Wrist Spin Bowling

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Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Should there be a gap between the hand and fingers when gripping the ball, because i hold it in the hand, with no gap, But i can still get my third finger involved. I just cant seem to hold it in my fingers because then it has no support. I seen the Shane Warne video where he talks about there being a gap in the grip but it doesen't seem right to me, Could this be reducing the revs i can get on the ball?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

water_boy;345263 said:
I am right handed and i do bowl wrist spin.
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What variations do you bowl, who do you play for, how much do you practice and do you agree or disagree with the points we're making on here generally. Or better still have you got anything to add?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Well I'm no expert, but it would make sense that you would get less revs, as the ball would be in contact lower down on the third finger, which would decrease the amount of leverage given by the fingers.

In my experience it is very much correct; I used to have a grip that had no gap(it was a some months ago) and changing it to one that did have a gap really helped.

I did seem to get more revs and the ball came out much better, with no gap it seemed to sort of stick in the hand(kinda of like when my grip was a bit tight only worse). Bowling with a gap does feel a bit weird at first, almost like the ball going to slip out of your hand, but you get used to it; eventually it just feels normal. You overcome the illusion that the ball will slip out of your hand.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

I've updated my flipper page on my Leg Spin bowling blog Legspin bowling: The Flipper I've added the warning at the end about over-doing the practice with the Flipper for youngsters as I read it again in another book that it's not a good idea for youngsters to develop the flipper with intensive practice. I'm looking into establishing what kind of age you can start to practice in an intensive manner with the Flipper. Anyone got any ideas?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

someblokecalleddave;345324 said:
What variations do you bowl, who do you play for, how much do you practice and do you agree or disagree with the points we're making on here generally. Or better still have you got anything to add?
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I play in Australia at Northcote cricket club. I don't have many variations, I only have a top-spinner. My slider still needs work in the nets and also my wrong-un as it is very innacurate. When cricket season is up and running i play friday and saturday and practice my bowling monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday.
I have a lot of time to practice as I am still in school and I don't have a job also my school has nets so I can practice at lunch time. I agree with a lot of the things that have been said here and I also think that if you are a young spinnner you try and get good coaching and try to get the proper action as early as possible so it is not too late to make changes when they are older. I also think that spinner should be always trying to "spin up" and try and use their front arm as much as possible also a strong follow through with your shoulders and hips doing a lot of the work in conjunction with your wrist will impart more spin on the ball.

We have a thing called district cricket or grade cricket in Australia, different to what you have in England and I play for a district club and it is easy for me to get good coaching because at my district club, and most others we have some of the top coaches and facilities in the state. Also in the 1st XI of that competition a lot of players who are on professional contracts play in it. For example peter siddle played for his club once this year and david hussey also played for his club once. and when shane warne was still playing he played some games in it.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

I've just come on-line and there's 3 people in the whole world logged on amongst how many members 22,000 or something I read? And it's us lot - Gundalf, Macca and me! Wrist spinners!

That sounds fast - Gandalf - how do you know you're that fast?

With regards the comments about the grip. If I'm talking about the Leg break I'm still searching for the solution that will give me consistency and control. I've noticed that when I bowl sometimes I get good dip and nice turn so I'm assuming that means the ball is spinning with a diagonal motion so includes the over-spin as well as the sideways spin? But other times the dips not so apparent and the flight is straighter more like a Flipper - this ball turns better, but doing this on demand is still a long way off. Even though I've got a Leg Break of sorts I'm still working on the Biggun in the background, but just not getting too hung up on not getting far with it, some days I do well with it and others it's pants, but this is over about 15 yards, so at the minute it's nothing to write home about.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Macca in your avatar, is this a picture of grimmett with his leg break grip, as it is interesting that the thumb seems to be an important aspect of his grip, as opposed to what warne/jenner advocate?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

We had a bowl yesterday on a concrete pitch with slightly damp matting, and found the ball skidding through and not bouncing so much. My son bowled 5 overs and I was behind the stumps, he only bowled 1 bad ball, that was a long hop, but it was just outside off, and it spun quickly, so amongst all the good deliveries it might have been a wicket taker.
The best thing was he has got his leg break going good, he had been bowling too many topspinners and when he strayed down the legside they were just bad balls, but yesterday he only strayed down the legside 4 times and each time he broke the stumps.
The work he is putting in on his backspinner( philpotts backspinning- topspinner) must be changing his wrist setting to more backspin and sidespin and less topspin. Just the odd topspinner now.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

someblokecalleddave;345325 said:
I've updated my flipper page on my Leg Spin bowling blog Legspin bowling: The Flipper I've added the warning at the end about over-doing the practice with the Flipper for youngsters as I read it again in another book that it's not a good idea for youngsters to develop the flipper with intensive practice. I'm looking into establishing what kind of age you can start to practice in an intensive manner with the Flipper. Anyone got any ideas?
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I am not sure what age they reckon you should start youngsters on flippers, but they reckon it is a big no-no for very young players, and they use words like "banned", so there must be some medical evidence that it is harmful to developing hands and wrists?
When the last flipper craze swept the country, where kids being rushed to hospital with flipper induced wrist injuries? I dont know .
This must all be besides the fact the young legspinner has got so much to learn before he needs to worry about learning to bowl the flipper.
I am convinced now the delivery Philpott confusingly dubbed the " backspinning topspinner" is the first backspinner they should learn. And I think the concept of spinning the ball back to yourself whilst propelling it forward might be best grasped early on , and it only gets harder the longer they leave it, and after all , it is only a leg-break rotated 90 degrees. You can also start to teach them the complete loop of deliveries from backspinner around to the biggest wrongun.
My 11 year old practised the flipper for a couple of months, then studied Daves youtube demo, then practised what Dave was doing with the ball in that, and the next time we went to the nets he bowled a good flipper, the only wrong thing was it was a little too wide of off stump, but it was very noticeable for its low bounce and speed compared to his other deliveries.
But it was getting too painfull to keep practising it, so we knocked it on the head for a while, but he is still occassionally practising the clicking finger and thumb action with a smaller rubber ball.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

dave i've been playing with my videos, using frame by frame with a timer accurate to hundreths of a second to calculate how long it takes between release and when it pitches. As its been done on my garage i've got a list of measurements to each object so I can tell where it has pitched accurately. Then all you have to do is divide the distance by the seconds and multiply it by 2.23693629 to convert it to miles per hour.

Its surprisingly accurate i've tried it on a fair few proper videos of spinners (using an onscreen ruler to calculate distance) and it seems to be a few mph to slow which will be how much the ball slows in the air and also the loopy flight combined with the height it comes down from.

As for the grips being away from the fingers it will give more force if you can still get it to come of the fingertip as it should as you have more flexibility to create a larger force.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

sadspinner;345358 said:
Macca in your avatar, is this a picture of grimmett with his leg break grip, as it is interesting that the thumb seems to be an important aspect of his grip, as opposed to what warne/jenner advocate?
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I will have a close look at Grimmetts thumb position in photos and try and work out what he was doing. I think Philpott placed his thumb on the ball, I think I have seen photos of his grip with thumb on the ball? It could be a disguise where the thumb is placed on the ball to give the batsman no hint to Grimmetts flipper?
Personally I find the thumb gets in the way for all the legspin deliveries except the flipper.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Sounds impressive Macca! I always kind of think you Aussies have got a distinct advantage over us Poms hence the reason you beat us most of the time and that's the fact that you've got the weather on your side? I'm under the impression even if you live south of Sydney the temperature rarely dips below 10 degrees even in your winter and if you live up anywhere near Brisbane or north of there it's just one long summer all year? So you can get so much more 'Outside time' to take part in sports whereas here - come November it's batten down the hatches till March (late March). Is there in any truth in my beliefs?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

That's interesting with regards the injury potential with the Flipper as my thumb suffered once I started using the Grimmett version, although I wasn't happy just to stick with the basic delivery and went for the variation Macca introduced us to via Grimmett (Once again) the forward spinning flipper obtained by rotating the wrist 180 degrees. Even now if I just sit here and turn my wrist the 180 degrees and make the movement without the ball in my hand I can feel that it's using muscles not normally used in both the wrist and the thumb, so I can sense that maybe there's more than a ring of truth in the advice never to bowl the flipper as a kid. Maybe I should go back to the youtube video and post up a H&S warning!!!?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

gundalf7;344860 said:
dave i've been playing with my videos, using frame by frame with a timer accurate to hundreths of a second to calculate how long it takes between release and when it pitches. As its been done on my garage i've got a list of measurements to each object so I can tell where it has pitched accurately. Then all you have to do is divide the distance by the seconds and multiply it by 2.23693629 to convert it to miles per hour.

Its surprisingly accurate i've tried it on a fair few proper videos of spinners (using an onscreen ruler to calculate distance) and it seems to be a few mph to slow which will be how much the ball slows in the air and also the loopy flight combined with the height it comes down from.

As for the grips being away from the fingers it will give more force if you can still get it to come of the fingertip as it should as you have more flexibility to create a larger force.
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That's bloody fast then! We had a speed gun in the nets a couple of weeks ago and our fastest bowler was clocking 65mph and man was he going some. My mate who's a wrist spinner and bowls a lot faster than me was clocking up 35mph. So maybe our gun wasn't that accurate?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Just checked , Grimmett is definately thumb on the ball. Might be the reason he doesn't describe the backspinner/ slider because his thumb got in the way?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

yeah I was pretty amazed as i've been over my footage from last season and i've gained 7-8 miles per hour over my footage from this time last year and i'm probablly 5 mph quicker than at the end of last season. I'm really reaping the benefit of my improved action and i'd guess i'm a fair bit stronger as well.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Macca makes a good point about leaving the flipper and making sure as a youngster you concentrate on the basic grip and incorporate the 'Round the clock' theory first and foremost and endeavour to produce your back spinning slider via the Philpott route. I think I've learned more about the slider on here discussing it with you blokes than using any of the resources on-line. I think the way both Jenner and Warne describe it and just breeze over it with an air of indifference in both their on-line videos does the variation a grave injustice. I think Philpott and by the sounds of it Grimmett too go a lot further in emphasising the importance of having a back spinning variation and it's good to see this new kid on the thread here (Water Boy) is already on the case. I think this in itself goes to show that coaching wrist spin in Australia sounds as though far exceeds what happens here in the UK. Even at my own club with it's enthusiasm for spinners seems to lack the depth of knowledge to make people aware of the potential with wrist spin or perhaps they see that sticking to the basics is far more important?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

When this site was mainly UK based I had this idea - where people on the website might get together and form a couple of teams from the people on-line, hire a pitch somewhere in the Midlands or somewhere central and have a game. I'd love to see some of the other people play and have a game - how much of a laugh might that be!?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Macca I think your son when he's ready will probably pick up the Flipper easily if he's gettting the spin aspect right. The line and length comes with just a bit of practice - matter of hours given that we have the fore-knowledge that it is possible.

Whilst on the subject of Flippers - how on earth did this article ever see the light of day on cricinfo? Check out the last paragraph. http://usa.cricinfo.com/link_to_database/ABOUT_CRICKET/EXPLANATION/LEGSPIN_PHYSICS.html
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

I've been very pleased and surprised by my pace in the last couple of net sessions. All I basically did was improve the use of my front arm and the amount of pace skyrocketed.

Unfortunately, I don't have a way to measure it reliably. I can estimate that the ball took about a second(which would be about 70 kph, or 43.75 mph) to get down the other end, but that's not very accurate. It would be fractions of a second either side of that, which would have a significant affect on how fast the delivery actually was.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Dave, up north cricket is played in the winter rather than summer. In Sydney they have a winter comp for kids, and with global warming its making more sense.
On the subject of how fast should a leg-spinner bowl? I will quote Peter Philpott.

"..every delivery must be made with the body and shoulder fully behind it, plus a powerful wrist and finger spin. As long as you are doing this you cannot bowl too slowly, for with the body swing and follow through, you will nip off the wicket.."

"...if you are simply rolling the ball into the air with out the body behind the delivery, you will lack any nip off the wicket..."

"...remember everyone is different, and there is a natural speed for each bowler. As long as your body and shoulder are working fully in delivery, there is no need to speed up..."

These quotes are from a 1973 interview with Philpott, where he was asked how fast should a leg- spinner bowl. Its like Grimmetts advice where he says as long as your getting pace and nip off the pitch and not losing it, you are going to succeed, no matter how slow.
Of course if your natural speed is very slow you won't make it in first grade cricket.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

I've had another day trying to get my leg break to turn bigger and I've had a fairly positive day see my main blog Wrist Spin Bowling: Frustration with the Leg Break but last night I was scrolling through loads of leg break/wrist spin pages on google and came across a description of a right arm Indian wrist spin bowler that was described as being a prolific wicket taker despite having a weak Leg break and that the majority of his wickets were taken with Wrong Uns. Now this sounds like my kind of bloke! Trouble is I didn't make a note of who it was - anyone got any ideas who it might be as I can't seem to find the same webpage?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

I think I'm possibly very slow when I'm slow, but I vary the speed all the time to mix things up. I don't think it matters that much and a slow ball can undo many a good batsman, my little-un gets most of his wickets by virtue of being only 7 and therefore a slow bowler. I've bowled in matches with little kids in - one in particular where one batsman was taking all of the adults to the cleaners no matter what they threw at him and one little 13 year old lobbed a ball up straight and above his eye-line, the bloke played the shot, but the ball wasn't there to be hit and he was gone.

I'm currently reading Grimmetts on taking wickets kindly copied and sent to me by Macca, cheers bloke very much appreciated! Anyway he's just mentioned a point regarding round arm verses a more vertical arm. The comparison he makes is that of skimming stones across a pond. Suggesting quite rightly that if you throw a flat stone using a vertical arm action it's simply going to disappear into the water, whereas the sideways arm action means that the flat stone doesn't break the surface and instead skims bouncing several times before disappearing. The inference is that the round arm action facilitates a faster movement off the pitch. The vertical action would mean some of the kinetic energy would be absorbed into the pitch and thus slow the ball down.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Must have been kumble(very small leg breaks, mainly topspinners+googlies+flippers at medium pace), he took 5 for 5 in the IPL today for pietersen's team today. Or else Chandrashekar, who had polio in the right hand and bowled at medium pace.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

someblokecalleddave;345028 said:
I'm currently reading Grimmetts on taking wickets kindly copied and sent to me by Macca, cheers bloke very much appreciated! Anyway he's just mentioned a point regarding round arm verses a more vertical arm. The comparison he makes is that of skimming stones across a pond. Suggesting quite rightly that if you throw a flat stone using a vertical arm action it's simply going to disappear into the water, whereas the sideways arm action means that the flat stone doesn't break the surface and instead skims bouncing several times before disappearing. The inference is that the round arm action facilitates a faster movement off the pitch. The vertical action would mean some of the kinetic energy would be absorbed into the pitch and thus slow the ball down.
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That is a very good point and is well explained relating to the skimming on water.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

My young bloke is slow but he puts incredible revs on the ball and flights it, and as the ball is in the air longer, as it is travelling slower, than it has more time to drift and drop. Also he looks a lot slower from mid-on, than when you are actually facing him, the turn he gets is fast not always wide.
When he is bowling at his best , like he is at the moment, he has a large area where he can land the ball and trouble the batsman, the further he strays down legside the bigger the spin back he achieves and if he strays wide outside off stump with 5 fieldsman there plus him you can contain most players.
I'm always trying to get him to bowl faster, he uses the Warne walk-in, run-up and I cant change it. He does put a huge effort in at delivery, usually accompanied by a grunt and you can hear his fingers snapping if you are close enough.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

One of kumble's five wickets was warne. Warne tried to charge him, kumble gave him a fast googly, beat him and warne was out stumped. Two where slog shots caught in the deep. I think the other was with a flipper and another with a googly.

Kumble resembles dave, has very good googlies(different grips), a topspinner and a very small leg break . All at close to near medium pace. Oh and he has a flipper too.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Macca, it sounds like it can only get better as he gets older and stronger. I've just had a good net session, I'm writing it up on my main blog now, I'll post some stuff up later.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

That's cheered me up a lot - one of the big wrist spin legends and he only has a small leg break yet he's up there with the best. Yeah I like the comparison too, it sounds as though I bowl the same kind of stuff as this bloke and after last Thursday and the problems my fast Wrong Un caused my Wrong Uns are back in favour but only as a variation. I've had a much better today with my leg break, I've been very consistent with it and the amount of turn I'm getting off it is enough for me to be happy with it. Total control of it still alludes me and it fades in and out, but for the most part it spins off the wicket nicely varies in the amount of bounce it has, but I can bowl a good line and length, in fact today I was bowling it outside of Leg stump and it was coming back in on the stumps or going wide of off stump. What I'll have to do is get the camera over on the field when I go next and chuck down a bucket of balls with the camera pointed down the middle and uplaod it to you tube and let you blokes have a look and see if you reckon I'm doing enough with the leg break?

Just updated my main blog if you're interested - http://mpafirsteleven.blogspot.com/2009/04/7-days-to-go.html
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Well I'm not sure I'd worry too much about pace at his age(I can remember if you mentioned his actual age, but you did say young, so I would be guessing no older than about 11).

He would still have a lot of growing to do and strength to gain, which would have a significant effect, especially considering he has a Warne like approach.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

I have started cricket training of my Cousin brother who is of 11 years old.
My uncle is looking forward to his training...i will be taking him to ground every Saturday and Sunday for fielding,batting and bowling drills..
the key would be to work on his fitness and getting him to use to warm routines...
Right now i just showed him the leg spin grip and practice the door knob-type wrist movement only...with a tennis ball...
He looks a natural leg spinner and i wanted him to be a leg spinner rather be a medium fast bowler(which normally kids of his age do first and then according to the coaches instruction change it spin or keep it fast)..
Starting early will help him in longer run of cricket.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

This is from my main blog at Wrist Spin Bowling: 3rd from last net session

After some warm up exercises the nets were pulled out pretty sharpish and we had about 6 blokes in the nets. I was hoping to bowl at some of the first team players as I did last week but Matt said that he only wanted 1st team players in the net as they needed to practice seriously as there's only a few weeks left before the season gets under way in a more serious manner.

Initially I bowled rubbish which underlines the neccessity for me to bowl before I go into the nets or a match. After several balls I settled down a bit and bowled primarily Top Spinners, Wrong Uns and Flippers (Grimmett Flippers). It went quite well as I hit the stumps at least twice this week and got it past the bat leaving the batsman stranded out of his crease several times too which is the technique that I tend to favour in the nets. Then the chance came to bat, I got all my gear on and then realised I hadn't brought my special 'Box pants' with me and that I was wearing baggy boxer shorts. So I stuffed the box down there and then got some support from the elastic from my hip protector but to be honest the box was rattling about all over the gaff, but I was so determined to see if the Bradman bat had caused any improvement I decided to risk it. What it did mean was that every 4 seconds or so I was having to re-adjust it, but I persevered and despite the fact that I had to concentrate more on my balls than the balls that were coming out of the hands of the bowlers I did remarkably well. Without doubt this was the best net session with the bat I've ever had. I reckon I managed to get the bat on the ball 9 out of 10 times and 8 out of 10 times it went somewhere in a safe fashion rather than high and potentially into the hands of a batsman. So for me this represents an exponentially large improvement that I'm going to attribute to the Bradman bat practice and therefore means I'm going to continue with it for the forseeable future. Additionally I was having to face some of the faster bowlers who bowl in excess of 60mph - a bloke called Mason in particular and some new bloke I've never seen before and with all of their balls I was either able to make contact with the ball or leave it. So this was very encouraging especially in view of the fact that I had problems with my box. I'm now looking forward to next week after another week of practice with the 1" bat and I'll be wearing my special pants.

Speed Gun

Again they had the speed gun in the nets and this time I had my bowling speed measured. I've always been under the impression that I bowl ridiculously slow and that even my faster deliveries were not going to be that much faster. So I was very surprised that with very little effort my Flipper came in at 43mph and my wrong un was measured at 47mph (And it took the wicket clean bowled). The faster version of my wrong un I don't generally bowl that much and it reminded me that when I first learnt to bowl it we used to practice with a Pakistani bloke over on the field (Suhail) who claimed to have toured England with the Pakistani under 21's team or something when he was younger and it was with this fast Wrong Un that I was always able to bowl him out and he was a very handy player and was always full of praise for that particular delivery. So maybe I should start to use it again as a variation, perhaps any time I bowl the wrong un this is the way I should bowl it in future? Seems to make sense?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Dave I remember where you were after a copy of Philpotts "A spinners yarn", I picked up a another copy yesterday at a second hand book shop for a few bob. So I could post you a copy if you like.
The funny thing was as I was flipping through the book , a photo fell out of the book, it was a photo of Mushtaq Mohammad taken by a fan in the 70,s/80,s and he has left it in the book, the guy in the photo with Mushtaq is wearing a Manly cricket jumper, and the photo must have been taken at the Manly clubhouse.
 
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