Wrist Spin Bowling

Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Contributors
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

just got back from a game only my third this year, bowled so well picked up 3-18 from my 3 eight ball overs. I couldn't believe this was the same pitch as the one i played on last week i got nothing out of it last time but was getting over 2ft turn off leg breaks and wrong'uns, so happy with the way i bowled
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

THE GIPPER wrist spin variation news.

I've not had a lot of luck or incentive to look at this much of late or concentrate on it as a bowling option. I still try it and have sessions where I bowl 50/50 wrong uns and this variation. If you've not been following the blog here's the run down on what the "Gipper" is.

The Gipper

This is a potential spin variation that I'm developing and it derives it's name from the concept of bowling the Flipper out of the back of the hand in the same way that a Wrong un would be released from the back of the hand. It may look like a wrong un at the point of release but with the ball gripped like a Flipper so Googlie/Flipper = Gipper. It's a slower delivery that turns acutely from leg to off.

Recent practice sessions seem to have followed a similar pattern, initially when I start to use it, it works well and it produces the massive turn characteristic of it, but then as the practice session goes on I've found that I become more accurate with it and faster but the turn seems to decrease so that it eventually has the same characteristics of a normal flipper. Not being able to fathom what is going wrong and the same pattern happening every time I practice I've not been that focussed on developing it.

A couple of nights ago just throwing the ball around outside my house up against the wall mucking around with the gipper grip and wrist position I threw a sequence of balls that turned massively time and time again and relatively accurate. I stopped and thought about what it was that I was doing that was making the difference and it seemed to be the wrist position. In this instance as I held the ball by my side with the Flipper grip. My wrist and arm were twisted inwards 180 degrees round from normal with my wrist cocked at 90 degrees to my arm. It is the ugliest looking grip and bowling variation on the planet I reckon and it is obviously the most easily recognised variation too if you ever face me. But I found that maintaining the wrist position and twisted arm throughout the rotation of the arm means that it imparts the ridiculous amount of spin characteristic of this variation.

Thinking that this was a fluke, I decided to go out into the road and bowl it over 22 yards and see if the extra exertion undid the spin. So as Philpott advises - I applied total concentration on maintaining the wrist and arm through the execution of the rotation and tried it over the 22 yards and it worked with a massive turn and relatively accurate. Tried it again - and again it worked and again and again and again! 18 balls later everyone one of them had turned massively and for the most part all of them on an acceptable line.

So tonight thinking that it might be due to the fact that I'm using a non seamed Hockey ball on tarmac and for all I know Hockey balls and tarmac work together to produce massive spin I took a few balls over to "Valence Way cricket pitch" and tried the gipper on grass and it worked! Not quite as brilliant as last night but turning to off from leg in a way that I have never witnessed anyone do in my life. The line and the length were inconsistent but I also noted that the run up needs to be slightly exaggerated in that I lean in as I bowl the ball and this keeps the line in control. On the field tonight it was wet after some rain and it was dusk when I got over there, so I wasn't able to bowl that many balls. But it was extremely promising once again and I feel like I've discovered the key to getting the spin and now all I need to do is practice in order that I get the line and length sussed. I've got the next 2 weeks off and I will mostly be bowling Gippers!

Other recent blog postings can be seen at www.mpafirsteleven.blogspot.com

No comment from me now for the next 2 weeks as I'm off surfing and bowling gippers!
__________________
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

dave i think i found out why u cant bowl the leg break even if your wrist is in the right position, its cuz your fingers are so used to going the other way that its hard for your fingers to change. i bowl leg breaks and i tried to bowl the googly and my googly comes out leg breaks cuz its so hard for my fingers to adjust. So Just keep practicing round arm and under arm then your mind will know wat the fingers shud do.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Yep you're almost certainly right! But I reckon in order to re-train my brain to do it correctly is going to take some time and in the meantime I want to carry on bowling - so I'm going to stick with what I'm doing at the moment and then once the season's finished completely and totally stop bowling anything other than Leg Breaks and learn it right from the start. I reckon if I drop all the other variations and re-learn it'll come - I'll have 6 solid months of doing nothing but Leg breaks, so it's got to happen and as I've said before following Philpotts instructions I'm confident that I'll have it sussed within a month and then I'll have the remaining 5 months to get all the other aspects sorted - line, length, maybe even dip and swing?

Last winter I focussed on Top spinners and the improvement in my bowling over the winter was massive, my bowling now compared to this time last summer is unrecognisable! We have this money raising thing at our club where you can win a prize for the highest scoring dream team and apparently I'm on some of the kids dream team as a bowler!!!!

Watch this space over the winter - I'll let you know how I get on!
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

I'll pop up here for a second and say,

I've always said see how this season goes, and properly iron out those creases in the winter :p
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

It's going okay, it's a lot of learning but bit by bit it is coming together and I love every second of it and every bit of new information that leads to potential improvements. I love it!
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Good lord - it's been ages since I've been on here - I haven't played cricket for over a month now due to a recurring problem in my left wrist (fortunately I'm a right-armer, so no real danger, it just means I'm unable to bat or field) - the doctor seems to think it's a hairline fracture to the mereiopsdpfhsdic (alright, I made that up, I can't remember what bone it is) in my wrist, and as the blood supply isn't that great to that area, it's taking a long time to heal. Or something like that - I have to profess, I switched off a bit when he started waffling! I've still been practicing though, and I'm starting to get a nice amount of turn on my leg breaks, as well as a wicked flipper. How are you guys going?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Not bad - similarly I've got my flipper back. Being new to all this (Relatively) I'm still very much in a learning curve phase and have recently in the last couple of months realised it's far more affective bowling down the offside than the legside. Last year I was always bowling my flippers down the LS trying to capitalise on the little bit of turn they produce towards off and was being hit all over the park. This season I've been bowling wrong uns and top spinners at the off stump and it's been a lot more affective. With that in mind and the fact that I've realised that my line and length accuracy is so much more improved I've started bowling flippers again in the last 2 weeks. Tonight I spent an hour bowling down the offside with the inclusion of flippers and I reckon I'll be able to bung a few in amongst my bowling in my next match and see how they go down.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Yeah - I think at village cricket level you're going to get far more wickets bowling outside and around off than you are on middle-ish or leg, simply because the vast majority of village batsmen just love to go after spinners if they pitch on or around off stump, and a good leggie who knows to vary his pace and flight is always going to force a false shot from that kind of batsman sooner or later. How's your Leg Breaks coming on Dave? Last I remember, you were starting to get some joy with them...

I'm finding off stump a much happier hunting ground recently as well - my flipper is a strange little beast with a personality all of its own. It is definitely a ball that will get me wickets, as it not only keeps low-ish, but around 70% of the time, it deviates hugely into the right-hander - I can get bigger turn on that flipper than I can with my 'big' leggie when it goes right, I'd estimate I've seen it turn as much as 60° on occasion. I don't know how or what I do to make it happen, and every now and then it will just decide to do its own thing and go miles down the leg side or pitch about halfway down the track. Anyway, I've found that pitching that on the line of off stump and just back of a length is where it's causing batsmen the most trouble, as if they go back to it, it may well creep under the bat, and if they come forward, they're having to leave the crease and the turn is sometimes enough to either beat the bat or even clean bowl them.

My biggest improvement has actually been in my 'quicker ball' - bowled just like a regular medium-pacer but with the seam across the batsman, pulling down on the seam with split fingers as I release - it seems to 'hang' in the air slightly, in the same way a good back-spinner should, and often that, combined with the pace is catching batsmen out from time to time. It's also from time to time done some funny things off the seam.

All in all, my progress has slowed down a bit since I first started about eight months ago, which was only to be expected, but I'm still improving, and that's the main thing. Hopefully I can get my length sorted, as I tend to drop too short too often, which is resulting in me getting marmalised through point far too often. My lines are pretty good, although I do tend to drift down leg a little more than I'd ideally like, but that's all practice, really.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

sounds like you are all doing well, dave just wondering when you bowl your leg break what seam position is the ball in because i've been varying the angle and so top spin and side spin on different surfaces to get maximum grip
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Nightvision;28551 said:
Yeah - I think at village cricket level you're going to get far more wickets bowling outside and around off than you are on middle-ish or leg, simply because the vast majority of village batsmen just love to go after spinners if they pitch on or around off stump, and a good leggie who knows to vary his pace and flight is always going to force a false shot from that kind of batsman sooner or later. How's your Leg Breaks coming on Dave? Last I remember, you were starting to get some joy with them...
QUOTE]

Re the Leg breaks, I did have that phase a while back when I went through a few days of being able to bowl them again, but then played in a match and reverted back to my Wrong Uns which is fatal, so at the moment I simply can't bowl leg breaks and that'll be my off season project to re-learn the leg break and leave well alone all the others till I get the Leg Break back.

I like the sound of your "Faster ball" with the seam across the direction of flight, I think we spoke about this before as it's a ball I used to bowl last year ocassionally and had completely forgotten about it! I reckon I'll give it a go now as it sound like it may be useful - it's the ball that I used to refer to as my slider as it has backspin and as you've pointed out sometimes it lands on the seam and when it does this it does as you say weird things. It's flight is strange too which you've already mentioned, I'm looking forward to having a got at this tomorrow now!

You should also try and bowl Murali's Doosra, have a look at the videos on youtube - that's a really interesting ball and one that is quite tricky to bowl accurately, but that spins weirdly and is a wholly different kettle of fish to the wrong un - it's worth a look at!
Click to expand...
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Yeah, the googly is still one that gives me problems, but I've not been able to find any good videos of the Doosra with regard to positioning of fingers, where to apply pressure and so on. At the moment, with the flipper cutting in so markedly, I tend to use that as my 'surprise ball', as it often cuts back in, as mentioned earlier. Also, I occasionally use a stock Off-spinner as a quicker ball in lieu of the cross-seamed ball, so I can turn it both ways if I need to, but just not the 'regular' way. I wouldn't mind being able to bowl a Doosra though, as it would then mean I can bowl either Off Spin or Leg Spin and still turn it both ways!
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

I'm glad you're finding that the flipper spins off it's line like a leg break. I was banging on about this all last year in different places (Forums etc) and no-one else bowled the flipper so they made no comment about it and I felt like a lone lunatic on my own. The problem I have with it is that on rough grass wickets (where I practice) I can get it to turn well and on good wickets far less so. Glad to hear you're doing well with it, you'll have to let me know how you get on with it and I'll bowl it this coming weekend and I'll tell you how I do with it as well.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Yeah, I was having exactly the same problem with mine - as I practice on a football pitch, I was finding that I was getting monstrous turn with both my leggie and the flipper, but when it came to bowling on a strip, there was next to no turn. I was beginning to worry that I was becoming a spinner who's only any good on minefield pitches, but recently I've been helping out with the u13s at their nets practice, giving them an introduction to spin (both bowling it and batting against it), and have been getting there early and getting in a bit of practice, which has helped no end, as overs on a cut strip have been like golddust for me this season with all my injuries and the team's appalling batting performances this season.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Good stuff, again glad you acknowledged the same experience on rough fields. I was horrified when I started to bowl on proper wickets after spending months on rough fields bowling like Shane Warne! I was really demoralised in my first couple of months playing properly at the end of the last season. Bowling wrong uns as I do now and doing so really well I'm able to get the ball to turn a lot on some wickets and not so much on others, but I'm okay with the idea now and not so concerned when it doesn't happen.

That's a bonus that you get the chance to practice on a real wicket surface at the nets. At a couple of places we've played I've had the chance whilst waiting to bat at No.10 which was nice. The thing I'm hoping for this winter is that the teams indoor net practice falls on a night when I'm not working this year and I'll be able to work on my leg break.

Have your injuries affected your bowling then? Do you get a chance to bowl in your games and do you play league or friendlies?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

The injuries haven't affected my bowling as such, but after a badly pulled thigh muscle at the start of the season, and now a recurrance of a long-standing wrist injury (although thank goodness to my non-bowling arm!), I've not been able to get games, as I've been unable to bat or field. The work thing has also been a problem for me, as I work a strange shift pattern, meaning I'm only available 4 weekends out of 8, which is a pain. I've not had chance to bowl in the saturday league yet, but I've had three spells in the midweek 20/20 league, and taken a wicket in each, two of which were clean bowled, so I know I'm improving now, as last season I was barely able to get one to pitch, I was such a bad bowler - so that's been really good for my confidence, and I'm looking forward to it again next year. Like yourself, I bat well down the order, so I tend to get a lot of practice on game day, warming up the top and middle order, which is fine by me, as it means that I get a chance to show what I'm capable of.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Just had a quick look at your Blog Jason to find out a bit about you. Your grounds lovely, just looked at it on the windows live maps with the "Birds eye" function that allows you to look at the pitch from 4 different angles. How come you don't practice on the outfield, or is it too far to get to just to practice?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top