch every ball on a line and length.

If you just want to practice releasing the ball with different types of spin, just prop your pillows up on your bed (when your missus isn't sleeping in it) and bowl into it from on one knee.
 
boogiespinner said:
Well I didn't time precisely, but today I bowled ~ 480 balls, and it must have been around 45- 50mins, I was back home in 1 hour 20 mins and it takes about 17 min to walk to the nets.
My bag has 32 balls in it and I did 15 bags, one pace, off a shortened distance. Not thinking about anything too much. Just going for spin. I generally pick up three at a time.
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I have to agree with SLA and Cleanprophet. You would develop and improve your skills much better practicing differently.
With a shortened run up and bowling a ball every 6.25 seconds (assuming 50 min practice) I can't believe that you are getting the most out of your time.
Basically people play as they train. The better your training sessions simulate real match conditions, the better you will perform in a game.
If you practice one method and then have to employ a different method during the game you won't be getting the best out of your training efforts.
They say that muscle memory takes about 5,000 repetitions before you perform the task automatically. In 10 days of your current training you will have trained yourself to perform differently than you should during a match.
I must say I admire your efforts, but believe that you need to train smarter to fully develop your skills.

As Cleanprophet mentioned quality over quantity.
 
Neville Young said:
I have to agree with SLA and Cleanprophet. You would develop and improve your skills much better practicing differently.
With a shortened run up and bowling a ball every 6.25 seconds (assuming 50 min practice) I can't believe that you are getting the most out of your time.
Basically people play as they train. The better your training sessions simulate real match conditions, the better you will perform in a game.
If you practice one method and then have to employ a different method during the game you won't be getting the best out of your training efforts.
They say that muscle memory takes about 5,000 repetitions before you perform the task automatically. In 10 days of your current training you will have trained yourself to perform differently than you should during a match.
I must say I admire your efforts, but believe that you need to train smarter to fully develop your skills.

As Cleanprophet mentioned quality over quantity.
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I agree 100%. I just worked out 6.25 seconds per ball only to then read your reply (should have read on and saved myself the maths!). Remember, he has to collect the balls and take them back to bowl again, so we're looking more like 5 second per delivery. It's machine gun practice! You're spot on. You have to practice exactly as if it were a match and you would never ever bowl an over quicker than 1 minute.

I think I sometimes get through 60-70 balls too quickly and I'm probably taking 10-15 second per delivery (in fairness, it probably is too quick).

If boogiespinner thinks this is the best way for him to practice, fair enough. I know that I definitely could not deliver 480 decent, full effort deliveries in 50 mins. Not even close. I'd be there 2 hours for sure.

Incidently, I've been using a longer and more pacey run up for when I bowl on super slow pudding pitches. I started doing it a year or so ago (thinking about a Derek Underwood seam type run up). When you see Rashid Khan, who really does run hard into the crease and bowls it fast and flat (often about 100kph/60mph), you can see the merits of that style of legspin. I've used it a few times in a match to good effect. Batters don't quite know what to do. You can land it short of a normal length because it is quicker and flatter and so always top of stumps or lower. They struggle to get to the pitch of the ball and can't play comfortably on the back foot. I mention this mainly because the thought of bowling 480 of those in the nets makes me feeling like passing out! It's hard work and tough on the shoulder.
 
Being a Table Tennis player I can say that I am familiar with Syed's ideas, without having read his book. They form a significant foundation in Table Tennis coaching and training. One thing that all the coaches I have talked to have stressed is that unless you are practicing the technique that you will use in a game then the practice isn't going to be useful.
I think it was last year that Ashwin bowled the greatest number of balls in a season which from memory was about 4,000. You will bowl that many in 8 days. Look after your shoulder!
 
Well of course the idea is repetition of a complex skill. Imagine golf, say. I don't know much about golf, but I'd imagine that a training day for a pro might well involve hundreds of shots on a driving range. Similarly for tennis, I'd imagine hundreds of forehands, and hundreds of backhands. I don't think competency in any of those is going to be achieved without thousands upon thousands, maybe even millions, of repetitions. Swimmers spend several hours in a pool most days grooving their strokes.

Legspin bowling is of course pretty damn complex and hard to control so how can one get in those repetitions?
Limitations are really practice time /availability and essentially how much stress the body can take.

So my strategy is to bowl off one pace, shortened distance, 'machine gun' as CP says, and at sub-maximal effort.

I am far from having mastered that. 100 deliveries feels like just warming up. And still some deliveries are hitting the side netting (mostly with the googlies).

I don't agree that one has to practice exactly as in the match situation: this is certainly not the case in music, where it is absolutely correct to slow down the practice to the point where it can be practiced perfectly, and break it down say into separate hand practice (I play piano).

Spinning a ball hand-to-hand is surely no bad thing to master? But in a match, one cannot bowl a ball by spinning it from your right to your left.

The point is taken about looking after the shoulder, I think I have found a certain limit as my shoulder does feel a little worked over right now.
 
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A nice feature about a very short delay between one ball and the next is that if you do something whether accidentally or by design which finds extra zip, or turn, or whatever interesting result, it's as fresh as possible in your mind to explore with the next practice delivery.
 
Repetition doesn't make you better. Repetition ingrains habits and builds muscle memory. But it works both ways: Repetition of sloppy or technically sub-optimal actions ingrains sloppiness and makes it harder to remove sub-optimal techniques from your muscle memory.

Far from getting better, repeating poor habits like rushing through deliveries and bowling them into the side net will ingrain them and actively make you worse.
 
boogiespinner said:
I don't agree that one has to practice exactly as in the match situation: this is certainly not the case in music, where it is absolutely correct to slow down the practice to the point where it can be practiced perfectly, and break it down say into separate hand practice (I play piano).

Spinning a ball hand-to-hand is surely no bad thing to master? But in a match, one cannot bowl a ball by spinning it from your right to your left.

The point is taken about looking after the shoulder, I think I have found a certain limit as my shoulder does feel a little worked over right now.
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Slowing down won't effect the accuracy of your playing, that's assuming you don't practice playing the wrong notes. But you aren't slowing down during your bowling, you are speeding things up. Would you simply speed up your piano playing and accept a couple of wrong notes every bar to improve your playing?
As far as shoulders go I hope you are right handed like me. During the last season I played cricket I decided I needed to became fitter to compete with my team mates who were on average 30 years younger than me. I took up swimming and after about 6 weeks was doing about 60 laps 5 mornings a week. I did become far fitter.
I was also playing Pennant Table Tennis.
One night I woke up and thought I was having a heart attack. Only trouble was it was on the right side not the left. After telling my wife and then getting up I realised that the center of pain was actually in my shoulder, it felt like someone had pushed an ice pick into my shoulder. I took some pain killers and went back to bed. If I had have been left handed I would have rung for an ambulance!
I went to see the Doctor the next day to be eventually told that I had over stressed my shoulder. He recommended that I give up either swimming, cricket or table tennis or the lot if I didn't want a shoulder reconstruction.
Swimming went, it was by far the most boring thing I had ever done, cricket went because I only took up swimming to extend my playing time and I reasoned that at some time over the next couple of seasons I would have finished up anyway. I took 2 months off table tennis to avoid a cortisone injection into the shoulder after hearing what could happen if the injection wasn't done accurately (it involves dissolving ligaments and ends full use of your shoulder for good).
Since then it has been OK, but if I practice too hard I notice it.

If you notice it, reduce or stop for a while till it recovers and then take things slowly.
 
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Neville Young said:
One night I woke up and thought I was having a heart attack. Only trouble was it was on the right side not the left. After telling my wife and then getting up I realised that the center of pain was actually in my shoulder, it felt like someone had pushed an ice pick into my shoulder. I took some pain killers and went back to bed. If I had have been left handed I would have rung for an ambulance!
I went to see the Doctor the next day to be eventually told that I had over stressed my shoulder. He recommended that I give up either swimming, cricket or table tennis or the lot if I didn't want a shoulder reconstruction.
Swimming went, it was by far the most boring thing I had ever done, cricket went because I only took up swimming to extend my playing time and I reasoned that at some time over the next couple of seasons I would have finished up anyway. I took 2 months off table tennis to avoid a cortisone injection into the shoulder after hearing what could happen if the injection wasn't done accurately (it involves dissolving ligaments and ends full use of your shoulder for good).
Since then it has been OK, but if I practice too hard I notice it.

If you notice it, reduce or stop for a while till it recovers and then take things slowly.
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I have already learned the lesson on the shoulder. Am very pleased to report that after three years after I overdid things and then failed to rest properly, I can throw in hard from the boundary again.

Have you come across grounding? Here's a couple of papers. I sleep on a grounded sheet, but you can ground yourself by going barefoot for half an hour a day. One might dismiss the idea as hippy woo but it actually has a scientific basis. I totally recommend this for any inflammatory issues. I avoid any drugs from the quack even painkillers nowadays.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25848315
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26443876
 
boogiespinner said:
I have already learned the lesson on the shoulder. Am very pleased to report that after three years after I overdid things and then failed to rest properly, I can throw in hard from the boundary again.

Have you come across grounding? Here's a couple of papers. I sleep on a grounded sheet, but you can ground yourself by going barefoot for half an hour a day. One might dismiss the idea as hippy woo but it actually has a scientific basis. I totally recommend this for any inflammatory issues. I avoid any drugs from the quack even painkillers nowadays.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25848315
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26443876
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I had many problems when I was younger with my shoulder. Caused headaches, struggling to move after sleeping and warming up for a bowling session was excruciating.

I'm not entirely sure how much grounding comes into it (I spend the majority of time at home barefoot) but I completely agree about avoiding drugs. The only way I got over the pain was properly stretching before bowling, properly icing after bowling and keeping the joint warm (apart from the icing of course). I also found that bowling accurately, rather than pushing myself to bowl variations stopped stress on the shoulder.
 
Skill acquisition is the process of building a series of small improvements into your muscle memory over a long time-frame.

You take a particular technique, such as a bowling action, identify one single aspect that can be improved, and then consciously do that thing differently for a number of reps. After anywhere between 100 or 1000 reps, that new movement should be ingrained into your muscle memory and you can stop thinking about it. You then move on to the next improvement, and gradually your action improves.

So far, so simple. However, the tricky part of coaching is identifying which parts of a bowlers action are problems that could be improved, which are problems that can't be improved without fixing a different, more fundamental problem first, and which are harmless idiosyncrasies that aren't worth worrying about. Trying to fix the wrong problem, or the right problem but in the wrong order, can easily lead to a loss of performance and confidence. A professional coach, after a long period of observation and discussion, should be able to help you identify which problems to try to attempt to fix, and in what order.

Simply bowling endlessly in the hope that repetition will magically bring improvements is a fundamental misunderstanding of how skill acquisition comes about.
 
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