Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)

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Bobble_Fell_Off said:
Glad to hear you've been going well Dave, and very pleased to hear you've been keeping the seamers from taking all the glory.

On the run up, before I was just sort of strolling in off a few paces. I started doing more of a run the other week and found the extra momentum was helping me keep moving the the right direction and avoiding the dreaded falling over to my left. Well spotted that I'm not fully comfortable with it, but in all honesty I've never had a run up that really felt smooth or comfortable. I was hoping that after some more practice I might be able to feel my way through some adjustments and get the timing down, but any advice is very helpful. Smooth and Rythmic are not easy things to consciously
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I bowled in the nets last night against one of the better batsmen, I didn't get him bowled, but he conceded some of his shots would have been caught. What he did say was that I was the only wrist-spinner in the club (We have 6 adult teams playing Saturdays). He said that there were some kids that bowled it (He trains the kids), but he'd noticed that they never develop to go on and bowl wrist-spin at adult level and he'd seen that over the years. I explained the reasons for that (There's a number of reasons), but finished on the one that usually puts the final nail in the coffin for them... The amount of practice you have to do in order to be able to land the ball in the right areas and how much you have to play in order to play with a sense of perspective when batters come after you e.g. and having a plan to get them out. I've seen it so many times when youngsters transition to adult games and they get slaughtered, having been decent spinners in their age group, they then bowl at decent aggressive and stronger batters and get demoralised. A lot of the time they then don't have the support of their captain and team. They internalise the situation and know that their averages and stats are far worse than the other bowlers and get into a mind set where they see themselves as having lost the game because of their bowling.

You have to be really thick skinned in those situations and resilient and learn from them. You can't just go back week after week doing the same thing. You have to reflect on what's happening, analyse what's going wrong and adapt new strategies. For some the answer might be to spin it harder, others it might be to be far more accurate. Whatever the solution, it's going to take a lot of work. Have a read of Philpotts book 'The art of wrist-spin' and 'A spinners yarn' one of the things that comes across (Same with Grimmetts books) is the amount of time it takes to develop the skills. The current England test bowling coach Jeetan Patel (ex NZ international) says of England spin bowlers "They don't practice enough'.

Another thing you have to consider is that none of us on here are pro coaches and there's going to be such a range of different ideas and 'Guidance', there's a chance that it might be detrimental rather than constructive? I made leaps and bounds with my development once I started to ignore most of the ideas that people were suggesting, so that might be something to keep in mind?

Apart from the comment I last made regarding your approach to the crease, my main thought was - 'What is it that you're working on at the moment, what are you trying to do/achieve'? The question then arises is there any point in trying to Land/spin the ball in your video scenario, when in the longer term, anything you learn and groove will need to be re-learned and adapted when you realise, that potentially your outcomes are being detrimentally affected by the fact that your run-up and approach to the crease is deficient?

I've posted a picture that shows the stages of the bowling action, just to reinforce the fact that the bowling action in itself is quite complex, so in my opinion, if you don't develop a sound bowling action that you're happy with and feels natural, it's only going to come back at some point and hinder your development? That doesn't mean that you stop trying to spin the ball and learn the leg-break as this can be done off the stand-start (See this video here with some good drills)


Buckle up looks like you're in for the long haul!
 
Thanks Dave, lots to reflect upon.

When you were starting out with wrist spin how did you approach solo practice? At the moment I have a bag of 15 or so balls, so I'll tend to do 1-2 bags worth of deliveries from a standing start from about 2/3rds length, then from a full length and finally running in. I tend to try and focus on improving an element or two of my action based on what ive read and what seems to work in practice.

And rest assured I do have the Philpott book and have read through those opening chapters a fair few times already.
 
Bobble_Fell_Off said:
Thanks Dave, lots to reflect upon.

When you were starting out with wrist spin how did you approach solo practice? At the moment I have a bag of 15 or so balls, so I'll tend to do 1-2 bags worth of deliveries from a standing start from about 2/3rds length, then from a full length and finally running in. I tend to try and focus on improving an element or two of my action based on what ive read and what seems to work in practice.

And rest assured I do have the Philpott book and have read through those opening chapters a fair few times already.
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I'm just off to a 40 over game now, so can't write much. Yeah similar thing, I used to bowl for hours. Not 100% sure it was the best way to go, as i had to un-learn some stuff later. I think having specific goals is essential and sticking to your plan. But I also think there are other things you can do that might help, I'll come back to this later. In the meantime check this out Saturdays game 3rd XI game at Holy Cross 27/7/24 - https://theoldwristspinner.blogspot.com/2024/07/venue-holy-cross-team-3rd-xi-captain.html
 
SomeblokecalledDave. said:
I'm just off to a 40 over game now, so can't write much. Yeah similar thing, I used to bowl for hours. Not 100% sure it was the best way to go, as i had to un-learn some stuff later. I think having specific goals is essential and sticking to your plan. But I also think there are other things you can do that might help, I'll come back to this later. In the meantime check this out Saturdays game 3rd XI game at Holy Cross 27/7/24 - https://theoldwristspinner.blogspot.com/2024/07/venue-holy-cross-team-3rd-xi-captain.html
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Just read your blog - sounded like some very smart mental bowling! Dream dismissal with the flipper.
 
So I’ve had a pretty average winter season so far, not bad but not great. By some miracle not a single game has been washed out.

But I’ve only taken 2 wickets from I think 9 games of cricket. HOWEVER I’m going at an ER of 6.38, which is great for a T20. I largely think the economy is because I have been a spinner for most of my playing time and I’ve gotten really good at reading batsmen and changing my pace, which makes me very hard to hit for boundaries. Mainly do that change of pace with a leg cutter that just seems to bounce a lot and cramp batsmen up.

I think I am just learning now what my “personal” way of taking wickets is, outside edges. I’ve been getting a lot of them now that I’m pitching it up a little more and have more control over which way I’m swinging it.

Again though I’m really helped by the spin bowling and the changes of angle, flight and altering the amount of movement I get in the air. My favourite wicket was a leg cutter Yorker that almost drifted into the bloke and looked like a full toss before it dipped and took middle and leg out.
 
Leggy88 said:
Just read your blog - sounded like some very smart mental bowling! Dream dismissal with the flipper.
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Cheers, yesterdays game although one we lost was good too. Only one wicket and initially got tonked, but then was rightly taken off to bowl later, but in the period between was able to think about what I was doing wrong. Once out of the heat of the moment it became pretty obvious and I was able to devise a solution. I'll post the full account hopefully in the next couple of days and post it. They always used to say part of Warne's strength was that he had a good cricket brain, I don't think mine's that good - especially in the battle under pressure!
 
doc8176 said:
So I’ve had a pretty average winter season so far, not bad but not great. By some miracle not a single game has been washed out.

But I’ve only taken 2 wickets from I think 9 games of cricket. HOWEVER I’m going at an ER of 6.38, which is great for a T20. I largely think the economy is because I have been a spinner for most of my playing time and I’ve gotten really good at reading batsmen and changing my pace, which makes me very hard to hit for boundaries. Mainly do that change of pace with a leg cutter that just seems to bounce a lot and cramp batsmen up.

I think I am just learning now what my “personal” way of taking wickets is, outside edges. I’ve been getting a lot of them now that I’m pitching it up a little more and have more control over which way I’m swinging it.

Again though I’m really helped by the spin bowling and the changes of angle, flight and altering the amount of movement I get in the air. My favourite wicket was a leg cutter Yorker that almost drifted into the bloke and looked like a full toss before it dipped and took middle and leg out.
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Where are you Doc? How are you able to play during the 'Winter'? I thought you was an Aussie?
 
Yeah I’m from Western Australia, just somehow haven’t had any rain on Saturdays all winter 😂

You do usually play the season expecting to lose quite a few games to rain but just been really lucky.
 
SomeblokecalledDave. said:
I'm just off to a 40 over game now, so can't write much. Yeah similar thing, I used to bowl for hours. Not 100% sure it was the best way to go, as i had to un-learn some stuff later. I think having specific goals is essential and sticking to your plan. But I also think there are other things you can do that might help, I'll come back to this later. In the meantime check this out Saturdays game 3rd XI game at Holy Cross 27/7/24 - https://theoldwristspinner.blogspot.com/2024/07/venue-holy-cross-team-3rd-xi-captain.html
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Bobble_Fell_Off Bobble_Fell_Off So just a quick idea. Like you I used to have a bucket of balls and would bowl all 25 or so at one set of stumps, collect them all up and bowl the other direction. Then I realised that I was only noticing that clusters of x numbers of balls during the 25 that were any good and that the rest were poor, so I changed my approach. I found a chain link fence I could place the stumps in front of and bowled 6 balls at a time like a real over and then gathered them up again slowly, creating a sense of space between the next six and time to reflect on the previous six balls. The idea was that this mimicked the over. What that then did was made me aware of how badly I was bowling generally in each over.

Another thing I did was not even consider the stumps and sometimes I removed them just to focus on accuracy. So I placed a bit of old carpet on the line and length I wanted to bowl (Carpet was about 10" wide by 30" long) and tried to continuously hit that. I was spinning the ball enough, but just really poor with my accuracy. You have to note that I'm an advocate of accuracy rather than massive spin and some of the others will argue that you should learn the opposite way round e.g. spin it hard and then build in the accuracy. But at the speed I bowl I felt the accuracy was going to keep me in the game and it did - that's the stage when the flippers became my stock ball.

On another note I faced a girl Leggie yesterday - she got me first ball - pitched middle - took my off-stump bail, but she was so fast! I was left wondering how can a girl of 19-20 years old, who probably weighs about 9 stone and a fraction of my strength bowl 10 mph possibly more than me? Watching her - she came off a short approach to the crease like me, but whipped her arms over so much faster than me? At a guess is that something to do with fast twitch muscles or dynamic strength - both of which you lose as you get older?
 
It’s technically with a different club.

It’s a formal cricket match, all stats on PlayHQ and whatnot, it’s just like groups of people form up into teams. It’s with people from my new summer club that I’ll be playing for this coming season.
 
It’s really amazing how much both good biomechanics and natural ability affect how fast you can bowl.

Jadeja is a bowler that always amazes me, takes what, 3-4 steps and can bowl a 100kmh top spinning off break.
 
SomeblokecalledDave. said:
Bobble_Fell_Off Bobble_Fell_Off So just a quick idea. Like you I used to have a bucket of balls and would bowl all 25 or so at one set of stumps, collect them all up and bowl the other direction. Then I realised that I was only noticing that clusters of x numbers of balls during the 25 that were any good and that the rest were poor, so I changed my approach. I found a chain link fence I could place the stumps in front of and bowled 6 balls at a time like a real over and then gathered them up again slowly, creating a sense of space between the next six and time to reflect on the previous six balls. The idea was that this mimicked the over. What that then did was made me aware of how badly I was bowling generally in each over.

Another thing I did was not even consider the stumps and sometimes I removed them just to focus on accuracy. So I placed a bit of old carpet on the line and length I wanted to bowl (Carpet was about 10" wide by 30" long) and tried to continuously hit that. I was spinning the ball enough, but just really poor with my accuracy. You have to note that I'm an advocate of accuracy rather than massive spin and some of the others will argue that you should learn the opposite way round e.g. spin it hard and then build in the accuracy. But at the speed I bowl I felt the accuracy was going to keep me in the game and it did - that's the stage when the flippers became my stock ball.

On another note I faced a girl Leggie yesterday - she got me first ball - pitched middle - took my off-stump bail, but she was so fast! I was left wondering how can a girl of 19-20 years old, who probably weighs about 9 stone and a fraction of my strength bowl 10 mph possibly more than me? Watching her - she came off a short approach to the crease like me, but whipped her arms over so much faster than me? At a guess is that something to do with fast twitch muscles or dynamic strength - both of which you lose as you get older?
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The accuracy vs spin question… one thing that has occurred to me is that you never want that question to be live during a match. There’s too much to think about. I.e. if a good batter is coming after you then it would be strange to think - “well the way to get him out is to spin it less, that way I can be more accurate…” Also the more turn the bigger the margin for error. Both of those come down on the side of just always trying to put maximum power in to the action.

As for pace - I think as you carry on bowling you are more likely to get faster and faster as your muscles get used to it (young or old)
 
Sorry I put this in the community but you have left me with no choice. Am sure Chief will back me.
I invited some of you guys to join the 99.94 club in good faith to help out the forum, so I dont appreciate being ignored. The main reason I asked you Dave is that we have a couple of members in your time zone and they usually have to post alone while the Aussies are sleeping. If you are unavailable perhaps any friends as having different viewpoints from another hemisphere on a myriad of subjects can only enhance the forum. Doc you are invited too as you at least have been on the normal cricket threads. So are the others I have not contacted. The bottom line is BC needs more members on the general sub forums, so if you guys on this thread can help in any way please do so.
 
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Richie said:
Sorry I put this in the community but you have left me with no choice. Am sure Chief will back me.
I invited some of you guys to join the 99.94 club in good faith to help out the forum, so I dont appreciate being ignored. The main reason I asked you Dave is that we have a couple of members in your time zone and they usually have to post alone while the Aussies are sleeping. If you are unavailable perhaps any friends as having different viewpoints from another hemisphere on a myriad of subjects can only enhance the forum. Doc you are invited too as you at least have been on the normal cricket threads. So are the others I have not contacted. The bottom line is BC needs more members on the general sub forums, so if you guys on this thread can help in any way please do so.
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Richie, I'm pretty unique in the fact that I write on any forums, when I mention it to anyone they look at me as though I'm some kind of a nutter, no-one I've spoke to has ever shown any inclination to do similar. The only people I know that do anything similar is my older son, who when he does, does so on Reddit and it's not on the subject of cricket. I'm playing 4 x 40 over games this week, I have to catch up on world events and I have to run a home and do other things I'm interested e.g. blogging, commenting on Youtube (Politics) in, so I'm not ignoring you, it's just the themes you promote deserve decent responses and I'm pretty stretched as it is. TBH it's difficult enough to keep track and commit to commenting on this thread.
 
SomeblokecalledDave. said:
Richie, I'm pretty unique in the fact that I write on any forums, when I mention it to anyone they look at me as though I'm some kind of a nutter, no-one I've spoke to has ever shown any inclination to do similar. The only people I know that do anything similar is my older son, who when he does, does so on Reddit and it's not on the subject of cricket. I'm playing 4 x 40 over games this week, I have to catch up on world events and I have to run a home and do other things I'm interested e.g. blogging, commenting on Youtube (Politics) in, so I'm not ignoring you, it's just the themes you promote deserve decent responses and I'm pretty stretched as it is. TBH it's difficult enough to keep track and commit to commenting on this thread.
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Thanks for your honesty Dave.
 
SomeblokecalledDave. said:
Aussies - Your season started yet? Our last game was yesterday 28th Sept, but was called off as the Grounds staff wanting to get going with the autumn maintenance. I reckon that's BS and they couldn't get a team out.
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That's unlucky mate. My season starts this weekend actually. Will keep you all posted, but I'm not expecting anything major as it is my first season in adults cricket and people are still getting to know me, so not sure if I'll get a bowl. Fingers crossed. I'm also coming back from a surgery so I haven't trained much in the offseason and the surgery is still affecting me a bit.
 
Leggy88 said:
That's unlucky mate. My season starts this weekend actually. Will keep you all posted, but I'm not expecting anything major as it is my first season in adults cricket and people are still getting to know me, so not sure if I'll get a bowl. Fingers crossed. I'm also coming back from a surgery so I haven't trained much in the offseason and the surgery is still affecting me a bit.
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What surgery you had Leggy?
 
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