Wrist Spin Bowling

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Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Those guys did a lot of work to come up with those rankings over at cricinfo.
Bradman ranked them 1 o'reilly 2 grimmett 3 warne, he never faced warne of course but he still had his wits about him when he ranked them and did see a fair bit of warnes bowling if only mostly on tv.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Sadspinner if you want to contact peter philpott you could try mycricketguru.com.au He is at the bottom of the profiles page. I think you can ask questions or submit videos for coaching that sort of thing. He's got some articles published there too.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Thank you for that web address macca. As regards the don, he always shied away from saying who was the greatest as far as I know. He said o'reilly eas the best fast leg spinner, and grimmett the best of the slow leg spinners. As regards warne I read he said he cannot compare eras, but hinted that he did not consider him as great as the others as in his days there were finer batsmen especially of spin. Having said that , he seems to hint as you say that he cosidered O'reilly more highly. Well that was his opinion,it is not absolute. We here are romantic and prefer the physically weaker bowler, with his terrier to the big strong guy.

Nice article matt. I agree there are some omissions of great leggies not included and it is impossible to compare i believe. Kumble is high up, but i have an impression that he was much more effective than in india then elsewhere.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Benaud came up with a formula to determine the best australian test bowler of all time and instead of dividing wickets by innings he looks at career strike rate and grimmett wins. Benaud was a bit surprised by this result but according to his formula that was his answer. The article is online somewhere i read it a couple of days ago. I think grimmett is still the fastest to reach 200 wickets in about 40 tests.and you must remember he had smaller stumps to bowl to in all his tests before they made them bigger during the bodyline series.
I have a couple of the grimmett books here and i am going to have a look at them later today, not having opened them in 20 years!
 
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I was reading a book about fingleton, who apparently said thatgrimmett was left out of the ashes of 1938 ( i think), as grimmett had criticised the don that he tried to get out purposely to avoid facing a fast bowler in some shield match. O'Reilly seems to concur that the don had a say in keeping grimmett out of the ashes. So once again the classification by bradman could stem from the fact that he might not have liked grimmett so much.

You are one lucky b$%%&& having the fox's two books. Do you think o'reilly was the equivalent of kumble as regards bowling speed.

For me even though i am not particulary fond of warne the public character, i find it difficult to imagine a leg spinner better than him.Ithink maybe surfaces are less helpful now then 80 years ago. I might be wrong.

By the way macca, did and do you play cricket and particularly leg spin as you seem very immersed in the subject. Having two books of grimmett=obssessed with leg spin, so i think i already got the answer.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

I have just re read grimmetts ' on taking wickets' and i am amazed. you have to put the book in historical perspective though. most people hear about the book because it features in the bradman story . and usually it is described as not a very good book and hastily written and of little use. bullshit!
not only is it a great coaching manual for kids its full of humour and it also serves as a document to confuse his upcoming opponents in england that season! the best bowler in the world at that stage publishing a book would have been like warne releasing a dvd of his bowling prior to a ashes series, gatters and athers would have killed each other in the rush to get one!
you get to page 60 and he is planting seeds of doubt by announcing 4 mystery balls he is developing! (sound familiar), one of them is the gipper dave!
i will discuss the book in detail and quote directly from it in later posts if anyone is interested.
anyone tried mycricketguru.com.au yet?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Yes give us snippet,summaries,quotes,anecdotes,the hell give us all the book of the master if you like. We are dying for it.

Yes i gave a cusory look at the website, Thank you for forwarding it.

Remember we are waiting for grimmetts gems
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

macca;340663 said:
I have just re read grimmetts ' on taking wickets' and i am amazed. you have to put the book in historical perspective though. most people hear about the book because it features in the bradman story . and usually it is described as not a very good book and hastily written and of little use. bullshit!
not only is it a great coaching manual for kids its full of humour and it also serves as a document to confuse his upcoming opponents in england that season! the best bowler in the world at that stage publishing a book would have been like warne releasing a dvd of his bowling prior to a ashes series, gatters and athers would have killed each other in the rush to get one!
you get to page 60 and he is planting seeds of doubt by announcing 4 mystery balls he is developing! (sound familiar), one of them is the gipper dave!
i will discuss the book in detail and quote directly from it in later posts if anyone is interested.
anyone tried mycricketguru.com.au yet?
Click to expand...


I knew it would be out there somewhere, I'm kind of pleased that it's Grimmett that describes it. Did he ever use it and what did he call it or was it as I've said before just a variation of the Flipper?

Yeah we're interested in more from it!!

I've just gone looking for the book and found this - http://www.flickr.com/photos/36394744@N02/3379654234/

I went looking for the book 'On taking wickets' a few months back and saved the link in my favourites. The links still there and I think I was directed to an obscure bookshop via Amazon. So I've emailed them saying 'I want that book'! But using Amazon I've drawn a total blank and it looks like (Possibly through these threads) we may have drawn attention to the book! And now I can't find it anywhere!!!!!

Do you know anything of a book called 'Clarrie Grimmett' by Jim Ledbetter?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Just found this which is scary - The source is - Date-stamped : 25 Dec94 - 18:28
Two greats declare their genius - Peter Roebuck

http://www.cricinfomobile.com/link_to_database/ARCHIVE/ARTICLES/PLAYERS/ROEBUCK_ON_WARNE_19SEP93

We must not be unkind to our own, but wishful thinking is no
help either: Ian Salisbury is not in Warne`s class. The NatWest
final showed Salisbury`s confidence running out of his head as
if through a colander. There is talk of shoulder trouble. Be-
cause we have seen so little leg-spinning it is easy to forget
how many of that breed once developed such chronic injuries that
they could bowl only googlies, or indeed not at all. Ian Peebles,
who bowled Don Bradman in the 1930s and wrote beautifully for
this newspaper, was one such. Defensive leg-spinners who roll
the ball rather than spin it, as Robin Hobbs used to do, feel no
such pain, but Warne is not of that ilk.

Cricketers need their bodies intact. A single throw from the
outfield can ruin the outside shoulder ligaments, eventually
reducing the most athletic of fieldsmen, like David Gower, into a
one-throw-per-session cripple. The wear on the inside of the
shoulder socket caused by constant arm swinging with a cocked
wrist creates insidious damage. Wanting Warne to survive,
to see more of him, we must hope that he is not only super
bowler but super body. Without wrapping himself in cotton wool,
he needs to take care.

I've come across several articles looking for the Grimmett book that mention Warne and his 'Just happened' arrival on the scene, makes interesting reading and makes you aware of just how much wrist spin and spin generally had been dropped from the game.

Much later........ W'Hey found the book! I've emailed them so hopefully I'll get a response tomorrow and have my own copy pretty soon. Also got some news on Wings to Fly, el capitano he say - 'I've ordered it, but it was ordered along with a load of other stuff which was out of stock - I reckon they'll despatch it all together, but if I don't hear from them in a few more days I'll chase it up'. So when I get some more news I'll let you know.

From the souce (Which for the moment I'm keeping secret till I get my hands on a copy) there's a flick book by Grimmet where you flick the pages by the sounds of the description and the sequence shows him bowling but it's 149 quid!!! And it's described as being a bit knackered.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

I finally got up to bowling twenty-two yards today.:D

It was pretty good, albeit a bit slow. There was some nice drift and turn. This is probably my biggest breakthrough since learning the side-spinner some months ago. Now I just have to improve my pace, and remedy my atrocious accuracy and learn the some variations.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

EOW don't worry about the pace too much, if I was you I'd just concentrate on getting your action nice and smooth and relaxed and as it comes together I reckon you'll just naturally build the technique and muscles to get the ball down there. Philpott advocates that you shouldn't get over-obessessed with the speed, speed will cause a flattening of your trajectory and make it easier to hit the ball - a nice slow flighty ball is far better if it spins. The spin will make the ball dip and drift and these things come about and improve with a good overall bowling action. So if you're getting it up the wicket - leave the speed and concentrate on the delivery action with some good spin.

Do you do any exercises for your shoulders?

Good to hear you're getting it together - keep at it.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

dave, the gipper is a bit of a red herring he appears to be using i think. He talks about his experiments with backspin and he describes a delivery he could theoretically deliver as flicking his thumb and fingers and looking like a wrongun but spinning the other way. He talks this delivery up but doesnt shine much light on his big secret ,the flipper. Batsmen would be thinking better watch his wrongun, not look out for a skidder.
It's not a very big book, it can be read in a couple of hours. He makes it known at the beginning that he wrote it and it wasn't ghosted like most similar books of the time.
There is nothing new in it and no big secrets on legspin. he only explains what everbody else knew at the time, keeping all he had worked out to himself. They didn't call him "the fox" for nothing. It's nowhere near as instructive as Philpotts work. This book deals with all forms of bowling and fielding. I dont know how much he knows about fast bowling, but according to him it's a lot, which probably means not much. If you read closely what he says about offspinners then they are all chuckers! So dont go pointing a finger at murali, he is no different than all offbreak bowlers!
You have to understand his humour as well, when he appears to be bragging about his batting it's all tongue in cheek and it's just him giving it to all batsmen and rallying bowlers. He knew everyone who read the book understood he was a tailender. You can get an insight to his humour at The 7.30 Report - ABC in the extended interview with ashley mallett.
I would say his basic starting point is attitude. No batsmen can bat! the only reason they make runs is because the rules are stacked in their favour. But they all have fatal flaws in their technique, don bradman, wally hammond all of them. In fact if grimett gave up bowling and took up batting he could show them all a thing or two! Of course he doesnt say it like that but that is his attitude.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

The things I will take from gimmetts cricket books and use to coach my 11 year old legspinning son are like i said attitude, not arrogance that might lead you to sledge a batsmen when he can't get a bat on your bowling, you would n't talk to a batsmen ever. Why would you? but you can afford yourself a little chuckle to yourself and think " you reckon you can bat yer mug? watch this."
Chapter one in " on taking wickets" is mainly autobiography towards the end he tells how he figured out how to bowl his first googly by " dropping" his "other" shoulder at delivery (try it, it works), he worked it out from detective work on whatshisnames bosie and how he literally stumbled on it.
Then he says that after each session working on his wrongun he ended with ten minutes of legbreaks. He really stresses how he never let his "stock ball" suffer, this is old advice i know, but it probably started with this book.
Chaper 2 is titled " length and direction. The twin essentials" .I suppose you should start with grips.not grip. the photos in the book show a classic leg spinners grip but with fingers 1 and 2 much closer than most leggies, more than warnes , but this varies a lot. the closer they are the more leverage for finger 3 so he uses this to vary nearly every ball but ever so slightly but they can spread quite wide if need be.
On the approach he advises on a relatively straight one, and asks would an athlete performing a long jump run up on an angle? he also says this " another valuable pointer to the bowler is to use the full width of the bowling crease occassionally thus making the angle of flight different"
As far as actions are concerned he doesn't seem to think that once they are past 10 or so you can do much drastic alterations. you work with what you got. but you can improve things like followthrough by showing them how far they should be finishing up the pitch.
The key thing in the whole book is probably his talk on length and flight. he begins by proving that full tosses are far better deliveries than long hops. he points out the blindspot and how it varies per batsman. but he stresses to err on the side of too full and never bowl a short ball! in fact the only short ball you should ever bowl is on purpose on that rare occassion for some reason when you cant get their wicket.the surprise after overs of perfect lenghth legspin usually buys a wicket. well for clarrie it did .
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Macca,

Great to have u on site.
Good of u to share the contents..
The part u touched about attitude was "Spot On".

It will be helpful to many spinners reading this site.

Keep up the good work.:)
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

So anyway grimmett lays down a hard to follow commandment no short balls! ever! except on purpose if need be ! but that does help narrow down where we should bowl. grimmett like warne doesn't bowl to a target area on the pitch he bowls to make the batsman play a certain shot more or less, but thats only because he doesn't have to any more because he has spent years bowling at targets like warne probably. if a kid took warnes advice in that nichaolas tape sadspinner put me on to he might say "gee warnie says i dont have to practise bowling at targets anymore, i can bowl to make them play shots" he would most likely get flogged next time he bowled. but warne is telling the truth he isn't bowling at some imaginary spot on the pitch.
But grimmett believes there is a target area for kids to practise for and to get kids to land in it he devises a typically cunning plan. At school he suggests a competition is announced he paints a square " three square feet" on a good length and line with the blind spot so just to the legside slightly, then declares that later in the week the boy who lands most in the square wins a prize, they will practise all week he reckons, but it was 1930. we do a similar thing with kids we usually blutac a few dollars in the middle of the square and whoever hits the note or the square the most wins it. that can get em going.
He spends a lot of time discussing what a good length ball is. He says " a good length ball for an adult slow bowler is about 4 yards from the batsmans' wicket" about is the key word there because he says " length varies according to the height of the bowler, and wether he delivers the ball from the top of his reach, or roundarm." and this " the faster the ball the shorter it may be pitched to be of good length, and the slower it is the further up it must be pitched" .This spot where the ball should pitch is relatively big for the wrist spinner. he does emphasize length over line, length being more important he suggests a line where " the only shot the batsman can play with complete certainty is the straight drive" he wants you to bowl at the stumps and never wide to a new batsmen " always attack a new batsman" by bowling at the stumps.
He mentioned to only bowl your wrongun every 3 or 4 overs as a rule because a large % of the fieldsman will be out of position.
He talks about flight and he was a spin it up and down their eyeline exponent he is into varying the pace of the ball through various means. he says " vary the height, pace, and flight of your stock ball" so every ball is slightly different . stock ball doesnt mean you want every ball the same.
towards the end of the book he starts to really have a lend of everyone. He tells bowlers not to worry about batting practise you have enough to worry about bowling besides getting runs is the batsmans job but when called on he expects bowlers to make runs. He wants bowlers to save their energy and wait for it, this is his funniest line in the book, he reckons thats why he restricts himself to scoring 30 or 40 runs per match than getting out! he implies that if he really wanted to he could score a lot more!
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

I'm liking the sounds of Clarrie Grimmett, I reckon we should all take something of his attitude to batsmen! I can't wait to get the book.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Thankfully much of what you've written I'm already doing. I like the point of attacking the stumps with the new batsman in. With regards the target practice again I'd advise something similar. I use a bit of old hardboard that's cut into a strip 10" wide and about 4' long I always think if you can land on that consistently doing you're doing well with the line and the length as long as it's not short.

I think bowling to induce a type of stroke comes in time with experience. Only last year I kind of realised that bowling to the off stump worked in that as long as you don't screw up and bowl legside at all - a good line as you say, means that they'll have to play a drive or step away from the stumps for a cut shot and expose the stumps. Then any balls that do go wide with me would have (last year) potentially been a big turning Wrong Un pitched up wide or a genuine mistake with a Top-spinner or a Flipper. The Top spinners always with the potential to be hit incorrectly to a off-side set field.

Even now I'd find it hard to justify bowling down the Leg side because I simply don't understand the theory other than if I did have a biggun? What's more as a newbie it took a year for me not to be out there crapping my pants with nervousness. Practice is the key and having confidence in being able to put the ball where you want it, then maybe start to think in terms of what the bat is going to do and what stroke he may play? It's a long process that requires a lot of cricket being played.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

" on taking wickets" is a basics book more aimed at kids, but most modern readers would be interested in what he calls his "demonstrations" of backspin around page 60 , which reveal how he developed the flipper with a rubber ball smaller than a cricket ball and flicking it over short distances, 7 ,8 yards,he spends over ten years getting it right. he doesn't seem to envisage someone like warne who apparently picked it up in months not years ,grimmett seems confident that none of his contemporaries will steal it or even know what he is on about. i'll have a rave about his other book next post.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Yeah that's really weird with the Flipper the way that he saw it as being really difficult. Once I'd seen the Warne/Richards video I was onto it straight away and was bowling it really well within months if not weeks. I'll have to look at my main blog and read how I got on with it but I can clearly remember the field on which I practiced it really early in my cricket 'Career' as such and remember the ball kicking up divots in the damp grass and skidding onto the stumps. I've always been surprised at the comments of Benaud on the Flipper, so it's going to be interesting reading his account of why the Flipper is so difficult to bowl?

Just found it - This from January 2007 when I'd been bowling for 6 months having never bowled a ball in my life and only having had a cricket ball for 3 months!


Flipper; This is the one I like. Apparently it’s difficult to master. This is the reason I walk around with a ball in my hand 24-7 as I’m flipping it, building the strength and dexterity in my fingers to bowl it. Again this is one I’m confident about but acknowledge because it’s totally different to all the others I usually bowl a couple of lose ones till I get my line, but then I lose the element of surprise with it. It’s something I’ve got to work on with regards the line. The technique and length are all there, just the accuracy when it’s mixed in with other variations. The ‘Flipper’ element of it I reckon I’ve got cracked. Yesterday I threw a couple of overs and the back spin on it as they hit the deck was chucking up divots! These blokes turn as well on dry grass, it’s a nice ball to throw.

Maybe it's one of those things that come easy to some and not others?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

someblokecalleddave;340927 said:
EOW don't worry about the pace too much, if I was you I'd just concentrate on getting your action nice and smooth and relaxed and as it comes together I reckon you'll just naturally build the technique and muscles to get the ball down there. Philpott advocates that you shouldn't get over-obessessed with the speed, speed will cause a flattening of your trajectory and make it easier to hit the ball - a nice slow flighty ball is far better if it spins. The spin will make the ball dip and drift and these things come about and improve with a good overall bowling action. So if you're getting it up the wicket - leave the speed and concentrate on the delivery action with some good spin.

Do you do any exercises for your shoulders?

Good to hear you're getting it together - keep at it.
Click to expand...

Well I'm not that concerned about pace. I would never want to become a flat leg spinner, but I want to be fast enough so the batsmen can't play almost everything of the pitch. Whether I'm fast enough to prevent that I don't know, I certainly seemed quite a bit slower than test bowlers(and by this I mean the slow flighty spinners). But perhaps I should stop judging my performance against the top level.


Intermittently, I tend to forget to exercise my shoulders a lot of the time.

macca said:
As far as actions are concerned he doesn't seem to think that once they are past 10 or so you can do much drastic alterations. you work with what you got. but you can improve things like followthrough by showing them how far they should be finishing up the pitch.
Click to expand...

That interesting because my actions have changed quite a lot in the last 2 years. All of them(leg-spin, off-spin, seam-up) have become side-on actions instead of front on actions. While my spin actions are much the same otherwise. My seam up action as changed totally: it has gone from a front on action that was quite similar to Harmison, to a side-on slinger action, a la Johnson or Tait. Maybe it was easy for me to change because I didn't really bowl seam up that often(I was focusing on learning leg-spin), but I think it would be quite a misnomer to say that you can't drastically change actions past the age of ten.
 
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