Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)

Top Contributors
That's the thing, a flipper is just a straight ball designed to look like a leg break out of the hand. If it doesn't look like a leg break out of the hand... its just a straight ball...
 
Cleanprophet said:
You're spot on Liz. My GL Medius is very well developed (almost certainly due to the many, many hours of bowling leg spin). Actually, the GL Medius is well developed on both sides. Would both the left and right develop beyond normal size from bowling spin?
Click to expand...
Unlikely to strengthen them unless they already have a good strength base Cp... then the more you bowl, using these muscles correctly, the more they will both strengthen. I am getting a good picture of you and suspect you are built more of white meat than red... sounds like you would have made a good rugby player!! It does not sound like you spent much of your life sitting down. :D
 
Spin Lizard said:
Is what it looks like coming out of your hand that is more important, not so much the spin down this end. If I was batting and you bowled this at me, I would not be thinking 'oh thats his legspinner, its going to turn away'. Thats what you should want me thinking though.

The thumb goes at the bottom, stays at the bottom. It should look to the batsman like your hand is ripping over the top as per normal legspin, but the thumb at the bottom flicks it out.


just after his thumb has 'clicked':
Click to expand...

That is all true, but you must have a better screen and resolution than me because I cant see what Darthspins hand is doing from those clips.

But if you are picking up that it doesn't look a lot like his normal legbreak and more like an off break action or something else than he needs to do a lot more work before introducing it to anyone other than us.
 
I think the arm comes over at a similar angle to the leg break. The run up and bound is similar. Admittedly the hand needs some work or they wouldn't keep coming out with a touch of offspin on, but I don't think players at the level I'm playing at watch the hand very much, especially in a match situation. If I seldom bowl it it should be okay. My ideal over when I'm bowling well would be 4xleggie, wrong un and then finish on a flipper. I reckon that would be enough to suss out most batsmen at club level. Not every over, obviously, as most will be 6xleggie with maybe the odd wrong thrown in.
 
Darth Spin said:
I think the arm comes over at a similar angle to the leg break. The run up and bound is similar. Admittedly the hand needs some work or they wouldn't keep coming out with a touch of offspin on, but I don't think players at the level I'm playing at watch the hand very much, especially in a match situation. If I seldom bowl it it should be okay. My ideal over when I'm bowling well would be 4xleggie, wrong un and then finish on a flipper. I reckon that would be enough to suss out most batsmen at club level. Not every over, obviously, as most will be 6xleggie with maybe the odd wrong thrown in.
Click to expand...

Its a perfectly good variation but for accuracy's sake I would describe it as "a quick flat offbreak" rather than as a flipper. A flipper is delivered from a pronated arm position.
 
Liz Ward said:
Unlikely to strengthen them unless they already have a good strength base Cp... then the more you bowl, using these muscles correctly, the more they will both strengthen. I am getting a good picture of you and suspect you are built more of white meat than red... sounds like you would have made a good rugby player!! It does not sound like you spent much of your life sitting down. :D
Click to expand...

:D

You're spot on again. I would be described as someone built for rugby, that's for sure.

Incidently, the shoulder is feeling a lot better. I've bowled at full pace a few times now and even had a couple of long stints in the nets. All with no reaction during or afterwards. The shoulder isn't 100%. But it is good enough to bowl and getting better all the time. I've been doing lots of shoulder strengthening work as well to strengthen the shoulder as a whole too.
 
Last edited:
SLA said:
Its a perfectly good variation but for accuracy's sake I would describe it as "a quick flat offbreak" rather than as a flipper. A flipper is delivered from a pronated arm position.
Click to expand...

Well, that is the key. The delivery has to look like a legspinner as much as it possibly can. When I've tried the normal backspinning legspinner I've not been able to cock the wrist so it is very easy to pick. That's why I ditched it. I didn't want to spend the time fixing it.

With the offbreak flipper I have no such problem. In fact, if anything, my wrist is cocked more for the offbreak flipper than it is for my legspinner.

I've just got back from an hours worth of bowling to a batter in the nets today and I tried the offbreak flipper a few times. I was very happy with it. Watching the video back afterwards I can see that I was getting the seam in the correct position but it wasn't turning big, just enough to straighten and, now and then, take the inside edge of the bat. The most pleasing thing for me was that I was getting the ball on a good line and length everytime. I just need to work on giving the ball a bit more of a flick to get a few more revs on it.

I've got my first match next Sunday (just a little friendly against our 3rd team). If I use the offbreak flipper, it will probably only be once or twice just to let the batter know I can turn the ball back into him. Unless I can improve it a lot more, it will only be a delivery to make the batter think twice about balls just outside off-stump. Not really a wicket taking delivery.
 
Here are the edited highlights from today's practice session. I tried to add 2 steps to my run up for all of my variations.

First some leg breaks, I thought I finished on a wrong un but apparently not. The wrong un is on the one minute mark. Is it easy/hard to pick?



A wrong un.



1 x leg break, 1 x wrong un.



Is this the holy grail, a backspinning flipper with no offspin? Passes the camera low compared to the other deliveries.

 
Last edited:
It's difficult to see the hand release on the footage. Other than that, there's no obvious difference between the legspinner and the wrong un. The flipper does skid on and low, which is what you are looking for.
 
macca said:
I hope it wasn't the bloke who runs the tennis court banging his fist on a desk and yelling "There is that damn legspinner digging up my turf again with his infernal flippers, I told him yesterday to clear off and he is back again today!"
Click to expand...

Actually the reverse happened, some other bloke told me to get off the basketball court and back onto the tennis court.
 
Darth Spin said:
Actually the reverse happened, some other bloke told me to get off the basketball court and back onto the tennis court.
Click to expand...

The leg breaks have a bit more energy in the latest clips compared to the earlier ones. Are you running in a bit further and slightly faster?

That flipper has a lower trajectory but that could have a bit to do with the shorter length it's a bit hard to pick on that view with no reference points on the "pitch".

That might have been an 18 yard flipper which isn't unusual for starters. If you can get it a bit fuller you might get the batsman thinking "That's short. I will get on the back foot and cut that with the spin" and to his surprise it floats up fuller, faster and straighter than he reckons for LBW or bowled.

Are you getting any "swing" with the flippers?
 
Billywhizz said:
Soccer? You mean football surely!:D.
+1 with the nets, our club nets have had 2 junior sessions on them and the grass on the delivery stride has departed already, slowing making way for a fresh pit in each lane as per last year. I tend to use the local park when I'm just practicing accuracy.
Good stuff on the blog as always 'El Capitano'
Click to expand...

Cheers Billy Whizz, I've got a big post coming when I've stopped playing BF3! My bowling's gone to pieces, gonna leave it for a few days and then go back to it in hope that there'll be some kind of improvement.
 
macca said:
The leg breaks have a bit more energy in the latest clips compared to the earlier ones. Are you running in a bit further and slightly faster?

That flipper has a lower trajectory but that could have a bit to do with the shorter length it's a bit hard to pick on that view with no reference points on the "pitch".

That might have been an 18 yard flipper which isn't unusual for starters. If you can get it a bit fuller you might get the batsman thinking "That's short. I will get on the back foot and cut that with the spin" and to his surprise it floats up fuller, faster and straighter than he reckons for LBW or bowled.

Are you getting any "swing" with the flippers?
Click to expand...


Hi Macca

Yes, I added two steps to my run up to take it from 6 to 8. It was awkward at first but I'm finding a bit of rhythm now (I think!) and am coming through the crease with more energy. I have some footage from tonight I'll post soon, I got one leg break to really rip out of the court with huge turn and bounce. There was another which sadly wasn't caught on film that maybe hit something, I don't know, but it roared away towards second slip. Really surprised myself with that one. It will take me a while to edit and upload them all.

The flipper needs work as some are still coming out with offspin but I feel like I'm close to cracking it. I got another couple to come out straight tonight on video.
 
Here are some clips from tonight.

First some leg breaks. This is about as well as I can bowl and as consistent as I can get at the moment.



The first ball in the next clip is the one I was talking about above. I wish I could bowl every leg break like that whenever I wanted.



This is another straight flipper. The ball here is dead as a dodo so it bounces twice. That wouldn't happen with a normal ball. It's the same ball as the first leg break in the first clip.



Some leg breaks and a wrong un.



Some leg breaks. I only posted this because of the one which turns in from well outside leg stump. We'll never know what would've happened with the second delivery.

 
A wrong un and a flipper which goes down off side but is straight after pitching. The next challenge is to get several of these straight flippers in a row on camera.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top