Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

[macca]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

I was watching steve smith again last night. Clarke was showing less faith in him the more the series went on and I think he can detect some problems with his bowling at the moment. Taking on board what warne is showing him ( Warne and Smith had another session together at the SCG before last night's game) has affected his run up which varies in pace now, sometimes he is faster or slower. He needs to be consistent in speed of run up or he wont find rhythm.

His biggest problem is he simply doesn't use his fingers strongly enough when he finally dispatches the ball. His legbreak does not turn enough. He gives it a good wrist flick but doesn't finish hard enough with his fingers. He can bowl all the variations superbly, wronguns, flippers, backspinners etc but his stock ball does not spin enough yet.

Kerry O Keefe ,for one, is not so sure about Smiths leg break. O'Keefe had the weakest legbreak of all the Australian Test spinners and mainly bowled toppies and wronguns but he reckons he could turn it more than Smith. When someone told him Warne was coaching the kid so surely he must improve, O Keefe said when he was 19 they locked him in room with Benaud, O Rielly and Grimmett to try and get him to turn the ball more and it failed to work. He reckons it took him to 38 years of age to work out how to spin it big !

O Keefes problem was he was self taught and had the wrong grip. He practised bowling endlessly as a kid and became extremely accurate but was not able to spin it much using his second finger instead of his third.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

I He reckons it took him to 38 years of age to work out how to spin it big !

.

This sounds like me, but at least mines coming off the 3rd finger and it goes right sometimes. Trouble is I haven't got another 38 years in me!!!

 

[Jim2109]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

I was watching steve smith again last night. Clarke was showing less faith in him the more the series went on and I think he can detect some problems with his bowling at the moment. Taking on board what warne is showing him ( Warne and Smith had another session together at the SCG before last night's game) has affected his run up which varies in pace now, sometimes he is faster or slower. He needs to be consistent in speed of run up or he wont find rhythm.

i can sympathise with this. bearing in mind ive been making major changes to my action since about September last year, and its tough enough just to adapt things in the nets without a batsman. when youre a professional cricketer, making changes between international matches that could determine your entire future, thats got to be insanely difficult to do!!

my run up varies in pace as well, because i can never settle on what works best. but i find that so long as i count the steps in time i can still mostly maintain my rhythm. its a lot harder to a batsman though. it sounds like he just needs 2 or 3 months of practice by himself to really develop his game. since the Aussie cricket season is drawing to a close, he might get some time to alter his technique? hes coming to England to play T20, but i dont think that starts for a few months yet.

with regards ultimate amounts of spin - that could turn out to be a huge problem for Smith. the one thing that all of the recent successful Aussie leggies have had in common is huge revs on the ball. Warne and MacGill could seriously rip it, and theres no way Smith is going to avoid comparisons.

but on the other hand, less is more in the developing modern game. most of the "best" (in terms of economy more than wickets) spinners now bowl controlled line and length with plenty of variation. i was watching AUS vs W.I in the final T20 yesterday morning whilst eating breakfast, and Warner was smashing their bowlers all over the place. so their quicks started bowling from 26 yards lol, only just in front of the umpire! i think its getting a little silly now, that bowlers have to do THAT much to create some variation to try and stop batsmen attacking them, but from a leg spin perspective we have potentially half a dozen or more variations out of the hand without doing anything stupid like that, which with control could be fairly potent. but T20 is for batsmen and serves no other purpose than to boost a batsmans ego and destroy a bowlers confidence. leg spin is still at its best in test match situations. i think the way things are going, the art of spinning a ball big will be gone in 5-10 years time. cue the death of legspin once again, only for it to return in about 25 years or so when people realise how boring the game is without it!

 

[macca]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

Grimmett wrote that he made his biggest development as a bowler between the age of 20 and 23, the three years he played grade cricket in Sydney. Warne went from 4th grade club to test match winner between his 20th and 23rd birthdays. Smith is in that age bracket right now so we will watch how he goes.

The two strands that a legspinner works on, Revs versus Accuracy. Warne is the ideal, huge spinner of normal legspin and flipper spin combined with accuracy. You have to work on both and bring them together so you can spin that ball as much as you possibly can but aim to land it pretty much where you want. That is why it takes hours of strict training and intense concentration.

I would say my son is very accurate at the moment yet he is spinning his legbreak big . He got some real positive comments from the opposing team and coach last week along the lines of him being best legspinner in his comp. He is the only spinner in the top 10 averages. The rest are pace bowlers.

 

[Shahbaz]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

So, a 4 hour net session (I had to attend something after the 4 hours near the nets, so I figured I may as well spend some time in there to get my action right). I found that I actually bowl a lot better when I take a few deep breaths with closed eyes, and then start my run-up (or jog up, rather, it's 2 steps walking, and then 4 more or less jogging) with my eyes looking down at the ground and my feet, only raising up once I reach the pitch in order to focus on the area of the pitch I wish to bowl to. Perhaps it just helps me focus or some such, but it does seem to mean that I can bowl pretty accurately when I concentrate on doing so, and get some pretty nice spin off the seam too. I think earlier I may have been going too fast occasionally, which means that you end up bowling rather passively, rather than being able to keep control over your arm and rip the ball. So that's pretty great, I guess, hopefully I can work further on this next week (3 sessions per week). Probably I'll also need to work on controlling the amount of spin I wish to put on the ball (that is, so that it can be varied enough to, for example, bowl on the middle stump, but draw the batsman wider through turn each ball, or less wide, depending on the batsman), though I think getting the ball to land where I want it to should take precedence for the moment.

 

[macca]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

So, a 4 hour net session (I had to attend something after the 4 hours near the nets, so I figured I may as well spend some time in there to get my action right). I found that I actually bowl a lot better when I take a few deep breaths with closed eyes, and then start my run-up (or jog up, rather, it's 2 steps walking, and then 4 more or less jogging) with my eyes looking down at the ground and my feet, only raising up once I reach the pitch in order to focus on the area of the pitch I wish to bowl to. Perhaps it just helps me focus or some such, but it does seem to mean that I can bowl pretty accurately when I concentrate on doing so, and get some pretty nice spin off the seam too. I think earlier I may have been going too fast occasionally, which means that you end up bowling rather passively, rather than being able to keep control over your arm and rip the ball. So that's pretty great, I guess, hopefully I can work further on this next week (3 sessions per week). Probably I'll also need to work on controlling the amount of spin I wish to put on the ball (that is, so that it can be varied enough to, for example, bowl on the middle stump, but draw the batsman wider through turn each ball, or less wide, depending on the batsman), though I think getting the ball to land where I want it to should take precedence for the moment.

Probably a case of if it works for you, do it. You need to concentrate on your target and it sounds like you are focusing right at the end of your approach, which is after all where you get the best look at it.

I am always telling my son to "watch the target" or "head still" as he comes in to bowl. At the top of your mark you are looking at the whole scene; batsman, fieldsman, pitch, stumps, etc. With a sort of tunnel vision as you get closer you see only that target. Using targets at practise often, but not always and without a batsman is the best way to sort out your own method.

,

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

So, a 4 hour net session (I had to attend something after the 4 hours near the nets, so I figured I may as well spend some time in there to get my action right). I found that I actually bowl a lot better when I take a few deep breaths with closed eyes, and then start my run-up (or jog up, rather, it's 2 steps walking, and then 4 more or less jogging) with my eyes looking down at the ground and my feet, only raising up once I reach the pitch in order to focus on the area of the pitch I wish to bowl to. Perhaps it just helps me focus or some such, but it does seem to mean that I can bowl pretty accurately when I concentrate on doing so, and get some pretty nice spin off the seam too. I think earlier I may have been going too fast occasionally, which means that you end up bowling rather passively, rather than being able to keep control over your arm and rip the ball. So that's pretty great, I guess, hopefully I can work further on this next week (3 sessions per week). Probably I'll also need to work on controlling the amount of spin I wish to put on the ball (that is, so that it can be varied enough to, for example, bowl on the middle stump, but draw the batsman wider through turn each ball, or less wide, depending on the batsman), though I think getting the ball to land where I want it to should take precedence for the moment.

Grimmett and Philpott talk about the need for total concentration when bowling, saying that if you don't bowl with absolute focus even when practicing you may as well not bother. Benuad talks about identifying small areas of the pitch which are discernable - I think I've even read the suggestion of aiming at daisies, not that you'd get daisies on a quality cricket pitch? But I suppose what he's saying is that the accuracy should be working to that kind of level, so it sounds like you're getting there.

 

[gashead23]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

Had another net session tonight and just concentrated myself on bowling. It went ok I seem to be getting a nice loop on the ball. One thing I notice is that I really struggle to turn it on the indoor net surfaces. Ours is just a mat layed on a school indoor basketball court. I get most of my wickets outdoors through making the ball pop a bit with a little spin. On the indoor stuff I rarely get the ball to spin at all and the bounce is way to consistent which lets the batsman hit through the line very easily.

I really tried bowling flat out and as fast as I could today which weirdly seems to improve my accuracy, when I bowl slow and slow the action down it seems to go all over the place a bit.

Sadly my best ball a perfectly placed leg break on middle stump which spun past the batsmans outside edge was wasted on the 3rd team captains 12 year old son who sneaked in a cheeky bat!!

 

[macca]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

Had another net session tonight and just concentrated myself on bowling. It went ok I seem to be getting a nice loop on the ball. One thing I notice is that I really struggle to turn it on the indoor net surfaces. Ours is just a mat layed on a school indoor basketball court. I get most of my wickets outdoors through making the ball pop a bit with a little spin. On the indoor stuff I rarely get the ball to spin at all and the bounce is way to consistent which lets the batsman hit through the line very easily.

Must be a different ball and surface to the one we use at indoor comp because it spins more there than outdoor, albeit more slowly. What sort of ball are you using? Maybe you could turn the mat over and find more grip on the other side?

 

[macca]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

Last game of the comp today and somehow our boys (last placed) managed to beat the comp leaders. The other team had to win to secure top place and get to play the 4th placegetters whereas our kids had nothing to play for so just went out to have some fun in their last game.

My son bowled 2.4 overs and ended up 0 wkts for 2 runs. He had another sitter dropped today but other than that they caught everything else today. He ended up keeping his run rate below 4, which was one of his seasons aims. If we had a half decent keeper this year he would have taken more wickets. Lost count of missed stumpings and catches by the keepers. Last indoor we had a champion keeper who took some unbelievable catches and stumpings. It makes such a difference.

These are his figures for this season. The strike rate and average will come up on the website soon so i will let the computer work that out. Nice amount of maiden overs in there. 15 Matches. 42.4 Overs. 10 Maidens. 9 Wickets. 152 Runs.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

Had another net session tonight and just concentrated myself on bowling. It went ok I seem to be getting a nice loop on the ball. One thing I notice is that I really struggle to turn it on the indoor net surfaces. Ours is just a mat layed on a school indoor basketball court. I get most of my wickets outdoors through making the ball pop a bit with a little spin. On the indoor stuff I rarely get the ball to spin at all and the bounce is way to consistent which lets the batsman hit through the line very easily.

I really tried bowling flat out and as fast as I could today which weirdly seems to improve my accuracy, when I bowl slow and slow the action down it seems to go all over the place a bit.

Sadly my best ball a perfectly placed leg break on middle stump which spun past the batsmans outside edge was wasted on the 3rd team captains 12 year old son who sneaked in a cheeky bat!!

Have a look at the balls your using - our coach supplies us with about 20 balls and I make sure that I get in the bag early and pick the one with the proudest seam, I reckon a seam that stick out proud from the main surface of the ball is going to help you out with turn off the wicket. Additionally in the nets the batsmen are going to playing in a wholly different way than they do outside in match conditions.

 

[Jim2109]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

Last game of the comp today and somehow our boys (last placed) managed to beat the comp leaders. The other team had to win to secure top place and get to play the 4th placegetters whereas our kids had nothing to play for so just went out to have some fun in their last game.

My son bowled 2.4 overs and ended up 0 wkts for 2 runs. He had another sitter dropped today but other than that they caught everything else today. He ended up keeping his run rate below 4, which was one of his seasons aims. If we had a half decent keeper this year he would have taken more wickets. Lost count of missed stumpings and catches by the keepers. Last indoor we had a champion keeper who took some unbelievable catches and stumpings. It makes such a difference.

These are his figures for this season. The strike rate and average will come up on the website soon so i will let the computer work that out. Nice amount of maiden overs in there. 15 Matches. 42.4 Overs. 10 Maidens. 9 Wickets. 152 Runs.

strike rate of 28.44, average of 16.88

given the lack of quality behind the stumps those are impressive figures! if he had taken double the wickets then the figures would be 14.22 and 8.44, which would be amazing. the only thing you can really fault with the figures is the lack of wickets. in terms of economy they are excellent for a leggie (im guessing indoor cricket has insanely short boundaries as well?). but the wickets would have been higher with a better quality keeper.

are you going to seek out a higher quality team for next season in the hopes that the wicket keeper might be better? a good quality wicket keeper is high up the list of important things for a leg spinner!!

One thing I notice is that I really struggle to turn it on the indoor net surfaces. Ours is just a mat layed on a school indoor basketball court. I get most of my wickets outdoors through making the ball pop a bit with a little spin. On the indoor stuff I rarely get the ball to spin at all and the bounce is way to consistent which lets the batsman hit through the line very easily.

sounds similar to the indoor nets my club uses. the sports hall floor is actually covered with carpet as i think its a dedicated cricket centre (its a super posh private school, with tons of money, and i think they take cricket quite seriously along with rugby, hence the facilities). the carpet is awesome, it grips like crazy, id gladly bowl without the matting there at all lol (the batsmen would hate it though, id be hitting them in the helmet every ball with the bounce!!). if im bowling with huge turn il sometimes pitch one outside of the mats to a left hander because it will turn back in huge.

then on top of that we have this blue rubbery type matting. its fairly firm, and does actually give quite realistic bounce. its representative of a firm grass wicket, and i prefer it over the outdoor club nets. however, its too slippy given that its almost completely smooth (you couldnt get friction burns off it if you slid on it). so you basically HAVE to land on the seam, else you wont get any turn. which isnt a bad training device, since you want to land on the seam every delivery anyway. you just need to adjust your technique so that you find the seam more consistently. you only have to be off by a few mm for it to find smooth leather.

 

[macca]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

are you going to seek out a higher quality team for next season in the hopes that the wicket keeper might be better? a good quality wicket keeper is high up the list of important things for a leg spinner!!

Definately looking for a new club and team for next season. Really in a good position to pick and choose one with better keeper, batsmen and fieldsman by going over the competition website and checking results and averages etc. It will take a bit of homework but I wish I had paid more attention to the other clubs wicket keepers this season.

My son will end up in the top ten bowlers for his division, just. He has the worst average and strike rate in the ten but not the worst economy rate. He has the most maidens and the most overs bowled.

I suppose you have to be philosophical about the number of wickets he took. Sure he had some catches dropped and missed stumpings but on the other hand he had three spectacular catches off his bowling and if they had not been held he would have even less wickets.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

i had indoor nets tonight. im in agony, my lower left leg is screwed. ive been speaking with Liz Ward about issues with my action that are causing it, and weve figured out the cause. but its an existing injury now, and it isnt going away. im going to either have to rest up until it resolves itself, or more likely go and see a physio about it.

Gutted! I've done a similar thing but with my right leg - calf muscle. Had a bowl outside in what is looking to be the warmest day since November at 11 degrees, I was working with the big flick leg break and it was coming along okay when suddenly a sharp muscle tearing type pain in my calf muscle low down in the centre, if I press it the area that is sore seems to be quite large at the minute. I stopped straight away came home having to limp and got some ice on it. I've done the ice thing twice now, so hopefully that'll help. I've had a look around at some websites on calf injuries and it does seem as though there's potential that I've done something fairly serious and that I may be out of action for quite some time. My wife just takes the P*** out of me and says that I'm a hypochondriac. I'll just have to see how it feels over the next 24 - 48 hours? The thing is I've done so little exercise since November when the bad weather started and I'm going into my bowling in the same way that I would if I was match fit. Fingers crossed there'll be some improvement quite quickly but I can't see myself going to nets on Monday night now.

 

[scooter22]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

Played my first final today. We bowled first (in very overcast condition). I came on after 20 overs, and had them in all sorts of trouble. they were a couple of sloggers, but they couldnt get bat on any of my balls. i had 0/3 after 5 overs. i eventually finished with 0/20 of 8, having a spell of 3 overs at the end of the innings.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

Played my first final today. We bowled first (in very overcast condition). I came on after 20 overs, and had them in all sorts of trouble. they were a couple of sloggers, but they couldnt get bat on any of my balls. i had 0/3 after 5 overs. i eventually finished with 0/20 of 8, having a spell of 3 overs at the end of the innings.

How many maidens did you bowl?

 

[macca]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

i had 0/3 after 5 overs. i eventually finished with 0/20 of 8, having a spell of 3 overs at the end of the innings.

Thats putting the pressure on 'em. I didn't have to see that spell to know it was well bowled. You probably caused a run out or a wicket at the other end with that sort of stuff, that's what normally happens, and after all its a team sport.

 

[macca]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

Gutted! I've done a similar thing but with my right leg - calf muscle. Had a bowl outside in what is looking to be the warmest day since November at 11 degrees, I was working with the big flick leg break and it was coming along okay when suddenly a sharp muscle tearing type pain in my calf muscle low down in the centre, if I press it the area that is sore seems to be quite large at the minute. I stopped straight away came home having to limp and got some ice on it. I've done the ice thing twice now, so hopefully that'll help. I've had a look around at some websites on calf injuries and it does seem as though there's potential that I've done something fairly serious and that I may be out of action for quite some time. My wife just takes the P*** out of me and says that I'm a hypochondriac. I'll just have to see how it feels over the next 24 - 48 hours? The thing is I've done so little exercise since November when the bad weather started and I'm going into my bowling in the same way that I would if I was match fit. Fingers crossed there'll be some improvement quite quickly but I can't see myself going to nets on Monday night now.

That injury is very painful, I know, its like a knife. Maybe you did too much too soon ?

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

That injury is very painful, I know, its like a knife. Maybe you did too much too soon ?

I think the truth is I'm still having trouble excepting that I am fifty in a few months time and that walking around doesn't constitute a warm up. More and more I'm slowly coming to terms with the fact that if I do any sport I'm going to have to do warm ups for at least 10 minutes beforehand otherwise I end up like this, looking at a period of several weeks not doing any sport potentially. The good thing is that I've got up this morning and although it's tender and sore it's a lot better than it was yesterday - 80% better. I'm certainly not going to nets tomorrow night and I've got to remember that 8 years ago I did a similar thing with my achilies tendon where I tore it and a week later having rested it and it feeling 95% better I went out again did more sport and ended up in a leg brace boot thing for 8 months!

But yeah in short what with the inactivity over Nov, Dec, Jan and Feb it's obvious now I've done too much too soon. Possibly exacerbated by the fact that I was bowling the big flick leg break which kind of means I bowl in a different manner and for some reason I've noticed I use my legs more, my whole body is kind of used as Philpott describes it (I think) as a coil un-leashing and it was this additional use of the legs that did the damage.

 

[Jim2109]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

The thing is I've done so little exercise since November when the bad weather started and I'm going into my bowling in the same way that I would if I was match fit.

thats probably the same reason that im struggling a bit. im putting in more effort than i ever have before, but ive done no exercise over the winter.

im in 2 minds whether to train tomorrow or not. ive rested my leg quite well all week, but my shin is still going to hurt the second i start bowling. it doesnt feel any better for the rest than it did when i was still using it. also ive got some major changes to make to my action, which isnt going to happen at nets.

im tempted to give it a miss this week, go and see a physio if i can get an appointment during the week, and then if im fit to bowl just going to outdoor nets for some solo practice where i can work on my action.

my leading leg steps across my body a long way (about 2 feet), and then i transfer the weight onto it and rotate. but that puts a sideways load through my lower leg, which is what has caused the injury. ive got the solution to stop it happeneing again (run through straight), but ive got to lose the existing pain first. which is looking like it isnt going to happen on its own! so i have to wonder if i havent done something more serious that needs attention.