The Edge Of Willow
Member
Heh, not knowingly. I can't remember you giving a whip analogy.
Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Four)
- Thread starter Jim2109
- Start date
Recruiting blokes from cricket heathen countries, well done Dave. Your like a modern day missionary converting people to the one true faith, all with the power of your video camera and a keyboard!!
Chased leather all day today. Rained off after 52 overs thankfully with them on 3/307. I bowled quite well though and picked up two wickets for 60 off 14 overs. Its quite funny really because now I am the leading wicket taker in the whole competition. And Im hoping to give it all up so I can bowl leg spin.
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
60 off 14 overs that's okay 4.28 an over, I'd be okay with that. I'd just love to get 14 overs. How many bowlers does your team have in a game?
I had a few sessions in the nets last week, alone and with my team mates. Firstly I want to brag about the 2 best wrong uns Ive ever bowled. Both turned a mile and impressed everyone in the nets. The first one landed outside off stump and the batsman lifted his bat to leave it and it came back and wacked him fair in the stomach. The second one the batsman went to block, playing for a leg break and went through the gate. It bounced over the stumps though which is bascally always the case on synthetic wickets. The first one was doubly satisfying because before I bowled it I said to our off spinner Id been working on a wrongun, he being very dubious of my leg spin bowling abilities.
Anyway to the point. Im a bit torn between where Im am headed with my action. As you all know and seen on my videos Ive worked hard to develop my action. The lessons with the coach I have had have been all about getting my arm lower and getting more side spin on the ball with the Philpott no2 exercise wrist action. It has produced some great results at times, getting the ball to turn a very long way. The problem I find is it is very hit and miss and a lot less accurate.
I went back to my old action the other day, although keeping my arm a bit lower. The thing I noticed is although I don't get the huge turn, I can bowl it a good deal faster, and it feels like I get better shape and certainly a lot of bounce. The other thing is I can get better accuracy too and it feels a lot more comfortable and natural. Basically it has more revs but it has more top spin than side spin.
So do I persist with the way the coach has been showing me or do I finally just settle with where I am at and try and really ingrain what I have and get it so I am accurate and consistant and confident and can repeat it over and over like my pace bowling.
I must admit I am leaning towards the second option as I have been practicing hard for over a year now and just want to settle on an action and get it grooved so to speak. The worry I have is if I go down the other path I still might not have a consistant action in 5 or even 10 years time and may never be accurate and that doesnt bode well for getting many overs. Having said that turning the ball huge is very satisfying.
My leg break with the old action isnt bad though, even if it doesnt turn as much.
Has anyone got any advice??
Anyway to the point. Im a bit torn between where Im am headed with my action. As you all know and seen on my videos Ive worked hard to develop my action. The lessons with the coach I have had have been all about getting my arm lower and getting more side spin on the ball with the Philpott no2 exercise wrist action. It has produced some great results at times, getting the ball to turn a very long way. The problem I find is it is very hit and miss and a lot less accurate.
I went back to my old action the other day, although keeping my arm a bit lower. The thing I noticed is although I don't get the huge turn, I can bowl it a good deal faster, and it feels like I get better shape and certainly a lot of bounce. The other thing is I can get better accuracy too and it feels a lot more comfortable and natural. Basically it has more revs but it has more top spin than side spin.
So do I persist with the way the coach has been showing me or do I finally just settle with where I am at and try and really ingrain what I have and get it so I am accurate and consistant and confident and can repeat it over and over like my pace bowling.
I must admit I am leaning towards the second option as I have been practicing hard for over a year now and just want to settle on an action and get it grooved so to speak. The worry I have is if I go down the other path I still might not have a consistant action in 5 or even 10 years time and may never be accurate and that doesnt bode well for getting many overs. Having said that turning the ball huge is very satisfying.
My leg break with the old action isnt bad though, even if it doesnt turn as much.
Has anyone got any advice??
Without being big headed, Im the most accurate and consistant, then there are 3 others who can either be brilliant or horrible depending on the day and then 4 others who have varying degrees of sucess. My consistancy gets me lots of overs as Im straight on when things go bad or to pair up with one of the last 4 bowlers to keep one end tight. The team we played today had some freekish hitters. One guy got 50 off 20 balls!!
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
That's the big conundrum with wrist spinning do you settle with an approach that turns a bit that you have decent accuracy with or do you persevere with an approach that turns massive but means as you've said you might be bowling all sorts of lines and lengths picking up wickets basically because your bowling is so inconsistent it's unplayable. I think if you're a true wrist spinner you've got to chase the Holy Grail of the accurate Big turning flick ball - and if it takes you 5 years or longer it's got to be there as your goal. You've probably seen my videos and you can see that with rolling the ball off the fingers I can get the ball to turn a bit, but with fairly good accuracy, but I know through my work with trying to develop the action with the 'Big Flick' that the ball will turn more and bounce more and therefore it's something that I work on at the minute all the time, looking for some kind of magic combination that'll bring the whole thing together and produce consistency and accuracy. In practice it happens and at the end of the last season I was getting it together using my new walk in technique. Since then over the winter (Indoors) I've sussed that I can actually bowl with a proper bound but having mucked about with it a bit it looks like I'll probably need to spend a whole season practicing getting the bound, rotation, follow through and all the other things combined with the flick to bowl a good line and length. Which means I'd have been at it now 5 years and still can't bowl what I would call proper wrist spin, but it's coming. All of which supports Richie Benaud and some others claims that it does take you a minimum of 4 years just to learn the leg break and I'm assuming he's saying that assuming you're working with a coach?
So my approach is that - in games I bowl the safe and accurate small to medium turning leg breaks and in practice I'm constantly looking to develop and find the true Big Flick Leg break.
So my approach is that - in games I bowl the safe and accurate small to medium turning leg breaks and in practice I'm constantly looking to develop and find the true Big Flick Leg break.
Thanks for the reply. I think my old action has the big flick, in fact I know it gets a lot more revs than the more round arm method with the Philpott (ball out in front, flicking back to chest wrist action) method. Its just that I can't get my wrist around so I get a lot of side spin. The ball is rotating more at about 20 degrees, (0 being a top spinner and 90 degrees being a square leg break) rather than the more ideal 45 degrees.
I noticed with the more round arm method and different wrist flick the turn is a lot more but there is no real bounce. The turn is more because the spin is more like 70degrees but although they are turning a long way there is actually less revs on the ball and they are slower and batsman in the nets haven't been having much trouble with them.
So how far does a ball have to turn to be effective? There must almost be a turn versus pace ratio that is ideal.
The other aspect is my old action has better shape and dip. I remember Warne saying you have to beat them through the air and you won't beat many good batsman off the pitch.
Lastly I don't know whether I am patient enough to wait 5 years to get a consistant action.
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
Yeah - having control over the angle of the ball, being able to think 'Right - this'll be a 20 degree ball' just a fraction away from the Toppie and then doing the same thing and throwing up a 70 degree ball is again one of the goals that you'd be aiming for, so if you can do that at will you're doing better than me!
With regards how far it turns and how effective the more extreme angles are 70-90 degrees, I reckon that comes down to what kind of pitch you're bowling on. If you're bowling on a rock hard,dead smooth pitch, I personally don't think those more extreme angled balls will fulfil their potential unless of course they're being bowled slow and dropping in off of an angle that is as near as a vertical drop as you can get. If they're coming out of the hand with the 70-90 degree seam and being bowled flatter by my estimation the seam has got to bite and then trip over itself or skid negating the potential of really biting (if there was some rough/crack/grass) digging in and then turning. If the pitch is rough anything around 45 degrees is going to do something unpredictable. With the patience thing, if you're enjoying it, which is does sound as though you are, just go with what you feel is going to serve you best and just work on the longer term objectives in the background. If you need incentive and you do want to bowl for another couple of decades, just think of your knees!
With regards how far it turns and how effective the more extreme angles are 70-90 degrees, I reckon that comes down to what kind of pitch you're bowling on. If you're bowling on a rock hard,dead smooth pitch, I personally don't think those more extreme angled balls will fulfil their potential unless of course they're being bowled slow and dropping in off of an angle that is as near as a vertical drop as you can get. If they're coming out of the hand with the 70-90 degree seam and being bowled flatter by my estimation the seam has got to bite and then trip over itself or skid negating the potential of really biting (if there was some rough/crack/grass) digging in and then turning. If the pitch is rough anything around 45 degrees is going to do something unpredictable. With the patience thing, if you're enjoying it, which is does sound as though you are, just go with what you feel is going to serve you best and just work on the longer term objectives in the background. If you need incentive and you do want to bowl for another couple of decades, just think of your knees!
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
Here's another bloke I'm trying to encourage via youtube, this is one Saddo found http://www.youtube.com/user/sydcricketcoaching
Wrist Spin bowling
Good stuff Syd, are you going to be putting more stuff on-line?
We've linked this to a big forum that a group of us talk wrist spin on - it's probably the most active forum on the internet http://www.bigcricket.com/community/forums/spin-bowling.36/ (We like to think it is) Have a look around the 'Spin bowling section and if you've got time, sign up join in with the discussions, we'd love to have you on board.
I love the idea of the view from the back, never seen Jenner or Warne show it from this angle, but it definitely helps to illustrate the action and the affect of the wrist being angled slightly to create the variations and sub variations.
Hope to see you on the forum.
Dave Thompson
http://legspinbowling.blogspot.com/
Sent to: sydcricketcoaching
Wrist Spin bowling
Good stuff Syd, are you going to be putting more stuff on-line?
We've linked this to a big forum that a group of us talk wrist spin on - it's probably the most active forum on the internet http://www.bigcricket.com/community/forums/spin-bowling.36/ (We like to think it is) Have a look around the 'Spin bowling section and if you've got time, sign up join in with the discussions, we'd love to have you on board.
I love the idea of the view from the back, never seen Jenner or Warne show it from this angle, but it definitely helps to illustrate the action and the affect of the wrist being angled slightly to create the variations and sub variations.
Hope to see you on the forum.
Dave Thompson
http://legspinbowling.blogspot.com/
Sent to: sydcricketcoaching
Looking from a different viewpoint, rather than all these holy grail chasing types on here
, as a coach I would think that a bit of turn combined with something between your ears is worth far more than the 'Warne magic ball'. Remember all bowlers are different both in pyhsique, co-ordination, mentality and application so all (and I dont say this lightly) you need to do is work out a plan that suits you.Having looked at a few YouTube clips I would say you would cause plenty of problems for batters with your bounce and top spin so just a bit of turn on the fuller delivery would probably be enough to draw a false shot ie get a potential wicket taking ball, but as I said this is for you to develop a plan on a) how you are hoping to take wickets and b) how you are planning to reduce scoring opportunities, if you have valid, supportable answers to both of those then you are a long way down the road
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
Looking from a different viewpoint, rather than all these holy grail chasing types on here
Having looked at a few YouTube clips I would say you would cause plenty of problems for batters with your bounce and top spin so just a bit of turn on the fuller delivery would probably be enough to draw a false shot ie get a potential wicket taking ball, but as I said this is for you to develop a plan on a) how you are hoping to take wickets and b) how you are planning to reduce scoring opportunities, if you have valid, supportable answers to both of those then you are a long way down the road
I agree with that too.
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
I've just come back from nets with my two sons and my first session as a wrist spin coach. I had two lads in a net on our own and went with the stand start drill. One of the lads was my younger son Joe (9) and another lad that's a bit older. The other lad has a very good spinning from the hand technique and was getting the ball to turn well even without my intervention. But adding the stand start drill to session and getting them to do that made a massive difference to this other kids amount of turn, which was good to see. I don't think he initially liked the idea of bowling off of standing start, especially as one of the young blokes in the 1st XI who bowls leg-spin had got hold of him first and was telling him he needed to establish a run up and stick to that, so with me then saying 'No run - bowl off a standing position' may have seen to have been at odds with the other blokes approach? But I think once he got the rotation right he was noticing the fact that the ball was spinning absolutely miles (far better than me). For much of the time he was pretty accurate as well, so a very promising start. He came back later after going in another net and bowled with a full run up. At that point he was tending to bowl full tosses and flatter, but his rotation was looking a lot better and his energy through the rotation more dynamic.
My own son Joe was doing something very wrong including bowling wrong uns, so he was bowling more top spin I reckon and out of the back of the hand. With his bowling action his energy was seemingly going forward bodily and over-stepping, so that he was falling forwards. Looking back the Beau Casson video it just looks as though he needs to think about the delivery stride being smaller. I think he was being put off by the fact that the other kids so obviously got what I was saying and was turning the ball massively.
My own son Joe was doing something very wrong including bowling wrong uns, so he was bowling more top spin I reckon and out of the back of the hand. With his bowling action his energy was seemingly going forward bodily and over-stepping, so that he was falling forwards. Looking back the Beau Casson video it just looks as though he needs to think about the delivery stride being smaller. I think he was being put off by the fact that the other kids so obviously got what I was saying and was turning the ball massively.
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
I've been playing around with the Beau Casson video and I've edited it down into 2 shorter clips with just the stand start bits. I've also added titles and the link to the forum to try and get more people on here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aFfcV1Ha-M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR44rZciOWY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aFfcV1Ha-M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YR44rZciOWY
Looking from a different viewpoint, rather than all these holy grail chasing types on here
Having looked at a few YouTube clips I would say you would cause plenty of problems for batters with your bounce and top spin so just a bit of turn on the fuller delivery would probably be enough to draw a false shot ie get a potential wicket taking ball, but as I said this is for you to develop a plan on a) how you are hoping to take wickets and b) how you are planning to reduce scoring opportunities, if you have valid, supportable answers to both of those then you are a long way down the road
Thats it mate, I think I should get what I already have working consistantly and accurately and work on the other balls in the background and hopefully get them working in a few years time. No need to have it all now and a bit impatient to think I can!!
Looking from a different viewpoint, rather than all these holy grail chasing types on here
Having looked at a few YouTube clips I would say you would cause plenty of problems for batters with your bounce and top spin so just a bit of turn on the fuller delivery would probably be enough to draw a false shot ie get a potential wicket taking ball, but as I said this is for you to develop a plan on a) how you are hoping to take wickets and b) how you are planning to reduce scoring opportunities, if you have valid, supportable answers to both of those then you are a long way down the road
Yes Yes Yes!!!! So simple but sometimes you can't see the forest for the trees. Looking at some of the spin bowlers in our comp they bowl flat and barely turn it but still get wickets because they are wiley old buggers that know their strenghts and weaknesses. The trick is becoming wiley myself. I think spin bowlers are rated on the amount of turn they get but extra bounce is just as useful and dangerous I reckon.
Looks like Joe needs to try your karate chop method to get his wrist position around to a leg break.
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
Yeah, that was my assessment and it's probably true as he does seem to bowl better wrong uns than Leg breaks and possibly more wrong uns than leg breaks. I did try to explain it but he didn't get it.
GoldenArm
Member
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JX-eknqRhh8&feature=feedu
i'm sure you'll all find this fairly fascinating. looks like Rashid has decided that the only variations he needs are the googly and an off break! pretty effective as well, even if he still isn't quite getting it right all the time.
i'm sure you'll all find this fairly fascinating. looks like Rashid has decided that the only variations he needs are the googly and an off break! pretty effective as well, even if he still isn't quite getting it right all the time.
great video of Rashid, finally some proper footage. and confirms what weve known all along - hes actually pretty rubbish and stands little chance of making it internationally without serious improvement. if anything i think he looks worse now than he did when he made his debut for England a couple of years back.
zero seam control or discipline (im convinced he doesnt scramble it on purpose, he uses a half-cup grip and the seam just comes out messy. its the nature of that method). his line and length control is poor for someone playing at the level he is, there are other county spinners with a LOT more consistency. and you look at the wickets and apart from maybe 1 or 2, they werent cleverly planned. he just tossed the ball up outside off stump until the batsmen spooned one up going for 6's. they were all batting error, none from good bowling.
if nothing else it makes me feel a lot better about my bowling at present. my consistency is probably 50% of what Rashid is capable of (but improving all the time). i spin the ball harder, my seam discipline is near enough perfect now. and my bowling speeds are only about 5-10% off what he is achieving in that video. its no wonder England have never given him a proper go, they see him in nets on a regular basis and see that his county figures arent necessarily a true representation of his abilities, and against proper batsmen he would get carted.
Imran Tahir is 10 times the leg spin bowler in English county cricket (even if the figures suggest otherwise), and hes only recently been called up for South Africa. im not sure if they actually played him in the end? i didnt keep track of it. he would be very good at international level IMO, whereas Rashid just isnt ready (and i dont know if he ever will be). Steve Smith is twice the bowler at present.
zero seam control or discipline (im convinced he doesnt scramble it on purpose, he uses a half-cup grip and the seam just comes out messy. its the nature of that method). his line and length control is poor for someone playing at the level he is, there are other county spinners with a LOT more consistency. and you look at the wickets and apart from maybe 1 or 2, they werent cleverly planned. he just tossed the ball up outside off stump until the batsmen spooned one up going for 6's. they were all batting error, none from good bowling.
if nothing else it makes me feel a lot better about my bowling at present. my consistency is probably 50% of what Rashid is capable of (but improving all the time). i spin the ball harder, my seam discipline is near enough perfect now. and my bowling speeds are only about 5-10% off what he is achieving in that video. its no wonder England have never given him a proper go, they see him in nets on a regular basis and see that his county figures arent necessarily a true representation of his abilities, and against proper batsmen he would get carted.
Imran Tahir is 10 times the leg spin bowler in English county cricket (even if the figures suggest otherwise), and hes only recently been called up for South Africa. im not sure if they actually played him in the end? i didnt keep track of it. he would be very good at international level IMO, whereas Rashid just isnt ready (and i dont know if he ever will be). Steve Smith is twice the bowler at present.