Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)

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Managed to get dropped down a grade because I’ve been batting 9, bowling pace but struggling with it a bit (weirdly have bowled well on turf in my Sunday Colts matches).

Will be opening the batting and likely bowling a few overs of leg spin instead of pace because my right knee is at the backend of a weird injury I got. Try make you guys proud .

I’ve always been able to bowl a good stock ball and a topspinner but I recently was messing around with bowling a side spinner and actually got really great results because it still drifts into the right hander but then doesn’t turn.
 
SomeblokecalledDave. said:
Anyone watching Alannah Kind in the women's Ashes. Superb bowling - best I've seen for years and its great to be able to watch all of it. The drift she's been getting is amazing and she's pretty damn accurate too.
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Yeah Kingy is an amazing bowler, gets great revs on the ball and bowls some absolute seeds from time to time.
 
doc8176 said:
Managed to get dropped down a grade because I’ve been batting 9, bowling pace but struggling with it a bit (weirdly have bowled well on turf in my Sunday Colts matches).

Will be opening the batting and likely bowling a few overs of leg spin instead of pace because my right knee is at the backend of a weird injury I got. Try make you guys proud .

I’ve always been able to bowl a good stock ball and a topspinner but I recently was messing around with bowling a side spinner and actually got really great results because it still drifts into the right hander but then doesn’t turn.
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What do you reckon is the key thing to getting the ball to drift? In an over can you bowl 6 that drift?
 
SomeblokecalledDave. said:
What do you reckon is the key thing to getting the ball to drift? In an over can you bowl 6 that drift?
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Probably can get 6 to drift. Can’t tell you why, I rip the ball and it drifts. I’ve seen the discussions on here about it and I don’t really have anything to add to it.

I do get the seam basically perfect on my leg break which likely helps.

Just have to spin it hard I guess.
 
Only bowled 4 balls, ranked half tracker first ball, wide the next, good ball and then a run out which always seems to happen off my bowling.

Other news, I opened the batting, left one that went for 2 wides, got hit on the pad by a left armer going over the wicket (pitching outside leg), and then got pinned middle stump trying to flick one off my pads.

I need to stop trying bat on off stump and work the ball off my legs, that’s not what I’m naturally good at. I need to move back on to middle, stand tall and be dominant through cover and the pull shot. If the ball hits my pads there it’s probably down leg.
 
doc8176 said:
Probably can get 6 to drift. Can’t tell you why, I rip the ball and it drifts. I’ve seen the discussions on here about it and I don’t really have anything to add to it.

I do get the seam basically perfect on my leg break which likely helps.

Just have to spin it hard I guess.
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I see it on some occasions if I bowl more round arm, but I've no idea if I spin it harder when I do that, but it is possible. I don't bowl round arm so much as it really stresses my arm and shoulder. Must be great if you can do it.
 
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SomeblokecalledDave. said:
I see it on some occasions if I bowl more round arm, but I've no idea if I spin it harder when I do that, but it is possible. I don't bowl round arm so much as it really stresses my arm and shoulder. Must be great if you can do it.
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Round arm makes sense because it forces you to put more side spin on the ball than than top spin.
 
Still catching up with the England/Aus women's game. Kings bowling is phenomenal, Gardner's not too shabby either. But King, this is like watching Warne almost. Can you imagine if she had a couple of variations? England are a shambles.
 
Just finished, what an ending! Peter Philpott would have loved that I'd imagine, but one thing. King has no variations! The end went on for ages, alternate overs King and Gardner, both on 4 looking for their 5th. But, King was so metronomic, the 2 tail-enders devised a method, and not having to get runs (The game was well lost) they just dug in. It wasn't till about 10 overs of going nowhere that King then slowed it up and tossed some above the eye-line and a few balls later, she got the 5th. Yeah - kind of bizarre that someone who plays at this level is so limited, I'd have thought somewhere in her career she must have at least toyed with a top-spinner but seemingly not - as surely she'd have tried it. Gardner at least tried some short balls that nearly worked. Yeah good game, good series but England - what the hell? I just have to wonder how many girls in Australia play cricket is it exponentially higher than us - it must be?
 
SomeblokecalledDave. said:
But on a personal level do you sense your position in the team is potentially subject to you playing well and performing, being fit and agile enough, having the stamina, being fast enough etc?
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100% mate, theres a lot of pressure on performance or else you are immediately dropped down grades. Bad fielding however I feel only gets the teammates angry at you, they don't really talk about that at meetings.
 
SomeblokecalledDave. said:
What do you reckon is the key thing to getting the ball to drift? In an over can you bowl 6 that drift?
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I've read endless discussions on this subject on this forum and elsewhere - everyone agrees that high revs are essential, and then argue for ages about the seam position - the "it's just Magnus Force" hardliners arguing that the seam is irrelevant, others saying it's very important. I'm more towards the latter - My own subjective experience suggests that if the spin rate is equal, the "cleanness" of the seam position makes a huge difference - a cross-seam delivery can drift a bit, but never as much as one rotating around the seam, ideally with the angle of spin tilted back a little bit. I remember watching Warne, Murali and MacGill back in the day, three bowlers who routinely spun it more than anyone I've seen around today, and of the three Warne got a lot more drift than the other two, which to me seemed to correlate to his seam position. Murali in particular absolutely ripped that ball, and yet got really minimal drift, something very hard to explain if Magnus Force is the only criterion.
 
SomeblokecalledDave. said:
But on a personal level do you sense your position in the team is potentially subject to you playing well and performing, being fit and agile enough, having the stamina, being fast enough etc?
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For the midweek t20 side I turn out for, not really - it's a development XI & my ability to drive & give lifts would be enough to earn my spot, being able to deliver 4 legal overs quick enough to avoid playing in the dark is a bonus. Being able to umpire & not minding batting 11 doesn't do any harm, either. While there's no real selection pressure there, there's a bit more to get in the League side - I'm working to improve my fielding as much as I can, from a low starting level. I'm pretty quick over the ground & I've got a lot better at stopping the ball - I'm trying to dive & slide a bit more, a bit nervy of getting injured though. My throw is the one thing that I'm particularly unhappy with - I've torn my rotator cuff before, so it's difficult to really let fly. I've never had any coaching, and we don't even really have any regular fielding sessions as a club - maybe one or two at the start of the season. I'm quite tempted to get some individual coaching tbh, would be expensive, but I'd really like to get better. I'm planning to play more for the Saturday league side this year
Leggy88 said:
100% mate, theres a lot of pressure on performance or else you are immediately dropped down grades. Bad fielding however I feel only gets the teammates angry at you, they don't really talk about that at meetings.
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Yeah, it's more the feeling of letting people, especially my fellow bowlers, down. I find that confidence from fielding well follows through into my bowling as well - I start a spell with a better mindset if I feel like I'm justifying my place already.
 
Leggy88 said:
Yeah I'm doing alright thanks, but in terms of bowling not so good to be honest. I have played 8 games and taken 6 wickets, but have gone at a run rate of 8 an over and average of 28 per wicket. For some reason I've just lost my accuracy and have been struggling with the yips...
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If you find anything that helps I'd love to hear it - I don't get the yips as such, but I definitely tense up, which is really unhelpful for legspin - I bowl best when I'm really loose & relaxed.
SomeblokecalledDave. said:
How serious do you lot all take your skill, fitness, agility, strength and speed in the field and does it tie into your desire to play for years to come and do you see it also as a part of the process of being considered for different teams? The question is inspired by the current discussions around the England women's team and the comparison with the Aussies made by Alex Hartley on commentary.

I've got a 4 month lead in to the first game and I don't want to be seen as a 'Shoe in' player for out 6th XI. Even though I'll be 65 this year I want to play at least in the 5th XI as a valued player and also play in the 4th or 3rd XI if they're a spinner down.

I know that having just gone through Christmas I'm at my lowest ebb with regards fitness. I now start working on it building towards the first game in May. I've also noticed one of the weakest part of my game is getting the ball in from the boundary and its one thing that everyone notices in games, so wanting to be considered for the better teams I feel its something I need to work on, so over the coming months this'll be one of many things I'll be working on.

Additionally, I'll watch my diet. I could easily succumbed to eating crap food and alcohol and pile on the weight.

What do you reckon - standard practice for club players or obsessive? My wife would says obsessive!
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You should hear my Mrs! I do take my fitness pretty seriously now, and my desire to play cricket regularly for some time to come is a big motivation for that, maybe even the main one. I feel as an older player that I have to work a lot harder to match the natural fitness of the younger lads - I've always been inspired by Paul Collingwood apparently being the fittest member of the England teams he was in, although he was a bit younger than me. Brad Hogg last appearing the BBL at 47, the same as I am now!
 
Fleetwood said:
If you find anything that helps I'd love to hear it - I don't get the yips as such, but I definitely tense up, which is really unhelpful for legspin - I bowl best when I'm really loose & relaxed.

You should hear my Mrs! I do take my fitness pretty seriously now, and my desire to play cricket regularly for some time to come is a big motivation for that, maybe even the main one. I feel as an older player that I have to work a lot harder to match the natural fitness of the younger lads - I've always been inspired by Paul Collingwood apparently being the fittest member of the England teams he was in, although he was a bit younger than me. Brad Hogg last appearing the BBL at 47, the same as I am now!
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I've just knackered myself. I've been playing indoor cricket all winter and we're now into 10 weeks of indoor nets as well which is nice. But a couple of weeks back it was half-term and I'm a lecturer and had to spend the majority of it sitting on my arse all week assessing... No exercise. The weather was crap as well, so I hardly went outside. Come Sunday after 9 days of doing nothing had a game and we collapsed meaning I was in early having to make runs and ping! My calf muscle tore/ruptured. Very painful. First week I was really struggling to walk , but end of that week with a bit of icing and rest, it then made a sudden and rapid improvement. This week I've been able to walk normally - feel like I'm not ready to run yet or start some physio. Tuesday did hour and half of bowling in the nets - bowled well, Leg Breaks and Top-spinner combo's - top-spinner does for most! That went well in terms of the calf - taken off the surgical sock thing today. I reckon another week and I'll start running a little. Yeah if you don't use it, you soon lose it. Yeah keep it up. The other thing I have in the back of my mind is increasingly if you don't look after yourself, it's pretty obvious that 'others' are not happy to pay for your health when your sick/ill/injured.
 
Fleetwood said:
If you find anything that helps I'd love to hear it - I don't get the yips as such, but I definitely tense up, which is really unhelpful for legspin - I bowl best when I'm really loose & relaxed.

You should hear my Mrs! I do take my fitness pretty seriously now, and my desire to play cricket regularly for some time to come is a big motivation for that, maybe even the main one. I feel as an older player that I have to work a lot harder to match the natural fitness of the younger lads - I've always been inspired by Paul Collingwood apparently being the fittest member of the England teams he was in, although he was a bit younger than me. Brad Hogg last appearing the BBL at 47, the same as I am now!
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I find a really simple thing for staying relaxed is being in control of breathing. I stand at the top of my mark and take a big breath out. That’s a moment’s pause where I feel like I’m in control, and the batter has to wait for me… I think you are more likely to get stressed if it feels like a rush.
 
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