Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)

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Cleanprophet said:
Very true. This is an issue a lot of young spinners (especially wrist spinners) have. They think it's all about turning the ball big and work a lot in the nets on doing just that. In reality, your job as a wrist spinner is to take wickets. Turning the ball big is neither here or there. It's all about sussing out the batter, working out his weakness and exposing it. It's fairly commonplace to refer to Warne, but for obvious reason. He was such an effective bowler because he was always one step (if not two or three steps) ahead of the batter.
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I did this myself for many years. I would be far more interested in trying to impress everyone by turning the ball 2 foot than actually worrying about getting the batsman out, as a result I bowled too short, too wide and too slow.

It took me several years to figure out that if you bowl full, straight and reasonably quick, then the ball only has to turn 6 inches to be virtually unplayable - and in many ways its better to only really turn 2 or 3 balls an over than to turn every ball 2 foot.
 
Cleanprophet said:
I've seen footage of me trying to bowl the wrong un and I just don't rotate the wrist enough. The aim should be to get the back of the hand facing the batter, but I only get the back the hand square, for a top spinner. It seems the more I try to get the back of the hand facing the batter, the more my whole technique flounders.

I suspect the only way to fix this is to just keep working on it, but I'd be interested to see if anyone has any tips on bowling the wrong un. My natural delivery is probably 80% top spin and 20% side spin. You would think a wrong un would be relatively easy to bowl from that sort of delivery, but it's not.
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What you could try is instead of thinking back of hand facing batsman, think back of hand facing ground at the completion of your wrongun.

If you forget about wrist and arm position, release timing, left shoulder dropping and any other wrongun does and donts and just think "at the end of this delivery the back of my hand is going to be facing the ground."

I have seen this approach work with young legspinners.
 
SLA said:
I did this myself for many years. I would be far more interested in trying to impress everyone by turning the ball 2 foot than actually worrying about getting the batsman out, as a result I bowled too short, too wide and too slow.

It took me several years to figure out that if you bowl full, straight and reasonably quick, then the ball only has to turn 6 inches to be virtually unplayable - and in many ways its better to only really turn 2 or 3 balls an over than to turn every ball 2 foot.
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I remember watching a leg spinner last season. He had a pretty good action, but was bowling short with almost every ball. All his team mates were going "ooooh" and "aaaaah" every time the ball turned big. But the batters were just waiting on the backfoot and picking him off. I was watching him when I was at the non-striker's end and was thinking to myself "how can you not see you are bowling too short? If the batter is playing you off the backfoot, you're bowling the wrong length".
 
macca said:
What you could try is instead of thinking back of hand facing batsman, think back of hand facing ground at the completion of your wrongun.

If you forget about wrist and arm position, release timing, left shoulder dropping and any other wrongun does and donts and just think "at the end of this delivery the back of my hand is going to be facing the ground."

I have seen this approach work with young legspinners.
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I like it. That sounds like good advice. I need to get more of a flick with the wrongun as well as getting release position right, so thinking about getting the back of the hand facing the ground could well help with all that. I'll give that a go over the next few days.
 
macca said:
He is the kid in this clip https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMkQdRYHAuQ

They reckon he has moved ahead of Boyce and Zampa as the best young legspinner in the country at the moment.
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I only saw him bowl in that one game and I don't think he even bowl his full 4 overs, but he was impressive. He gave it a good rip and bowled with impressive control. For a young kid with very little experience, the pressure on him would have been big. That said, he came on to bowl when the opposition were struggling and that helped. Still, I was impressed by him and look forward to seeing him play again (I think he may well play later today).
 
Cleanprophet said:
I only saw him bowl in that one game and I don't think he even bowl his full 4 overs, but he was impressive. He gave it a good rip and bowled with impressive control. For a young kid with very little experience, the pressure on him would have been big. That said, he came on to bowl when the opposition were struggling and that helped. Still, I was impressed by him and look forward to seeing him play again (I think he may well play later today).
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Yeah he goes alright for a 20 year old, he has dismissed Cook, Carberry, Pieterson, Bell, Morgan, Bopara, Ballance, Finn and Swann in the three games he has played against England.

Getting a good look at all the legspinners going around here.

Hogg is a legend of course

Mendis is out on his own as the mystery man

Zampa is the miser

Muirhead is Mr Cool, could lower his arm a smidgin maybe, but he is the one warnie rates best of the crop so that might mean something

I love watching Boycie he really gives it a flick. I reckon he just needs a touch more topspin but he has got a good bag of tricks. He is my favourite to watch.

Ahmed has to slow down about 3 or 4 clicks but he is a quality bowler.

Borthwick had the toughest gig all summer by far, thrown in at the deep end, but he has got loads of talent and only needed a few long spells to get his range sorted.

Legspin alive and well in 2014.
 
macca said:
Muirhead is Mr Cool, could lower his arm a smidgin maybe, but he is the one warnie rates best of the crop so that might mean something
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The game against the Prime Ministers XI wasn't on TV, but I caught a quick glimpse of some highlights and it looked Muirhead produced some impressive deliveries to get rid of 3 of England's players and Morgan got one that seemed to spin a mile.

I've never seen Boyce (don't think I'd even heard of him before now). I'll have to have a look around and see if I can find some footage of him.

Borthwick really did have possibly the worst conditions to make his Test debut, but he did do okay. A few too many full deliveries in the first innings. Still, he does have a reasonably solid technique. The 1st team captain at my club worked with the English Development Squad before Christmas, so he will have seen a lot of Borthwick. I'll pick his brains when I see him next and see what he thinks of Borthwick's action.
 
macca said:
You might have seen him tonight for the hurricanes in the bbl.
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Yeah, I saw him in that game. There was some discussion about him before the game where I saw some of his wickets in the BBL this season and then saw his 4 overs in that game.

He does indeed give it a good rip. He has a lower action than Muirhead. A bit more whippy and Asian, but impressive. He bowls a good wrongun too.
 
Had my first practice in 7 weeks tonight. Resembled a daddy longlegs trying to bowl wrist spin at first but after twenty minutes or so got my rhythm going and by the end came away feeling really happy with leg break, wrong un and flipper. I can finally bowl a bigger leg break and a smaller one quite consistently, I will try and get this on camera at some point but the battery lasts about three seconds. Did two hours practice in total. I'm off work until the end of the month so am going to practice a fair bit.
 
First game back after Xmas and not a good game for me but a good one for the team (we won with 7 overs to spare).

On what is called a good 50 over pitch there was nothing for the spinners and that showed as only one wicket was taken by a spinner (stumped to a non-turning delivery). I had gone OK to get to 8-0-30-0 but as one of the seamers fell to pieces I had to bowl in the last 10 and proceeded to get pummeled for 24 off my last 2, at the end of the day there was little I could do as the batsman hit long to where the fielders weren't and invented shots when I did everything to shut them down. Couldn't tell how the variations were coming thanks to a lovely Antarctic breeze numbing the fingers. Should of had their gun player caught at mid-on but the fielder did not stand where I asked him (about 1/2 way to the boundary) and instead stood in the circle and watched the only chance go over his head for 4!

The protege was again excellent with 10-2-24-0 which were the most economical figures from any bowler and probably won us the game (he got used from 10-30 overs while I got 24-44, lucky b******!), the work he has been doing on getting the zip back in his legbreak appears to be paying off as the batsmen were unsure where the scoring options were against him. Had it pretty much confirmed that he'll play 1sts next season, which is fantastic as I was going to tell him to change clubs if he didn't get some acknowledgement.
 
leftie600 said:
. Had it pretty much confirmed that he'll play 1sts next season, which is fantastic as I was going to tell him to change clubs if he didn't get some acknowledgement.
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Yeah. I was thinking he should, if possible, change clubs if he didn't get a game in firsts. You convinced me he should get promoted.
 
leftie600 said:
First game back after Xmas and not a good game for me but a good one for the team (we won with 7 overs to spare).

On what is called a good 50 over pitch there was nothing for the spinners and that showed as only one wicket was taken by a spinner (stumped to a non-turning delivery). I had gone OK to get to 8-0-30-0 but as one of the seamers fell to pieces I had to bowl in the last 10 and proceeded to get pummeled for 24 off my last 2, at the end of the day there was little I could do as the batsman hit long to where the fielders weren't and invented shots when I did everything to shut them down. Couldn't tell how the variations were coming thanks to a lovely Antarctic breeze numbing the fingers. Should of had their gun player caught at mid-on but the fielder did not stand where I asked him (about 1/2 way to the boundary) and instead stood in the circle and watched the only chance go over his head for 4!

The protege was again excellent with 10-2-24-0 which were the most economical figures from any bowler and probably won us the game (he got used from 10-30 overs while I got 24-44, lucky b******!), the work he has been doing on getting the zip back in his legbreak appears to be paying off as the batsmen were unsure where the scoring options were against him. Had it pretty much confirmed that he'll play 1sts next season, which is fantastic as I was going to tell him to change clubs if he didn't get some acknowledgement.
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I've had games like that, where you've actually bowled pretty decently but a missed chance and a couple of late slogs ruin your figures.
 
macca said:
Yeah. I was thinking he should, if possible, change clubs if he didn't get a game in firsts. You convinced me he should get promoted.
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You find a lot of clubs are quite cliquey and players don't always get the crack at the first team that they deserve. Every match report we have seen has shown this young spinner is well worth a try out in the first team.
 
Cleanprophet said:
You find a lot of clubs are quite cliquey and players don't always get the crack at the first team that they deserve. Every match report we have seen has shown this young spinner is well worth a try out in the first team.
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Tends to be the case, moving from Christchurch to Wellington I went down a grade as no one knew me while a guy I used to play against who was one step from FC moved from a country area to Wellington and was asked to play for the 4ths! Things are getting better thanks to the internet but some of the old prejudices against 'outsiders' still exist, what I don't get is why they existed in the first place.
 
leftie600 said:
Tends to be the case, moving from Christchurch to Wellington I went down a grade as no one knew me while a guy I used to play against who was one step from FC moved from a country area to Wellington and was asked to play for the 4ths! Things are getting better thanks to the internet but some of the old prejudices against 'outsiders' still exist, what I don't get is why they existed in the first place.
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Some of the things that go on at club level are amazing. I'll see players come in and play for the 1st team on the basis of what they did several seasons ago or on the basis of the fact that they've played at a decent standard in the sub-continent. All the while I'm thinking "why don't you just have a look at him in the nets and see how he's looking". The older player returning is the one that really frustrates and that's the cliquey side of things. A player who hasn't played any cricket for a couple of years will be given a game in the 1st team. I saw that happen last season and the player was absolutely woeful.

Interestingly, we had a few issues at our club last season with selection. One player just didn't want to play for the 1st team because he didn't enjoy it. He wanted to play for the 2nd XI with his mates and the club felt he should play where he's needed. How can you enforce that? You can't. The player isn't getting paid and if he's not enjoying it, he'll move clubs (which is, in fact, what he ended up doing). There was also the issue of some players getting picked and being given sod all to do in a game. There's a useful young seamer who was getting picked in the 3rd team and in some games wasn't even getting a bowl. The captain's opinion was that he wants to win the game first and foremost. I can understand that. The problem is, if you don't give the lad a bowl then you don't know what you've got. By the end of the season, this young lad was returning figures of 5 wickets for 10 runs for the 3rd team. He ended up getting into the 2nd team and picked up 5 for 20, winning the game in the process. Small minded politics is part and parcel of club cricket.
 
Cleanprophet said:
Some of the things that go on at club level are amazing. I'll see players come in and play for the 1st team on the basis of what they did several seasons ago or on the basis of the fact that they've played at a decent standard in the sub-continent. All the while I'm thinking "why don't you just have a look at him in the nets and see how he's looking". The older player returning is the one that really frustrates and that's the cliquey side of things. A player who hasn't played any cricket for a couple of years will be given a game in the 1st team. I saw that happen last season and the player was absolutely woeful.

Interestingly, we had a few issues at our club last season with selection. One player just didn't want to play for the 1st team because he didn't enjoy it. He wanted to play for the 2nd XI with his mates and the club felt he should play where he's needed. How can you enforce that? You can't. The player isn't getting paid and if he's not enjoying it, he'll move clubs (which is, in fact, what he ended up doing). There was also the issue of some players getting picked and being given sod all to do in a game. There's a useful young seamer who was getting picked in the 3rd team and in some games wasn't even getting a bowl. The captain's opinion was that he wants to win the game first and foremost. I can understand that. The problem is, if you don't give the lad a bowl then you don't know what you've got. By the end of the season, this young lad was returning figures of 5 wickets for 10 runs for the 3rd team. He ended up getting into the 2nd team and picked up 5 for 20, winning the game in the process. Small minded politics is part and parcel of club cricket.
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This is why I vowed never to play for a club with more than 1 saturday team.

Simple progression through our club. U12s -> friendly games -> make the saturday team at ~16 -> retire to play friendly games at ~55

Everyone knows exactly where they are, no need for any politics.
 
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