Spin Lizard
Active Member
I propose new terminology, to save confusion: the OLSGBS - orthodox legspin grip backspinner
Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)
- Thread starter Richard the Third
- Start date
Turn my back for 2 seconds and insanity breaks out, Grimmett is smiling somewhere. Bowled a few OBS deliveries on Saturday (my grip uses the thumb and middle finger to impart spin so an OBS as Philpott has described it is easy) and a few deliveries which is more in line with what some people here regard is the slider that we all know and love.
Happy for people to deny the existence of the OBS though, it makes my bowling life easier.
Macca - the ball you're talking about is the slider, which clearly exists and has never been in dispute, the ball that does not exist is what Dave refers to as "the OBS", which is a theoretical invention of Philpott's.
*Some* people, including Philpott, think they can bowl it, but if you watched footage of them in slo motion you would see they are actually bowling a slider. I'm sure they would be as suprised as anyone to find this.
Cleanprophet
Active Member
I have to agree 100%. Everyone can bowl that type of back spinner when they stand with their arm out in front of them, so you can see the ball grip the surface and spin back towards them. But trying to bowl it is impossible. I do not think it is possible to bowl without bending your arm significantly. This notion of being able to bowl it in such a way that your thumb points back towards you is nothing short of daft. There may be someone out there (like Murali) who is so double-jointed they could bowl it. Any normal person would simply not be able to. The best you could manage (as I described earlier) is to have your thumb pointed towards cover. In that instance you are simply bowling a side-spinner and it is the delivery that Warne calls the 'slider' because the ball slides out from under your hand, rather than over it as with the conventional side-spinner.
Cleanprophet
Active Member
This is an excellent point. I thought I was bowling the backspinner with the thumb pointed towards me until I watched footage of me bowling it and realised I wasn't doing that at all. Just as you say, what I was bowling was the slider that Warne talks of.
I thought the distinction between "a slider" and "the slider" is because some people in the media refer to the ball skidding off the pitch or "sliding" off the pitch. Others use the term "slider" to describe the release of the ball rather than what it does off the pitch. I'm sure Warne spoke about the slider "sliding out under the hand".
It is effective against batters who are watching the hand. But also, you can bowl it quickly through the air and trap batters on the crease because the ball doesn't turn, it just shoots on straight.
Cleanprophet
Active Member
That is an interesting twist, literally. They don't actually show Jenner's release of the "slider" from behind. But we do see Jenner showing the release without the ball in his hand. His hand is pointed completely leg-side and then rotates 180 degrees but it also flicks up so that his thumb is actually pointing upwards and not right back towards his face. That is different to how I tried to bowl it, so I'll have to try it again this way. I'm still sceptical that it is physically possible, but if you really flick the wrist hard it could be possible. The very fact that you can get your wrist/hand into that position would suggest it is possible.
Looking back through the back spinning deliveries thread that Dave and Macca did a few years ago, I spotted this post by Jim:
That really does tie in and make sense. You would have to snap your wrist around hard to get the action. That describes what was known as the 'zooter' and it is the one that is often confused with a slider because it looks very, very similar. The key difference is that snap of the wrist that sees the seam point straight (like a top spinner) rather than sideways (like a side spinner). Just trying it a bit in the back garden, I am starting to buy into it now after all. With that snap, I am imparting back spin.
Last edited:
macca
Active Member
Benaud must have spread his hoax over to the land of the long white cloud as well.
Bringing Grimmett into it, Old Grum never mentions a wrist spun backspinner in his books. "There are two ways to impart backspin ( he then refers to his backspinning flipper) as one way then the other is " by pulling the top of the ball back with the fingers". I have always thought by that he means what we call "a" slider these days.
I wonder what Grimmett thought when Benaud told him he was bowling this backspinner off the wrist back in the 50's. Most probably he wished he thought of it first. A new non-existent delivery to confuse the ages.
Dont blame Philpott for the original lie of a backspinning wrist spun delivery, the sin begins with that great charlatan Richie Benaud. He claims he could bowl it and Philpott was at coverpoint for hundreds of these alleged deliveries and was duped into believing Benaud was bowling the ball he would later ridiculously dub "the backspinning topspinner"
macca
Active Member
Perhaps I am being unfair to Richie, because the original wrist backspinner talespinner was Doug Ring.
So the story goes Ring an old war weary veteran legspinning legend has a joke with Benaud on a train in England in '54. He gets a green apple and tells benaud if you turn your wrist around enough you can get a backspinner. Benaud believes him leaves the carriage to get to work on this new ball as Doug Ring has a good laugh at how he has duped the young and green legspinner into working on something everyone must know is impossible. I can believe that.
Funny thing is when Benaud worked on it one by product was he developed a big legbreak. Simpson reports the same thing when he showed Warne Philpotts "backspinning toppie" at the dawn of his test career.
So the story goes Ring an old war weary veteran legspinning legend has a joke with Benaud on a train in England in '54. He gets a green apple and tells benaud if you turn your wrist around enough you can get a backspinner. Benaud believes him leaves the carriage to get to work on this new ball as Doug Ring has a good laugh at how he has duped the young and green legspinner into working on something everyone must know is impossible. I can believe that.
Funny thing is when Benaud worked on it one by product was he developed a big legbreak. Simpson reports the same thing when he showed Warne Philpotts "backspinning toppie" at the dawn of his test career.
Cleanprophet
Active Member
It gets complicated because leg spin requires a flick of the spinning finger to impart spin. Without that there would be little or no spin, no matter how much the wrist flicks. From what I can work out, the backspinner/zooter is mostly finger spin (as Grimmett mentioned with the fingers pulling back on the top of the ball), but you need to flick the wrist to get into the position that would allow backspin to happen.
That description of a 'topspinning back spinner' is a terrible one. It's like talking about a leg spinning off spinner. It makes no sense. Essentially, it is a reverse topspinner. With the topspinner your thumb points towards the batter's feet. With the back spinner it is reversed with the thumb pointed towards the umpire's head. The seam position will be upright for both deliveries, but that is the only thing the same.
That description of a 'topspinning back spinner' is a terrible one. It's like talking about a leg spinning off spinner. It makes no sense. Essentially, it is a reverse topspinner. With the topspinner your thumb points towards the batter's feet. With the back spinner it is reversed with the thumb pointed towards the umpire's head. The seam position will be upright for both deliveries, but that is the only thing the same.
It is impossible with a traditional legspinner grip but quite easy with an Iverson or Armstrong grip (which I use), keep saying this stuff though as it's bringing a smile to my face during a tough day at work.
That's a carrom ball of some description then, no?
Its certainly not the ball that Philpott described.
macca
Active Member
Yeah that is terrible, because the term Philpott coined for the backspinner hoax ball of the centuries was "backspinning topspinner". Philpott would probably call a topspinner your "topspinning backspinner" wouldn't he?
macca
Active Member
Someone better get on to those clowns at pitchvision and shut this down before someone seriously injures themselves attempting the impossible.
http://www.pitchvision.com/how-to-bowl-a-slider
They have fallen victim to the benaud/philpott/jenner backspinner hoax. What a joke, they cant even describe it right, they must be pommies going on their complete ignorance of legspin. Easy victims for Benauds backspun wristspinner tosh.
.
http://www.pitchvision.com/how-to-bowl-a-slider
They have fallen victim to the benaud/philpott/jenner backspinner hoax. What a joke, they cant even describe it right, they must be pommies going on their complete ignorance of legspin. Easy victims for Benauds backspun wristspinner tosh.
.
macca
Active Member
Did you know Grimmett reckoned he invented an Iverson style technique in NZ 30 years before Jack Iverson?
macca
Active Member
Exactly the same argument playing out in the comments of that thread as well I notice. Basically, "the slider exists, but this isn't how you bowl it, although if you try to do this, you might bowl it by accident".
Indeed, the era of first underarm and then roundarm bowling generally saw a lot of flinger flicking and clicking, as it was the best way to generate maximum revs. It largely died out with the legalisation of overarm bowling, with just the occasional practitioner making it into international cricket.
There really is nothing new under the sun in cricket.
macca
Active Member
Just don't call them Armstrong/ Iverson deliveries, I just got wind some pommy invented them before the first Captain Cook ( don't mention the second captain cook) came to both our shores.
macca
Active Member
I cant believe I was taken in by the backspinner hoax for so long and now have to recant and admit there is no such thing. I mean have you ever tried bowling one? Even the concept has your head spinning before the first attempt.
I just hope it wasn't me old mate someblokecalledave who put it on wikepedia as a fact. At least I didn't go that far.
I just hope it wasn't me old mate someblokecalledave who put it on wikepedia as a fact. At least I didn't go that far.