Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Four)

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Jim2109 said:
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.
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gotta agree with most of this. the scrambled seam is just unforgivable for even a county level leggie. and the fact he's resorted to using a bloody off break as a variation is the same as admitting his leg breaks not good enough and that he can't master the more difficult variations BUT he did still take a decent haul of wickets and he was tossing it up (always better to watch than someone bowling flat and fast) and the team he was playing for were trying out an attack comprising a trio of spinners (Rashid, Nathan Lyon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJlK1XSg5N8 [note in this video how he is referred to as a wrist spinner?!] and Aaron O'Brien) which has got to be good for the game. I think the only reason Tahir wasn't used in the recent one dayers was purely because they are saving him as a secret weapon for the World Cup. In other news I had a net session last night with a couple of different teams, one was a Div 1 side and I managed to bowl a very decent batsman behind his pads, a most satisfying moment. It was one of those rare moments where everything works in perfect harmony, spin, flight and drift and he barely moved an inch as he watched it drift away from his pads then come back to hit the top of off. bodes well for the season! very few drags downs but i did find i was overpitching it more often than i would like. still i think i'd rather be doing that than chucking down rank long hops.
 
im overpitching pretty badly too. where ive got my action working so much better, and im driving my hips and legs so much more than before, the ball is coming out a lot faster so where im bowling the same flight as before its pitching 2-3 yards fuller. trying to bring the flight down that little bit without dragging short is tricky. youre definitely right that overpitching is better at the start of the season than long hops. im normally the opposite so its an improvement for me, and also the fact im bowling that much faster bodes very well. i havent measured it yet but it "feels" like about 42-45mph, batsmen agree that its considerably faster than the end of last season, which was measured around 35-38mph. so if ive found 20% more speed il be very happy, especially as its turning bigger than ever :D

every now and then il rip a really fast ball which i reckon is more like 48mph. my medium pace stuff is around 55mph and i can bowl my leg breaks almost as fast as that but not with any consistency. my medium pace is off of 3 steps though (and is equally fast off of 3 steps as it is off of a 12 pace full sprint run up lol, shows how bad my action is!!), which also bodes well for my leg spin. my shoulders obviously have the power now from my gym work. and ive been lazy since xmas, so there is even more scope for improvement between now and may.
 
chippyben said:
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.
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Flight I'm realising is key as well, I've seen old blokes that are barely able to walk let alone run step up to the crease and flight possibly none or negligible turning balls high and loopy above the eyes and take wicket after wicket or bowl maiden after maiden just through good flight and accurate line a length. I noticed last week one of the better batsmen in the Basildon and Pitsea set up was smashing me all over the shop, because he was good and I knew he was good, my mind set, as so many times before was - 'faster with more spin' which also means 'Less accurate and flatter' so he was taking me to the cleaners. I was scratching around for some answers, I'd gone in for the legs, gone for the off-stump, tried flippers and wrong uns, but he was up to it and I noticed it was the Flipper that he played most easily. Train of thought...........So he likes it straight and flat..... let's try loopy and above his eyes. Sure enough, it worked, it seems like suicide to bowl so slow to a better batsman, but you've only got to read Bob Woolmer and listen to Jenner and Warne and they'll have it as a tactic, as soon as I lobbed a few up he was making mistakes all over the shop. So you've got your wiley old buggers that bowl flat in Oz we seem to have wiley old buggers and small kids that flight the ball in, so you've only got have some strategies that you can fall back on when your normal approach doesn't work. I think this is definitely again where spinning is so interesting, it's like chess in its complexities and it's only a case of remembering when you're out there, there are options and it's a case of putting some of the options into play..... e.g. be wiley yourself.

Other News....
Blinding net session tonight hardly bowled a wrong ball, 2 wides maybe all night and in our net we only had three or four of us, so it was non stop for about an hour and half. Was managing to get the ball to turn off the matting very nicely and that combined with varying the flight, the odd wrong un here and there I pretty much cleaned up, no-one was able to take me to task and they were making mistake after mistake and I don't think any of them would have lasted much more than 6 balls, so all in all very satisfying. Had a bat at the end and didn't do so well. One fast bowler was able to bowl me again and again before I figured that I had to block with the bat right up against the pads, once I did that I stopped him and he moved nets. Towards the end - aware that I'm easy prey for Offies, one of them who bowled me numerous times last week must have alerted the others cos I looked up and the net that had 3 seamers in suddenly had 3 offies and a leggie! 2 of the Offies including last weeks bloke I dealt with by blocking, but an older 'Wiley' kind of bloke bowled me 5 times in succession with ease. Damn Offies.
 
Evening.
I have been somewhat inactive recently!
Anyway, had my first nets last week.
Whilst I had great times with teh bat, needed an hour or so to get back into the bowling! utilising all those muscles for the first time in 6 months....
Hope everyone is good!
 
SteveyD said:
Evening.
I have been somewhat inactive recently!
Anyway, had my first nets last week.
Whilst I had great times with teh bat, needed an hour or so to get back into the bowling! utilising all those muscles for the first time in 6 months....
Hope everyone is good!
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Yep most of us are pretty good. We may have lost Macca though, who was a big contributor on here, as his wife met with some terrible event that meant that she was in intensive care and Macca's last message indicated that it may have been a life and death situation. None of us have heard from him since and we all wish him and his family well and are praying for him, hoping that whatever happened has somehow taken a turn for the better. I'm sure you'll join us in our prayers for him, his wife and family and hoping to see him return to the forum with good news?
 
Thanks to dave and all that prayed and thought
My wife passed away on sat 5 aged 48
I can't write much on this blackberry but I will be back online soon
Love and peace
Long live legspin
 
macca said:
Thanks to dave and all that prayed and thought
My wife passed away on sat 5 aged 48
I can't write much on this blackberry but I will be back online soon
Love and peace
Long live legspin
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My deepest condolences Macca. I don't really know what to say at this time of great loss. I just hope there is plenty of support from family and friends and Im sure I speak for all on here that any support we can provide we will have no hesitation in giving.
So sad but keep your chin up mate.
 
chippyben said:
My deepest condolences Macca. I don't really know what to say at this time of great loss. I just hope there is plenty of support from family and friends and Im sure I speak for all on here that any support we can provide we will have no hesitation in giving.
So sad but keep your chin up mate.
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I dont have anything more to add i'm afraid, but it does stand.
 
Heart felt sorrow for your news Chris. You, Jimmy and all dear to you are in my thoughts and still in my prayers. Sometimes questions just don't have answers. I pray you are all given the strength to pull through and once again feel the warmth of beloved memories. Take care.
 
Chris, sorry to hear the tragic news about your wife, I can only echo the thoughts of the others that have responded on here and wish you and Jimmy well and to let you know you’re in my thoughts at this time.

Dave
 
I echo the above.

Without wanting to sound crass, I think that we should probably close this now as the topic and mood has understandably changed somewhat (however, I'll keep it open for a few more days). If you want to pass on your messages of support to Macca then I'm sure a private message will be just as well received.

I'll open up a new wrist spin thread for you all to use...thanks
 
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