Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Four)

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the funnier thing is looking at my batting though i think. back in May id batted about 5 innings in total, my first 2 last year were pretty good because i got to face leg spin and just used my sweep, and to be fair the bowling i faced wasnt great, they gifted me runs. ive never specifically practiced the sweep, its just a shot that comes completely naturally. then i had the winter and no batting, had almost no practice pre-season because i was entirely focussed on my bowling, and then i had a few innings that didnt reach more than 10 runs, then Daves paddock!

ive had quite a few solid innings since then, and my technique has come on massively. i dont prod around outside off stump anymore, especially not to spin. im less anxious to plant my front foot early and i use my feet much better. my sweep shot is mega, and ive also got the straight pull working reasonably well. not exactly orthodox!! without wanting to blow my own trumpet, if i was watching that sweep shot in the video without knowing it was me, id be pretty impressed. the ball is about a yard outside off stump, theres a big stride, and then i roll my wrists perfectly over it. i hardly ever spoon sweeps up in the air, they almost always go to ground. theres a couple more good sweeps in there, and a couple that i missed as well. i just love the shot, i play it against pace now too and youre right, it does seriously annoy batsmen!! im waiting for one to follow up with a bouncer.

the above isnt really wrist spin related, however im now a firm believer that we leggies have to do whatever we can to hold a place in the team. and my (ever improving) batting and fielding (more my fielding outdoors, but now my batting indoors) have got me on the team sheet a LOT of times this year. thats half the battle, the other half of the battle is convincing the captain to give you some overs when runs are tight!! however my indoor and sunday captain is probably my biggest supporter at the club, and hes also vice captain to the saturday 1's :D
 
The sweep s
chippyben said:
Yeah that pitch certainly looked like a minefield,(Sorry Dave) that sweep shot is the sort of shot that really annoys a bowler thats for sure. Funny when you look back at the old vids and see how our actions have changed.

Has anyone had a go with a ball called an aggot. A mate lent me one today and I'll give it a go tomorrow hopefully. It is basically a squashed cricket ball and it is supposed to get you bowling with the correct seam position. Should be interesting.
www.theaggot.com[/quote]

The sweep shot- what the nonchalant one armer down the legside - yeah I usually end up dismissed within a matter of a couple or more balls! Yeah that would P*** me off as well if I was bowling.
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Yeah, had a bat bowl and field.
Batting they were bowling short on a bowling machine to let you smack the ball around to show the wagon wheels etc
Bowling there was 2 things, first just 20 odd minutes of bowling down the net to practise and get some bowling data, showing ball movement pace etc, then a game where you were meant to hit the stumps, and pitch in front of the stump and bowl as fast as possible...
Both of these had some very good coaching sessions before hand, mister hinchcliffe was very helpful indeed with my bowling.
If i get the data in a few days, i'll see if its postable at all. I have a paper copy here...
Fieldign was a game of speed and accuracy where you had to run to ab all, pick it up and hit a target at about 15 m. all under the clock.
Quite enjoyable!
 
Finally got to have a bowl at training tonight due to all the rain weve been having. Felt a bit rusty to start with even though its only been 4 days. I ended up getting some good rhythm going though and was really troubling the right handers but there were two left handers that I had trouble with. One leftey really took me apart actually. I was bowling a bit too much on his legs and he had a beautiful on drive. I got him to misjudge a few when I gave them a bit of air but I felt pretty impotent against lefties. I guess thats the feeling offies get a lot of the time!!!
Bowling at training to batsmen isn't really the best way to keep working on my action so I hope to get a few solo sessions in over the weekend.
 
chippyben said:
Finally got to have a bowl at training tonight due to all the rain weve been having. Felt a bit rusty to start with even though its only been 4 days. I ended up getting some good rhythm going though and was really troubling the right handers but there were two left handers that I had trouble with. One leftey really took me apart actually. I was bowling a bit too much on his legs and he had a beautiful on drive. I got him to misjudge a few when I gave them a bit of air but I felt pretty impotent against lefties. I guess thats the feeling offies get a lot of the time!!!
Bowling at training to batsmen isn't really the best way to keep working on my action so I hope to get a few solo sessions in over the weekend.
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Been wet in sydney chippyben, im up at coffs for a few days and it is full on tropical here.

bowling a leftie through the gate with a legbreak is as good a feeling as bowling someone else behind their legs, i reckon. you have to practise getting that lefthander line right all the time. practise to lefthanders, real or imaginary and try and move that line over and outside their offstump for your legbreak.
 
macca said:
Been wet in sydney chippyben, im up at coffs for a few days and it is full on tropical here.

bowling a leftie through the gate with a legbreak is as good a feeling as bowling someone else behind their legs, i reckon. you have to practise getting that lefthander line right all the time. practise to lefthanders, real or imaginary and try and move that line over and outside their offstump for your legbreak.
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Hey mate Stuart MacGill was in Coffs Harbour yesterday. Don't know if you get Triple M in Newcastle but he does a morning show with Mark Geyer and they took the show on a road trip up the coast to Brisbane. They were at Lennox Head this morning.

I get a lot of top spin when I bowl because of my high action and that seemed to be my best chance of getting left handers out. They would rock back on their back foot to cut me when I put it outside off. They would judge the leg break spin easily but the extra bounce and pace forced them to rush their shots, nearly chopping onto their stumps a few times. The main thing I learned though was don't bowl on their legs!!!
 
if they were rocking back then you were bowling too short (for them, not necessarily in the grand scheme of things, but you have to adapt). you need to draw them into the shot. if they want to rock back all the time, which they will (most right handers try to play big turning off spin off the back foot as well) then you simply have to exploit that.

back foot shots are extremely limited when the length is good. they are basically restricted to little dab cuts, or they can swing through the ball, but either way, the ball is going between fine leg and forward point if they connect. so just cover them off. have someone in close to stop the single as well, you dont want an alternating right hand left hand combo at the crease!! if they cant score runs there then they will instantly be forced to come forwards and drive, or defend. and then youve already won. if you get on top of them then bring in close fielders to pile on pressure.

if this works and they start playing front foot shots then just plod away. good length, aiming for the ball to hit middle stump with turn (if its not turning then dont pitch on the stumps, youre not covering off the leg side and lefties are too strong there). youll probably end up pitching 6-12" outside off. you have to find the same sort of length that troubles the right handers, that length where they want to come forwards, but this leaves them in no mans land poking at the ball. if they are content to sit back then leave them to it, just cover off the runs. if youve got a flipper or a wrong'un then youre laughing because theyll sit back to them and end up in huge trouble. if not then sometimes you have to just accept that the best you can do is to build pressure with dot balls, and if you pull out that magic ball then youll bowl them anyway.
 
didn't know magilla was up on the banana coast as well. he hasn't got big wraps on smith as legspinner does he?

big topspinner to lefthanders, yeah get that up 'em. my young bloke does best coming round the wicket to these lefthanded jokers.
 
Jim2109 said:
if they were rocking back then you were bowling too short (for them, not necessarily in the grand scheme of things, but you have to adapt). you need to draw them into the shot. if they want to rock back all the time, which they will (most right handers try to play big turning off spin off the back foot as well) then you simply have to exploit that.

back foot shots are extremely limited when the length is good. they are basically restricted to little dab cuts, or they can swing through the ball, but either way, the ball is going between fine leg and forward point if they connect. so just cover them off. have someone in close to stop the single as well, you dont want an alternating right hand left hand combo at the crease!! if they cant score runs there then they will instantly be forced to come forwards and drive, or defend. and then youve already won. if you get on top of them then bring in close fielders to pile on pressure.

if this works and they start playing front foot shots then just plod away. good length, aiming for the ball to hit middle stump with turn (if its not turning then dont pitch on the stumps, youre not covering off the leg side and lefties are too strong there). youll probably end up pitching 6-12" outside off. you have to find the same sort of length that troubles the right handers, that length where they want to come forwards, but this leaves them in no mans land poking at the ball. if they are content to sit back then leave them to it, just cover off the runs. if youve got a flipper or a wrong'un then youre laughing because theyll sit back to them and end up in huge trouble. if not then sometimes you have to just accept that the best you can do is to build pressure with dot balls, and if you pull out that magic ball then youll bowl them anyway.
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Yeah probably a little short but I was also getting a little full to the the lefties as well. Good batsman decrease the good length area don't they!
It really is all about making them play uncomfortable or risky shots to get runs isn't it. Cricket is pretty simple really if you can bowl good line and length. I'm just learning where the safe and risky shots for leg spin are.
I was at the nets tonight and a coach was there teaching a young bloke batting. Anyway he bolwed leg spin and had a mean wrong un. I bowled a few overs at the young fella and the coach showed me what I was doing wrong with the wrong un. I didn't have instant sucess or much at all to be honest but there were some encouraging signs and I managed to bowl half a dozen or so that turned the other way.
I worked on getting my weight more forward over my braced front leg at the point of delivery. I was getting some good results although it felt quite strange. I guess thats the result of bowling thousands of balls without doing so. There is a definate gain in the amount of turn I get when I do tranfer my weight forward properly. I slowed things down a bit tonight too and just bowled off one or two paces just to try and get right technique wise before trying to add more power. .
I was watching a game the other night between Pakistan and South Africa. There was an off spin bowler who was chucking it. Although the commentators were saying he only bends his arm 10 degrees and was well within the limits. The thing is he has developed this legal chucking as part of his technique , its not some strange double jointedness or some other rubbish. Thank you Murali
 
martin said:
well this guy has to be the best spin bowler of all time :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na1zPL_otVs
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always going to stir up debate among the various camps. but IMO Shane Warne destroys Murali for the title of best spinner ever. taking Bangladesh and Zimbabwe out of the equation, the figures are VERY close, barely anything to choose between them really...

Murali test record (exc. Bangladesh and Zim)
Wickets: 624
Ave: 24.88
S/R: 58.66
5 wicket innings: 50
10 wicket matches: 16

Warne test record (exc. Bangladesh and Zim)
Wickets: 691
Ave: 25.41
S/R: 57.69
5 wicket innings: 36
10 wicket matches: 10

Warne took more wickets, Murali has the slightly better average, Warne the slightly better strike rate. Murali took more 5W and 10W hauls, but on favourable pitches. Murali took 62% of his wickets on home soil, whereas Warne only took 45% of his in Australia. that is fairly significant when weighing up which of 2 fairly equally matched bowlers is the best.

also, Warne just had sheer magic with his bowling. nobody compares to him on the mental aspect of his game. he could literally think a batsman out, and he was very rarely lost for ideas. Tendulkar is perhaps the only batsman that ever got the better of Shane Warne. Murali isnt on the same level for intelligence, although he is certainly no idiot. but for me thats why Warne is the best.

theres also the never ending debate of whether Muralis action was actually legal. they changed the rules to make it legal just so he could continue to play. that in my eyes detracts from him in this argument. Warne had his drugs ban as well, but ultimately his on-field play was never in question.

Warne for me is the greatest spinner of all time. Clarrie Grimmett second for being such an innovator so early on the development of modern leg spin. Murali maybe third.
 
Hello everyone. I'm back.

I've been reading through all the stuff I missed in my absence over the last few days. Kudos to doctortran for the stuff on the the position of the upper body before the front foot lands and front leg extension. I think I got about halfway to what should be done in that regard when trying to increase my pace, so my action wasn't really at the peak of what it could be. Today I had a go trying to bowl with body position as indicated by doctortran and it went very well. I was a bit thrown by the quicker pace that the arm has to whip through with when going from a fully upright position(as opposed to one where you're already leaning forward somewhat) just after the front foot lands, but the position of the upper body just felt so much better at the time of release. Now I just need to get the faster timing of the arm swing, wrist flick, and pivot down.

Also, I had a problem of giving the ball too much flight and getting hammered by good batsmen charging me. I've almost fixed that now. Only the occasional one will lob really high now. I still tend to over-pitch a bit though, so I think length is going to be the next big thing to concentrate on after I get comfortable with the faster speed of my action.
 
The Edge Of Willow said:
Hello everyone. I'm back.

I've been reading through all the stuff I missed in my absence over the last few days. Kudos to doctortran for the stuff on the the position of the upper body before the front foot lands and front leg extension. I think I got about halfway to what should be done in that regard when trying to increase my pace, so my action wasn't really at the peak of what it could be. Today I had a go trying to bowl with body position as indicated by doctortran and it went very well. I was a bit thrown by the quicker pace that the arm has to whip through with when going from a fully upright position(as opposed to one where you're already leaning forward somewhat) just after the front foot lands, but the position of the upper body just felt so much better at the time of release. Now I just need to get the faster timing of the arm swing, wrist flick, and pivot down.

Also, I had a problem of giving the ball too much flight and getting hammered by good batsmen charging me. I've almost fixed that now. Only the occasional one will lob really high now. I still tend to over-pitch a bit though, so I think length is going to be the next big thing to concentrate on after I get comfortable with the faster speed of my action.
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if youre bowling quickly and suffer from OVER-pitching then youre a lot better off than the opposite scenario with under-pitching!! over-pitching still gets wickets, under-pitching rarely does, and good batsmen will take you to pieces! obviously if you bowl full tosses all the time then thats not great, but slightly over-pitching isnt too bad. you can always release the ball from a yard behind the crease as well that way lol, easy fix!
 
sadspinner said:
There is a lord, warnie here admitting that the gatting ball was a fluke. Makes me feel better.
http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/video_audio/486588.html
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Brilliant Saddo! I'm just writing about that for my massive re-vamp of my leg spin blog and I was just finishing it off hypothesising that it was probably assisted by some rough! Have a look at the new thread I've just started and see if you've got any answers to my questions there for us please?
 
Yes, took a quick look at the blog. Massive work you are doing there. About the grimmett flippers, my understanding was that at that stage he could not bowl them over the 22 yards or so. My impression was as yours that they were purely for demonstration especially to kids. Having said that he might have mastered some of them through his career. Macca may be privy to more information as he swears that he mastered the topspinning flipper. To be honest I have managed the top and offspinning flippers mainly the latter, though line tends to be down leg side , posiibly to me being round armed. If I managed 20 or so yards, you can be darned sure that grimmett managed them as well.

I recall that grimmet in one of his books also states that by turning the wrist ie the palm facing mid on to the palm facing leg slip, you go from a small to the biggest leg break. I do not recall him mentioning turning the wrist further to get the slider/backspinner. The first time I read that was in philpott and jenner. But the latter used it only for backspin and not for the big one. The thing is it is possible to bowl it, but i find it extremely difficult to do so, I think strength and flexibility of the wrist together with the right timing of the flick being crucial. By the way the book by Hollies goes into reasonable detail about the googly but does not say much about the big leg break. The more I try the more I am convinced that the most crucial aspect for the big one is the wrist position. If you get that right, even with low revs it will turn much more than a massively spun overspinning legbreak.
 
Yeah my research so far would suggest that the conventional wrist spinners slider isn't mentioned in any literature till Philpott. I can't believe that Philpott invented it though and if he did I don't recall him talking about it in his autobiography. So who is the mystery bowler that first describes a slider? I suspect that Benaud may have had a slider, but whether it was the real slider flicked inwards or a Mickey Mouse slider e.g. a ball bowled like seam bowler - but cross seam, I don't know. Who's read anything by Benaud?

Oh yeah that bit you've seen on the mpa blog is only the tip of the iceberg - the revamp when it's finsihed will be more or less an on-line book.
 
I would also recommend using the thumb as a rule of thumb. Thumb facing batsmen onrelease= topspinner, thumb facing first slip= small overspun legbreak etc. The big leg break ie biggest/sole sidespin will be when releasing the ball having the thumb pointing towards you. The biggest leg break with side and back spin being with the thumb pointing further back. The pure backspinner follows with the thumb pointing further back. Easier said then done. As we said before you may think your wrist/thumb is pointing in one place when it actually is not. Then there is the seam position the leading arm etc etc. No wonder it is so difficult, too many things can go wrong. Why did we chose this style of bowling in the first place. It is an esoteric art!
 
That's the magic of it, it is a real challenge and it's complex. Did you see that there's a new bloke on the block who can bowl big leg breaks with seeming ease? I'm looking forward to seeing his work, hopefully he'll get some videos posted up over the next few months and contribute to the forum, maybe at last between us all we'll crack some of these conundrums we face?
 
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