Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

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Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

macca;380625 said:
This bloke is keen on getting his kid to practise. He wants to do a couple of hours a day all this week, holidays begin tomorrow so we are up for it. We usually have short but intensive sessions of 6 to 8 overs. We take apart each delivery and try and get it right. I am usually behind the stumps clapping the gloves yelling out spin up, come on pitch em up, too short, no use pitching down legside if you dont spin back, good topspin etc but if he strays too much the language gets a bit hot, i wonder what passer bys think?

This arvo I want my boy to have a long session at the bowling crease against the two other kids. We will be working on pitching up and getting the batsmen to come forward, if they can. He might try a flipper or slider at them as well. One of them is an ok keeper so it will be good for him to have a chance to get a good look at the team legspinner for saturdays game. We are going to practise on saturdays pitch. We know it well and he gets good spin on this one.

The other dad was saying last night how the session on friday was responsible for his kid getting 4 wickets for 3 on sat. I went as far as to say it won us the game. It played my kid into batting form as well.

I hope the coach doesnt think we are treading on his toes by having these extra sessions, he shouldn't, but he might think it is a comment on his coaching, which it is not.

I will quote grimmett on slow bowling " ......you have got to use judgement in this game, it doesn't matter who the bowler is , he must make the batsman play forward or he cant bowl. The short ball is only good for rare variety because the batsman sometimes mishits off the back foot. Cricket is a study. I've published it in my books but nobody takes the trouble to put it into practise..." Well if your listening up there Clarrie, some of us are by rereading your 3 classic cricket books.
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I spotted that quote as well - didn't realise you'd already metioned it! The stuff you sent I particularly liked the early mention of the off-spinning Flipper.

I reckon your coach will be okay, especially if what you're doing helps to win games.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

someblokecalleddave;380725 said:
I spotted that quote as well - didn't realise you'd already metioned it! The stuff you sent I particularly liked the early mention of the off-spinning Flipper.
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I just sent you oreillys obituary for grimmett . He said " grimmett was the best bowler i ever saw" Also Bradman on the night of grimmetts death " he was the greatest legspinner i have ever seen and probably the best in history "Bradman maintained that even after witnessing most of warnes career.

Also an article by grimmetts son where he contradicts malletts theory on the bradman/grimmett fallout. He is still alive and wont reveal it till he dies but mallett rewrote the biography after oreillys death he claims mainly to add the oreilly story to explain the tiff but Victor Grimmett in this article dismisses that theory. More shoddy research by mallett.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

Anothr 3 hour session last night. My kid had a great cross breeze from cover to drift the ball and was spinning big but started to tire after a couple of long spells and was getting a bit short but should be fresh for saturday.

The steve smith selection as a standby means he is next in line. Jenner reckons it might be too soon, and he would be our youngest ever, but he will be one of the first picked for the onedayers because of his batting. The best thing is we get to see him from tommorrow in newcastle so we will be going to that game on day one and later on when he might be bowling more say sunday or monday. Legspin needs role models for youngsters and if smith turns out t o be a good test bowler it should give the craft a boost.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing... so goes the old saying and it is true of most nonlegspinner cricketers and their knowledge of legspin. Especially their understanding of the different breezes and their effect on spin, drift and drop. Of course we dont mind that, the more confusion the better, but i urge all legbreak bowlers to study the main prevailing winds locally and know backwards their effects on legspin. Especially crossbreezes.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

This is a message aimed specifacally at 'someblokecalleddave'. I've just started wrist spinningand with a few pointer's started out. Practiscing hard, full focus, no varitations etc.

I've pledged to read every post of both Wrist spinning threads and when i started, on the first thread, came across you talking about the wrist flick back towards your chest for big turn. I am unsure how to do this but am keen to know. Here's what you said.

If so you need to take on board the advice right at the beginning where he talks about spinning the ball from hand to hand but also in towards your chest. It's this backwards towards your chest spinning which is the secret to getting your big Leg Break spin. Although I've got to concede it's not easy by any stretch of the imagination.

Hold your hand up above you head in the usual wrist spinners grip. With your thumb pointing towards the batsman that will give you top spin. Now turn your hand 90 degress so that the palm is facing the batsman and flick sideways - that will give you your small leg break, then turn your wrist another 90 degrees so that if you stand there and flick it it will back spin towards you. Try it - get a ball and gently flick the ball back towards yourself from above your head just so that the ball travels a few yards out in front of you. You watch how it turns........ That's your big Leg Break.

Could you possibly post pictures of you wrist posistion before bowling, upon realease and of the flick. I am really interested in this and would like to know how to do this and master it. I apologise and don't worry about it if this is too hard for you. Thanks.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

Number 11;380925 said:
This is a message aimed specifacally at 'someblokecalleddave'. I've just started wrist spinningand with a few pointer's started out. Practiscing hard, full focus, no varitations etc.

I've pledged to read every post of both Wrist spinning threads and when i started, on the first thread, came across you talking about the wrist flick back towards your chest for big turn. I am unsure how to do this but am keen to know. Here's what you said.

If so you need to take on board the advice right at the beginning where he talks about spinning the ball from hand to hand but also in towards your chest. It's this backwards towards your chest spinning which is the secret to getting your big Leg Break spin. Although I've got to concede it's not easy by any stretch of the imagination.

Hold your hand up above you head in the usual wrist spinners grip. With your thumb pointing towards the batsman that will give you top spin. Now turn your hand 90 degress so that the palm is facing the batsman and flick sideways - that will give you your small leg break, then turn your wrist another 90 degrees so that if you stand there and flick it it will back spin towards you. Try it - get a ball and gently flick the ball back towards yourself from above your head just so that the ball travels a few yards out in front of you. You watch how it turns........ That's your big Leg Break.

Could you possibly post pictures of you wrist posistion before bowling, upon realease and of the flick. I am really interested in this and would like to know how to do this and master it. I apologise and don't worry about it if this is too hard for you. Thanks.
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picture your normal grip and hand position to bowl with the seam square to the wicket (e.g. perfectly side-on)

now twist your hand so that your thumb points back in towards your body slightly. you dont want to twist it too far, maybe 30-45 degs. when you bowl the ball, instead of just flicking your wrist sideways like normal to impart the side spin, you also have to "slide" it forwards at the same time. this imparts the maximum spin, and the ball has mostly sidespin with a bit of backspin as well. the backspin is what gives the extra turn off the pitch. my biggest turning leg break occurs when i get my slider slightly wrong, it also stays very low.

in terms of the hand action, its hard to explain in words. but youre basically trying to push your wrist forwards and your hand backwards. so your wrist gets flicked forwards (and sideways) whilst your hand comes backwards and sideways. the fingers do the same as they normally would. you basically just bowl a 90 degree leg break, but slightly back towards yourself. with maximum revs on the ball.

personally if youre just starting out id put almost all of your focus on overspun leg breaks. backspin is much harder to achieve and it becomes easier once you have nailed the basic delivery technique. it is also harder to get the seam positioned where you want it for turn, so you can end up bowling backspinning leg breaks all day long without any of them turning big, and it gets very frustrating and counter productive!

this is a video of me bowling a slider, this delivery is almost entirely backspin (very little side spin) so it goes mostly straight and stays low. you can see the wrist flick though, i push my wrist forwards whilst flicking my hand backwards, trying to keep the seam perfectly upright for maximum grip off the surface. the difference between this delivery and a big leg break is that my wrist would be rotated about 30 degs back towards the batsman to add the side spin as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ3uTl0CNn4
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

Number 11;380977 said:
Thanks, i'll try. How do you get extra bounce?
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more flight, more overspin, higher revs on the ball (with overspin).

typically if you want the ball to bounce more you add overspin to it. this gets it to dip in flight and bounce up higher.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

In the test North got out to a high full toss. One of Arthur Maileys specials for legspinners. He used it against technical correct players like jack hobbs. He did him a couple of times to him in tests. If you play that ball with a straight bat the chance is you will hit a catch to someone in the vee often the bowler himself, another reason to overpitch rather than underpitch.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

Number 11;380925 said:
This is a message aimed specifacally at 'someblokecalleddave'. I've just started wrist spinningand with a few pointer's started out. Practiscing hard, full focus, no varitations etc.

I've pledged to read every post of both Wrist spinning threads and when i started, on the first thread, came across you talking about the wrist flick back towards your chest for big turn. I am unsure how to do this but am keen to know. Here's what you said.

If so you need to take on board the advice right at the beginning where he talks about spinning the ball from hand to hand but also in towards your chest. It's this backwards towards your chest spinning which is the secret to getting your big Leg Break spin. Although I've got to concede it's not easy by any stretch of the imagination.

Hold your hand up above you head in the usual wrist spinners grip. With your thumb pointing towards the batsman that will give you top spin. Now turn your hand 90 degress so that the palm is facing the batsman and flick sideways - that will give you your small leg break, then turn your wrist another 90 degrees so that if you stand there and flick it it will back spin towards you. Try it - get a ball and gently flick the ball back towards yourself from above your head just so that the ball travels a few yards out in front of you. You watch how it turns........ That's your big Leg Break.

Could you possibly post pictures of you wrist posistion before bowling, upon realease and of the flick. I am really interested in this and would like to know how to do this and master it. I apologise and don't worry about it if this is too hard for you. Thanks.
Click to expand...

If you read all of both threads you will pick up some stuff. Ignore my dribble when you get to it but get on to understanding Philpotts loop. If you can get a copy of Philpotts 'Art of Wristspin' it is the bible along with Grimmetts three books. I was lucky enough to recieve a little coaching from Philpott 30 years ago, he was and still is a brilliant coach.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

macca;380669 said:
Steve Smith has been selected to play for Australia!!!!!! as cover for Hauritz who injured himself. I have been talking about this bloke for months now but i thought they would give him a couple of years to work on his legbreaks but what a great day for legspin.

I was going to watch him this week in the state game but now i might be watching him on tv. He is a couple of years younger than warne was when first picked. I hope he doesn't blow it, it is young for a legspinner to hit the test scene.
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i was just watching the Australia vs W.I. highlights hoping to see Smith bowling. unfortunately it looks like Hauritz recovered from his injury as he was playing.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

Jim2109;381009 said:
i was just watching the Australia vs W.I. highlights hoping to see Smith bowling. unfortunately it looks like Hauritz recovered from his injury as he was playing.
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Yeah ritzy's finger got better. At least we will see Smith here today and the next few days. I might go along on day three or four, I might not go today. The selectors have shown their hand though and he is the next legspinner in line
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

Yeah not been here for a few days but saw that Macca and Jim had answered the question form No.11. I'll just add to it by trying to describe it myself. But I'll also try and take a camera into work tomorrow and try and shoot some footage of it and I'll upload it to you tube and link it to the blogs.

Admittedly this is still not a variation I've got a lot of control of and it does seem that Jim's the bloke to best describe it as it's one of his main balls. But in order to get your head round it as Macca says Philpott is the best option in his book 'The Art of Wrist Spin Bowling'.

Yo start with Philpott guides you to throw the ball from from right to left across your body using the Wrist Spinners grip. As you do it your thumb would be pointing in the direction you're throwing it and you'd be looking at the back of your hand and your palm facing away from you. You use your wrist and 3rd finger you put the spin on the ball and the spin creates top spin going across your body to your left hand, so you're top-spinning (Over-spinning the ball into your left hand). This is the basis for the Leg Breaks and the Top Spinner. Do that till you feel you're really ripping the ball and putting a big flick into it.

The back spinner for the Biggun and the Slider is practiced by using the same flick with the wrist and the 3rd finger on the ball, but you do so with the arm stretched directly out in front of your and you spin it in exactly the same way but from an outstretched arm back in towards your chest and catch it with the left hand in the middle of the chest/neck region. As I said I'll try and shoot some vid tomorrow, I was intending to do it in the summer but I'll see what I can do.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

Smithy is out of the state match with a thigh problem, so he wont play here either.

Pretty tropical here we had over 40 degrees yesterday and light rain and muggy now. We went out on wet concrete with shiny new ball with spitting rain and kept wicket to half a dozen overs prep for tommorrows game. Put a target on middle stump just out of the forward stretch of u/12 young blokes reach and had my kid aim for this.

Getting high in his action and looping it up into south easter. The odd faster slightly shorter effort ball as well, but mainly pitching right up there. Got loads of fast sidespin, flicking with a fully cocked wrist. If he can do the same tommorrow anything could happen. His figures are about 30 overs 6/120. That reads like legspinner figures i suppose. Hoping to bag some before the competition breaks for a few weeks over xmas
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

i watched a fair bit of the England vs SA test today. SA have got a slow left armer (so effectively a leg spinner, in terms of the direction of the turn) called Paul Harris. hes a pretty tall guy, and bowls around the 50mph mark. pretty slow by off spinning standards. he doesnt seem to generate many revs and he barely turns the ball at all. hes the complete opposite of a Swann or a Hauritz who bowl quicker and with plenty of turn on a good spinners pitch. Swann was getting big turn yesterday on the same pitch.

anyway, he ended the innings with figures of 5-123! a few of the wickets were gifted to him, Ian Bell made an absolute howler, leaving a ball on off stump thinking it would turn, even though none of the balls had really turned that much prior to it! he got bowled, it took middle and off stump out lol.

but the interesting thing about this guy was that he bowled fairly flat but on a very consistent length. he spent a lot of time bowling to a defensive field just drying runs up, and then eventually Trott lost his patience and got bowled charging down the pitch. i just thought it was interesting that theres yet another bowler at international level who is supposed to be a spinner, but takes wickets without really spinning the ball.

im convinced that English batsmen have a fixed mentality that the ball MUST turn off a spinner, so they play their shots wide of the pitch of the ball. and then get bowled through the gate. Pietersen looked in amazing form against the spinner and was the only one that wasnt really troubled by him. he was using his feet really well and Harris had no real answer. he restricted the scoring fairly well, but prior to getting out Pietersen was starting to go after him a bit. if he had stayed in i reckon he would been hitting him for a boundary or 2 per over from there onwards.

i think its just more proof that if you bowl a very controlled line and length, you dont need the ball to do anything at all off the pitch. it baffles me that world class batsmen can get out to the likes of Mendis and Harris when they barely turn the ball. but theyre obviously doing something right, and its got to be line and length.

it raises an interesting idea in my mind. what if you bowl on an off-middle line, full in length, still spinning the ball hard so that you generate drift, but scrambling the seam. it will still turn a little, but it should drift a lot. i reckon it could take a lot of wickets! my deliveries that land off-seam still turn about 3-6" (think Ajantha Mendis amounts of turn). Murali scrambles the seam on every delivery and he still generates huge turn, he must have crazy revs on the ball! if i had the accuracy it might be worth trying, but i cant pin a batsman down for more than a couple of balls at a time without offering an easy hit. so il still have to rely on turn for now. might be worth the more accurate amongst us giving it a go though.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

I think I've said a few times before about old geezers on my team that bowl ludicrously slow and bowl with very little turn off the surface - but still take a bag full of wickets with very few runs made against them. But they bowl on the stumps flighting the ball above the eye-line but their main killer attribute is the length. They seem to be able to judge each batsman's particular length that they're undecided as to whether they play back or forward and then end up defending the ball everytime. The length seems to be the key aspect as you're suggesting with Harris. Then if you do it with Top-Spin added and then also show that you can make the ball turn off the deck - you then totally pin them down allowing you to bring in your silly fielders.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

Should have went to nsw v victoria yestrday and checked out mc gain, he is leading legspinner in ist class so far this season. Might go monday. Smith is out with thigh injury.

My sons team just lost yesterday, probably ends their semi chances. he only got one over, i was surprised he was not used to close the game down as he is most experienced at tight finish bowling, compared to the kids chosen was their first season.

He got pinged for a no ball that was actually a full toss but the "umpire"( opposition coach) thought was shoulder high, it might have been except for the fact it dropped so much it passed the batsman knee roll high. He wasn't watching i suppose, you get that. And he was wided for a ball that pitched less than a foot outside off but "spun too much", according to same umpire. Not complaining though, it is only junior cricket after all.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

" Ultimately, good bowling is a matter of strict training and INTENSE CONCENTRATION "....C.V Grimmett. Grimmett placed the emphasis on the last two words.

" suppose you are a legspinner opposed by a batsman with a liking for the cover drive. You block this by placing a fieldsman there, and make it difficult for him to force the ball through there by bowling a good length no further out than middle stump. After a while you move your cover point round a little, leaving an apparent gap. Then if you can disguise a higher flighted googly, the batsman may be coaxed into trying to put it through the opening. The opposite spin on the ball will cause it to be hit to mid off, and if the batsman does not quite get to the pitch of the ball he will hit it in the air. It's your job, by decieving him with flight, to see that he doesn't get to the pitch of the ball; it can be done even against the best batsmen"...C.V Grimmett.

It was a bit easier to predict batsmen in Grimmetts day , as they played more " correctly" in a technical sense, but Grimmett could say to mid off ' be ready for a catch on ball 5 of my next over , and amaze his captain and team mates by inducing the greatest batsmen of that golden age , George Headley, Wally Hammond, Don Bradman etc; to fall into his trap. One of his many nick names was "the wicket spider"
 
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