Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)

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Had an organised net session at our club tonight, first time I've bowled at team mates in a while and some of them the first time ever. We only have one lane so pretty busy. I batted first and approached it like it was a match. Nobody hit my stumps, I kept the ball down for the most part. I was pretty happy with that. I want to get more runs but am batting number 10 or 11 most of the time, I do have 5 not outs to my name but only 14 runs from 8 innings. When I've been given a chance further up the order, I haven't taken it. I think my batting is slowly improving although I struggle against anything approaching genuine pace in a match situation. I'd love to get a go at someone awful bowling dollies and get a score.

With the ball I tried a fair few googlies, one of them bowled a right hander trying to sweep it. Time to bowl them in a match more? They look hideous and go for runs if I get them wrong, but I think I'll try and work them in if the situation allows. Most of them were decent and not picked.

Afterwards, I went to a different net and bowled for an hour and a half on my own. It felt really good, I carried on until my legs couldn't take any more as I like to capitalise and bowl for as long as possible when I'm bowling well in the nets. I worked on getting side on rhythmically and relaxed, then exploding through the delivery. Then bowled a load of flippers, googlies and what I call in inverted commas my "slider" which is a cross-seam back spinner, which I can get to go straight on most of the time. This ball has a high chance of hitting the stumps, I also want to work this one into matches more. I think it actually might be more consistent and easier to bowl than the flipper, there's certainly not much in it.

Now I need to rest until the match on Saturday, unless it's canceled. Sunday's friendly looks to be in doubt with 7 players available so far.
 
Leggy88 said:
On a side note, I've had a pretty good offseason so far, with the preseason coming up soon and the real season beginning in just over 3 months time. I'd particularly like to have my flipper down pat before then, all the other variations are going strong apart from the flipper at the moment. Just need to practice it more I think, because I've only been bowling the flipper around once a week, for a max of 30 balls per session. Additionally, I've been bowling to some of my mates using Philpott's round the loop theory, it's going to be a real weapon for me in the season. I always set them up with a few topspinners and overspun legbreaks, then slide in the big sidespinner and they are caught in no mans land because they expect the ball to bounce shorter and higher. I think that will be my main tactic for getting most batsmen out from now on, that and doing the opposite (so starting with the sidespinners instead).
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Do you practice your flipper hand to hand at home? Two things really helped with mine - hand to hand practice and regular press ups.
 
Darth Spin said:
Do you practice your flipper hand to hand at home? Two things really helped with mine - hand to hand practice and regular press ups.
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Yeah, I try and do hand to hand practice once every two days or so, as I get better at it I've found the flipper comes out with more backspin revs, at least hand to hand. Also, when I do bowl the flipper though, it has around 80% backspin and 20% offspin, as it is really hard to get your hand in the right position for full backspin. I don't think this is a bad thing as a little bit of cut in off the surface could be very helpful, especially when batters are trying to cut you.
 
Darth Spin said:
Had an organised net session at our club tonight, first time I've bowled at team mates in a while and some of them the first time ever. We only have one lane so pretty busy. I batted first and approached it like it was a match. Nobody hit my stumps, I kept the ball down for the most part. I was pretty happy with that. I want to get more runs but am batting number 10 or 11 most of the time, I do have 5 not outs to my name but only 14 runs from 8 innings. When I've been given a chance further up the order, I haven't taken it. I think my batting is slowly improving although I struggle against anything approaching genuine pace in a match situation. I'd love to get a go at someone awful bowling dollies and get a score.

With the ball I tried a fair few googlies, one of them bowled a right hander trying to sweep it. Time to bowl them in a match more? They look hideous and go for runs if I get them wrong, but I think I'll try and work them in if the situation allows. Most of them were decent and not picked.

Afterwards, I went to a different net and bowled for an hour and a half on my own. It felt really good, I carried on until my legs couldn't take any more as I like to capitalise and bowl for as long as possible when I'm bowling well in the nets. I worked on getting side on rhythmically and relaxed, then exploding through the delivery. Then bowled a load of flippers, googlies and what I call in inverted commas my "slider" which is a cross-seam back spinner, which I can get to go straight on most of the time. This ball has a high chance of hitting the stumps, I also want to work this one into matches more. I think it actually might be more consistent and easier to bowl than the flipper, there's certainly not much in it.

Now I need to rest until the match on Saturday, unless it's canceled. Sunday's friendly looks to be in doubt with 7 players available so far.
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Yeah, I find most batsmen don't watch the hand much and just play off the surface so the googly could be a great weapon. Also, do your googlies turn more than your leggies by any chance?

PS: On a related note, Rehan Ahmed is in the English test squad, and he has a googly that turns more than his leggy, of which he uses scarcely. Really hope he gets a game, would love to watch him bowl. However I reckon if he can develop his leggy more and make it as potent as his wrongun he will become an absolute weapon.
 
Leggy88 said:
Yeah, I try and do hand to hand practice once every two days or so, as I get better at it I've found the flipper comes out with more backspin revs, at least hand to hand. Also, when I do bowl the flipper though, it has around 80% backspin and 20% offspin, as it is really hard to get your hand in the right position for full backspin. I don't think this is a bad thing as a little bit of cut in off the surface could be very helpful, especially when batters are trying to cut you.
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My flipper used to have some offspin, but through regular practice of it I've now got it going straight say 8 or 9 times out of 10. The odd one will break a little like a skiddy off break.

Leggy88 said:
Yeah, I find most batsmen don't watch the hand much and just play off the surface so the googly could be a great weapon. Also, do your googlies turn more than your leggies by any chance?
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If I practice it enough then yeah I find it easier to get big side spin on a googly than with a leg break.
 
I had a league match today, 40 overs. Our captain won the toss and, having saw us bowl the opposition out cheaply the week before, elected to bowl. It rained pretty much all match after the first 10 overs. We came off for a bit, then went back out and just played through the drizzle for the rest of the game. They had a left-handed ringer opening for them who whacked everyone (he also took 6 wickets with left arm off-spin around the wicket). Their openers had put on about 110 from 14 overs when I was given the ball from the end I would have chosen to bowl from, so happy with the end I was given. It took me two overs to settle down, the second over was expensive with a couple of fours from the left hander. The third over was good and tight. After that I gradually got into some rhythm and tried to suss out the two openers and how to break this massive partnership, although the bad balls were still being put away by the left hander. I got him under control by bowling outside his off stump, when I did that he was only able to get singles by hitting it down to long off so my strategy was to bowl like that to him and get him off strike.

The other opener (right hander) I fancied my chances against, he was good at playing me off the back foot but when I drew him forward he was unconvincing, played and missed a lot and started hitting airy shots. Before my 7th over I was fielding at square leg and I dropped him off our off spinner, easy so I should have taken it. Then in the last ball of my 7th over I got him caught and bowled. So finally a new bat was in, right hander. I kept the left hander off strike with my long off strategy and I also had him dropped at long off when he tried to go big. With the right hander, I fancied my chances again but he was dropped (easy chance) at square leg by the captain. That was the end of my 9 over spell. I was happy to recover from the early bad over, get some control and eek out a wicket. Should have had two, but I was owed a drop because I put one down myself.

After that, one of the openers came back on (tall medium pacer) and she finally bowled the left hander when he was on 130 with the first ball of her second spell. She then took three more quick wickets to complete a nice little four wicket haul for herself. They finished 223-5 from their 40 overs.

We chased okay but wickets fell too regularly. I was out for 5, played forward to the left handed off-spinner when I shouldn't have and it bowled me. We finished 141 all out, it's a respectable total for our second team.

I'm not sure what my figures were but would guess at something like 9 overs 0 maidens 43 runs 1 wicket
 
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Slightly different with off spin maybe given I probably don’t get as many revs on the ball but do any of you find that you don’t get as much turn with a white ball than a red one?

The A grade comp in my region has just changed to using white balls and coloured kit for the 1 day comp. Which pretty cool, but I just had a pretty good net session that I was getting the ball to turn in a fair bit on syntho. But as soon as I tried some of the white balls we had I couldn’t really get it to turn a whole lot. I could get it to drift and dip but no turn.

I was bowling around the wicket to a right hander (he sticks the big front dog out and plays around his pad so I try and turn it back and get him plumb in front) though so maybe the angle made it harder for the ball to turn back. Not sure though.
 
Darth Spin said:
I had a league match today, 40 overs. Our captain won the toss and, having saw us bowl the opposition out cheaply the week before, elected to bowl. It rained pretty much all match after the first 10 overs. We came off for a bit, then went back out and just played through the drizzle for the rest of the game. They had a left-handed ringer opening for them who whacked everyone (he also took 6 wickets with left arm off-spin around the wicket). Their openers had put on about 110 from 14 overs when I was given the ball from the end I would have chosen to bowl from, so happy with the end I was given. It took me two overs to settle down, the second over was expensive with a couple of fours from the left hander. The third over was good and tight. After that I gradually got into some rhythm and tried to suss out the two openers and how to break this massive partnership, although the bad balls were still being put away by the left hander. I got him under control by bowling outside his off stump, when I did that he was only able to get singles by hitting it down to long off so my strategy was to bowl like that to him and get him off strike.

The other opener (right hander) I fancied my chances against, he was good at playing me off the back foot but when I drew him forward he was unconvincing, played and missed a lot and started hitting airy shots. Before my 7th over I was fielding at square leg and I dropped him off our off spinner, easy so I should have taken it. Then in the last ball of my 7th over I got him caught and bowled. So finally a new bat was in, right hander. I kept the left hander off strike with my long off strategy and I also had him dropped at long off when he tried to go big. With the right hander, I fancied my chances again but he was dropped (easy chance) at square leg by the captain. That was the end of my 9 over spell. I was happy to recover from the early bad over, get some control and eek out a wicket. Should have had two, but I was owed a drop because I put one down myself.

After that, one of the openers came back on (tall medium pacer) and she finally bowled the left hander when he was on 130 with the first ball of her second spell. She then took three more quick wickets to complete a nice little four wicket haul for herself. They finished 223-5 from their 40 overs.

We chased okay but wickets fell too regularly. I was out for 5, played forward to the left handed off-spinner when I shouldn't have and it bowled me. We finished 141 all out, it's a respectable total for our second team.

I'm not sure what my figures were but would guess at something like 9 overs 0 maidens 43 runs 1 wicket
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Damn, if only your team took more catches, you would have taken bags of wickets in virtually every game!
 
doc8176 said:
Slightly different with off spin maybe given I probably don’t get as many revs on the ball but do any of you find that you don’t get as much turn with a white ball than a red one?

The A grade comp in my region has just changed to using white balls and coloured kit for the 1 day comp. Which pretty cool, but I just had a pretty good net session that I was getting the ball to turn in a fair bit on syntho. But as soon as I tried some of the white balls we had I couldn’t really get it to turn a whole lot. I could get it to drift and dip but no turn.

I was bowling around the wicket to a right hander (he sticks the big front dog out and plays around his pad so I try and turn it back and get him plumb in front) though so maybe the angle made it harder for the ball to turn back. Not sure though.
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Well yeah I've actually found that the white ball drifts and dips more for some reason but doesn't turn as much? Maybe it's just easier to see drift and dip with the white ball? Maybe the white ball is softer and on the hard, syntho pitches it can't grip as much? But out of all these theories I think the difference between turn in the white and red balls is the seam - red balls have a much harder, larger seam so will spin and grip more.
 
Leggy88 said:
Well yeah I've actually found that the white ball drifts and dips more for some reason but doesn't turn as much? Maybe it's just easier to see drift and dip with the white ball? Maybe the white ball is softer and on the hard, syntho pitches it can't grip as much? But out of all these theories I think the difference between turn in the white and red balls is the seam - red balls have a much harder, larger seam so will spin and grip more.
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I think the seam would be a pretty key part of it yeah.

Also the fact that red balls are dyed and white balls are actually painted, they have a smoother surface that’d make them skid on more.
 
Leggy88 said:
I play U18s and have been lucky that around 80% of catches off my bowling are taken, its a pretty high standard of cricket.
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Yeah I should be playing As this season so here’s to hoping I get some more of my chances taken.

I reckon I had more dropped off my bowling than taken last season lol.

Also I much more enjoy bowling to batsmen that respect good balls and put away bad ones because there’s much more of an actual battle rather than just hoping he skies one
 
doc8176 said:
Yeah I should be playing As this season so here’s to hoping I get some more of my chances taken.

I reckon I had more dropped off my bowling than taken last season lol.

Also I much more enjoy bowling to batsmen that respect good balls and put away bad ones because there’s much more of an actual battle rather than just hoping he skies one
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Yeah true, that's when you can actually get the cool wickets like edging to slip and stuff instead of just getting catches at long on.
 
Yesterday was a total washout. No game due to heavy rain.

Had a bad experience in a friendly today, an away game. We were bowling first and there was a fierce headwind from the end I was bowling into. They were four wickets down and two heavy hitters were in, one I knew the other I didn't. Anyway they were smacking me around as the ball held up in the wind. No matter what I did it just didn't work, tried pushing them through quicker but the last ball of third over went for a massive six. I'd gone for 30 runs from three overs, something like that.

At the end of that over, I noticed one of my team mates shaking his head a lot, hystrionics and that kind of thing. He was pissed off. I said "what's up"? He said "I'm trying to get you taken off. I don't mean to be rude, like". I said "that's pretty rude". He just wandered back to the boundary where he was fielding for the next over.

Anyway, during the next over I'm fielding and thinking to myself "f**k this. I don't wanna play a friendly where my teammates are trying to talk the captain into taking me off, no matter how badly I'm bowling". I was actually really happy with my line and length, I don't think there's much more I could have done. I didn't mind being taken off (the third over was my last), but a team mate having a strop, shaking his head at me and telling me to my face he was trying to get me taken off crossed a line for me. During that over a wicket fell. I ran off the pitch, grabbed my gear, paid my match fee and left.
 
Darth Spin said:
Yesterday was a total washout. No game due to heavy rain.

Had a bad experience in a friendly today, an away game. We were bowling first and there was a fierce headwind from the end I was bowling into. They were four wickets down and two heavy hitters were in, one I knew the other I didn't. Anyway they were smacking me around as the ball held up in the wind. No matter what I did it just didn't work, tried pushing them through quicker but the last ball of third over went for a massive six. I'd gone for 30 runs from three overs, something like that.

At the end of that over, I noticed one of my team mates shaking his head a lot, hystrionics and that kind of thing. He was pissed off. I said "what's up"? He said "I'm trying to get you taken off. I don't mean to be rude, like". I said "that's pretty rude". He just wandered back to the boundary where he was fielding for the next over.

Anyway, during the next over I'm fielding and thinking to myself "f**k this. I don't wanna play a friendly where my teammates are trying to talk the captain into taking me off, no matter how badly I'm bowling". I was actually really happy with my line and length, I don't think there's much more I could have done. I didn't mind being taken off (the third over was my last), but a team mate having a strop, shaking his head at me and telling me to my face he was trying to get me taken off crossed a line for me. During that over a wicket fell. I ran off the pitch, grabbed my gear, paid my match fee and left.
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Yeah that’s super rude.

Imo if there’s a strong wind the end you bowl from matters so much as a spinner.

I will battle with my captain to not bowl from an end with a breeze towards cow corner square leg. Especially considering I’m an off spinner, having a breeze carrying the ball over cow corner makes it impossible for me to do much. Thankfully there’s a bunch of blokes in the team that understand and I can usually wrangle to bowl from the side that’s blowing towards point/cover.

I’ve gotten a lot of catches taken off my bowling at cow corner because of people hitting into the wind.

I haven’t played against many people that can successfully hit down the ground, but if I did I would probably ask to be put on from the other end.

Although the head wind should provide extra drift and dip.

But I still think the end the captain puts you on matters hugely to your success that match.
 
doc8176 said:
Yeah that’s super rude.

Imo if there’s a strong wind the end you bowl from matters so much as a spinner.

I will battle with my captain to not bowl from an end with a breeze towards cow corner square leg. Especially considering I’m an off spinner, having a breeze carrying the ball over cow corner makes it impossible for me to do much. Thankfully there’s a bunch of blokes in the team that understand and I can usually wrangle to bowl from the side that’s blowing towards point/cover.

I’ve gotten a lot of catches taken off my bowling at cow corner because of people hitting into the wind.

I haven’t played against many people that can successfully hit down the ground, but if I did I would probably ask to be put on from the other end.

Although the head wind should provide extra drift and dip.

But I still think the end the captain puts you on matters hugely to your success that match.
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Thanks for your reply mate.

I don't know if I've done the right thing and am being too precious. I guess he was honest, at least, but I felt like shit after that and didn't want to be there.
 
Darth Spin said:
Thanks for your reply mate.

I don't know if I've done the right thing and am being too precious. I guess he was honest, at least, but I felt like shit after that and didn't want to be there.
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I think he was probably right if we’re being fair. While you were bowling well, the wind was not making it easy for you and you were going for a lot of runs.

I think saying “spin isn’t working from this end”, “might want to try something else” would be a lot better than “I’m trying to get you taken off”

Idk getting dragged when you’re bowling well is shit and I don’t blame you for being pissed off by that remark.
 
doc8176 said:
I think he was probably right if we’re being fair. While you were bowling well, the wind was not making it easy for you and you were going for a lot of runs.

I think saying “spin isn’t working from this end”, “might want to try something else” would be a lot better than “I’m trying to get you taken off”

Idk getting dragged when you’re bowling well is shit and I don’t blame you for being pissed off by that remark.
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It was definitely right to take me off.

It's not the first time he's been involved in something like that, though. Earlier in the season, he was captain and put me onto bowl. The first over i took a wicket, the second over went for a couple of fours and he took me off.

I just don't think he's a fan of my bowling.
 
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