Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)
- Thread starter Richard the Third
- Start date
Darth Spin
Active Member
Thanks for watching, SLA. Yeah I think you're right I was probably bowling a touch short that night. Possibly related to the run up which might have been a bit long or badly marked out. Bit of both though because the camera makes it looks like they're bouncing halway down, but in reality it's fuller. The other video I made has a different angle, I will try and edit and upload it tonight.
Darth Spin
Active Member
Leg breaks
Leg breaks
Leg breaks
Leg break x2
Around the loop. Sequence is leg break, leg break, top spinner, top spinner, wrong un (fail).
Leg breaks
Leg breaks
Leg break x2
Around the loop. Sequence is leg break, leg break, top spinner, top spinner, wrong un (fail).
Darth Spin
Active Member
Around the loop. Sequence is leg break, top spinner, wrong un (not bad), leg break, top spinner (huge fail), wrong un (success).
Darth Spin
Active Member
Leg breaks from today. There is a 1st team match going on to the right of camera.
Darth Spin
Active Member
My friend Omer was due to bat in the match so I bowled at him for 15 minutes or so. It was a decent duel.
Darth Spin
Active Member
Had my first match as a spinner today. I was given a generous six overs. O6 1M 1W 28R. Wicket was a full one he played forward to tentatively, it had some dip and caught him low on the front pad. Given lbw after a deafening appeal by yours truly. I was overjoyed. I struggled in my last two overs and that took the shine off the figures.
With the bat 18 not out batting at no.8 to help chase 183. We were in trouble at 45-5 but then there was a big partnership. One catch diving forward low down at long on.
With the bat 18 not out batting at no.8 to help chase 183. We were in trouble at 45-5 but then there was a big partnership. One catch diving forward low down at long on.
Hi Darth,
Just taken a look at your videos and the one thing which I recommend you start doing is following through at your target, you're making an effort to follow through properly which is great but as you've seen with the occasional topspinner (which you're dragging down on the offside) if you don't follow through at where you want to land the ball it's real difficult to get any consistency.
The only other thing I can add is that you look like you're not using enough finger action with your wrong'un. Don't be fooled into thinking that bowling it out of the back of your hand is enough. If you look at your videos you'll see that your wrong'un comes out with a very low arm action (which most good batsman will pick easily), by using your fingers more you can disguise the wrong'un better by allowing you to get your arm up to the same angle as your leg break.
If none of that works for you then leave it, your season's just started and you shouldn't do anything that will ruin whatever rhythm you've found.
Darth Spin
Active Member
Hi Leftie, thanks for your feedback I will bear that in mind. I know I need to tone down with the visual clues for my wrong un. I did not try bowling it in the match yesterday as I was very nervous and getting my leg break going was a challenge in itself. I will see if I can get more purchase on it in the nets though and try the higher arm. Eventually I want to be able to bowl it with the wrist in the same starting position as my leg break and then adjust to the wrong un position during run up.
Wayne Shorne
New Member
Hi Guys. I've just taken leg spin up and after hours of practise I can now bowl a ripping leg break from a standing start maybe 7-8 times out of ten. I can feel the wrist, finger, arm pull, rotation and pivot all coming together naturally minus the follow through. But when i do my full run up i can only spin it maybe 1 out of ten. Any suggestions would help?
is the ball coming out noticeably differently? Have you got your run up right do you think?
Wayne Shorne
New Member
My run up of 8 steps itself feels comfortable. But my feeling is that the momentum of the run up is throwing off my full action. Bowling from a stationary position enables me to just spin the ball with ease and worry about nothing else. So yes i feel the wrist finger action is not the same as when i bowl at a stand still.
To some extent, this is the problem with the stand-start drill - its great at teaching you to bowl from a standing start, but that doesn't necessarily translate to being able to bowl from a run up.
You probably have two choices: either bowl from a standing start in games, or abandon the drill altogether and work on your bowling from a run up.
Have you tried walking in instead of running? I walk up and take a little skip at the end to just get the right amount of momentum into the crease. If I run in too hard my bowling stride becomes too long and my action gets stretched out and I lose both revs and control.
Wayne Shorne
New Member
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
Martin, yeah like you 2 years ago I would bowl for hours 2 on the trot and then go back again and have another hour or so. But last year (You may have seen my blog or mention of it on here) my son was involved in a RTA and my attention had to turn to him and his recovery and my family in general. As a result of my son Joe being out of action, 1. I didn't have time and 2. he wasn't around for me to practice with - and running around with a 10 year old helps to keep you fit. I still managed to get several games, but because of the lack of fitness (I reckon) I picked up an injury to my deltoid, that then persisted all summer and each time it started to get slightly better, I'd bowl again and re-damage it. Normally I'd carry on bowling through the winter, but last winter for the first time in 5 years I rested up to see if the deltoid would recover along with a dislocated thumb I picked up in the last game of the season. Thankfully they both have recovered well and since Jan I've been working on my fitness and Joe's back to playing cricket and I'm generally quite fit and looking forward to a new season and have bowled reasonably well of late against batsmen and in practice.
Additionally on reflection, I made an observation that sometimes I would bowl so much, that instead of going forwards I'd hit a wall and not go anywhere and in fact on many occasions it would seem that my bowling would suffer. Then maybe because of bad weather I'd not bowl again for a longer period and on returning I'd go at it again with a fresher more positive outlook and bowl so much better. SLA also mentioned that he bowls only a limited amount of balls as well and I thought that was a good approach as it mirrors the real life situation where you're given the ball and you know you've got 24-36 balls to make an impact with. In addition, there's less of a chance that way of wearing myself out as I am 53 soon and I love bowling and would be gutted to over-do it. I've seen so many blokes (Spinners) around my age that can't bowl anymore because they've screwed their rotator cuffs or damaged their knees. Having said that the last time I had a bowl, it went so well I probably bowled for an hour or so, so at the moment it's dependent on how it goes, but the intention is to bowl 30 balls well. I think if it goes bad, I'm less inclined to watch it go down hill even more, so I come away and go back later or the next day.
The last session I had went exceptionally well, I came round the wicket and every aspect of what I was doing seemed to improve exponentially, more aggression, more speed, more turn - more everything and it seemed to be tied in with a curved approach to the crease and an over-rotation meaning I left following the same curve, which goes against everything anyone says on here!
As yet I've not looked at your vids, I'll have a look now though.
Darth Spin
Active Member
Hi Dave, yes I saw that your son had been injured I'm glad to hear he's recovered. Interesting stuff about bowling around the wicket and over rotation. Maybe it's coincidental and you just bowled particularly well that session? Guess you'll find out if you can repeat it.
I was reading your blog about how to bowl the leg break last night and was interested in the part about three different types: off the finger with no wrist, unfurled wrist, and then full big flick incorporating the elbow and shoulder. And it struck me that I'm not using my elbow and shoulder enough in the leg break, although I do use them more for the top spinner and wrong un. So I think I need to use "all the levers" to get a more consistent leg break going. Does that make sense?
I was reading your blog about how to bowl the leg break last night and was interested in the part about three different types: off the finger with no wrist, unfurled wrist, and then full big flick incorporating the elbow and shoulder. And it struck me that I'm not using my elbow and shoulder enough in the leg break, although I do use them more for the top spinner and wrong un. So I think I need to use "all the levers" to get a more consistent leg break going. Does that make sense?
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
Yeah I think I'm paraphrasing Peter Philpott there. I've been writing another section recently about how much the spin and bounce are improved when you get the whole bowling action together. I go through phases when I get disillusioned about my action and ability to spin the ball with Leg Breaks and I'm not convinced I'm anywhere near any good at bowling Leg Breaks, I've never had anyone say... "Strewth mate the ball really fizzes through the air when you bowl" or "Blimey, you don't half get the ball to drift"! Whereas if I bowl wrong uns with any regularity, things come together in a different way and I'm very aware of the whole body action and the amount of effort that is put through my shoulders, arms, elbows, wrist and fingers! Very different to Leg Breaks. Saturday will be the day of reckoning, I bowled averagely in the Basildon nets wednesday, but I'm no big fan of our clubs nets, very uneven under-foot and it puts me off totally
. I'm looking forward to Saturday as it's my sons first game in a adult league and we're both in the same team... 4th XI, so that's one of my life ambitions realised!
Wayne Shorne
New Member
How on earth do you think about flicking your wrist, have your hand facing yourself and dragging your finger over the seam all at the same time, while trying to do the rest of the bowling fundamentals? To do it meaningfully and consistently I mean, and not just a thing where you get it right by random luck every so often.
Sometimes I get the wrist flick right and forget about the finger rotation, other times the reverse happens. Doing everything in one quick fluent sequence is hard for my brain to do haha. I hope this is just brain training, and it gets easier
Sometimes I get the wrist flick right and forget about the finger rotation, other times the reverse happens. Doing everything in one quick fluent sequence is hard for my brain to do haha. I hope this is just brain training, and it gets easier
Darth Spin
Active Member
I think one of the worst things you can do is to think too much about technical aspects during practice. Did you bowl at all before trying leg spin? I used to be a seamer. At 37 my pace was deserting me, but my action was pretty sound and natural so I found the adjustment to leg spin relatively painless. But the way I learned to bowl the leg break was to take it seriously and start from the ground up. So first I visited Dave's blog and then bought a copy of Philpott's book. Do you have this book? It is the spin bible according to those in the know on here and I would agree with them. It makes learning logical and breaks it down into stages. I would recommend getting a copy, reading it in full about 3 times and then applying stages 1-4 of the eight stages of spin to your own learning regime. There are all sorts of recommendations to people like you struggling for consistency with a leg break. Perhaps the best one is to try bowling underarm, round arm and then overarm. Philpott advises that the brain finds it hard to cope at first bowling overarm, but reverting to round arm or underarm can fix something fundamental and then bowling the same delivery overarm comes more naturally. I found this strategy particularly useful when learning the wrong un.
Another thing to try would be to video your action and post it here? I know it's not appealing to bare all in front of everyone, but someone here might pick up on something basic which you have missed yourself.
Maybe another thing to try is to build up your run up gradually? You say you can get it to turn from the standing start, which is great. So then add 1 step, 2 steps, 3 etc. until you can release it relatively consistently from a full run up?
Stick with it, mate. If you can bowl a leg break once you can bowl it 100 times, 1,000 times, it's just practice, practice and more practice.