Wrist Spin Bowling

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Just updated by main blog and have a really good session this evening......

Wrist Spin Bowling: 4 Days and counting

4 Days and counting
Whoa! A very good session with the Leg breaks! I had a day off from everything apart from exercise yesterday - 70 -80 press ups and more exercises specifically targeting the rotator cuff and shoulders. So tonight I was gagging to get out on a field and bowl. Our field was being used so I had to drive over to the Rec. Took a bucket of 36 balls and went through that 3 times, so that was the equivalent to 18 overs. I focussed primarily on the Leg break and right from the outset it came good and then continued pretty much the same through all 108 balls. Through the middle 36 I bowled some variations and then the last 36 I bowled leg breaks and every ball turned and did so in a way that I was happy with. Some of the them turned big, some turned just good/well, so this was an exceptionally good session. For the most part if I wanted them on the Leg stump that's where they were going and if they were needed on the Off stump I was able to put them there as well. All in all a very good session.

The only fly in the ointment seems to be whether I'll be selected and whether it'll rain or not as at the minute the weather is perfect, but it's scheduled to go down the pan through Saturday.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Cotton Eye Joe;345854 said:
^_^

Yay! I got my leg break straightened out. And by straightened out, I mean it's breaking again. Of course, I can't throw a wrong 'un or topspinner anymore, but that'll come back, right? :cool:
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Yep - what did you do that sorted your leg break?
 
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Philpott was once employed by Mike Atherton to teach the England players the loop theory to try and counter Warne

Very right, and I read an article by atherton who was explaining what he saw warne doing in an ashes match i think in 2005. He explained how warne magically went around the loop( even though I doubt warne used the big googly, which i have never seen on you tube. The only exception being the small googly to get rid of ganguly). By the way atherthon was a promising leg spinner but had to give up, as he had a bad back or stress fractures, so he had more than a passing interest in the subject.
 
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macca;345907 said:
I would have to credit this thread for my sons recent improvement as a bowler. It coincided with the end of the season where I hadn't coached him for weeks and just let him do his own thing , which is good from time to time, but he ended up losing his line and sidespin.
But since I found this site and re-read Grimmett and Philpott, I have taken a whole new approach to his coaching and it is paying dividends, he bowled his indoor coach today with his third delivery.
I am finding it a lot harder to play him as well, trying to drive him on the front foot takes better footwork than mine. But playing him from the crease isn't that easy either, he gets real zip off the wicket lately despite the fact he looks slow through the air, you dont realise the nip in his bowling untill you have to make a decision with a bat in your hand.
I am working on uploading some video of him soon.
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Yeah I definitely reckon this thread works - you just don't feel as though your working through this on your own. The suggestions that people make and the references that they're using just make you feel supported and it gets you through.
 
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"Dave I wonder whether you could include the grips of grimmett and o'reilly on your website on legspin. I do not think there would be copyright problems as these are not being used for money making, but purely for educational reasons. I tried to find the Benaud grip,and the MacGill one with no luck though". (Sad Spinner).

Yeah - give us the links and I'll have a look at any of them and I'll put them in. What I'll probably do is copy them and get my son to photograph my hand with the grips and create a sense of continuity with the images - what do you reckon the that? The image you use for your Avatar is the Iverson Gleeson if I'm not mistaken now hijacked by the Sri Lankan?
 
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Reply to Dave on deciding what to bowl.

In my case I haven't actually had to make a final decision, as I haven't played in a proper team yet.

However, I do think I have made more of a commitment to both kinds of spin bowling(and leg-spin more so than off-spin), than I have to seam-up. My seam-up has been rather neglected lately; my pace and accuracy are atrocious. The last time I seriously practiced(I've bowled a several horrible balls and maybe two reasonable balls since) was when I first found the Simply Cricket website and remodeled my seam-up action because I discovered that it was mixed(and it was quite inefficient as well).

If I joined a team tomorrow I have no doubt I would bowl off-spin to start with. My leg-spin just drops short to often to be used in a match, until I can constantly get it on length it would probably go unused, except maybe the occasional one to mess with the batsmen.

And yes it can be very tempting to change as youngsters. When I was 11, I gave up on leg-spin quickly because I could get more sideways movement with my leg-cutter, than with my attempted leg breaks, which always came out as top-spinners. I didn't really get back into wrist-spin until after an Ashes series in which Warne bowled; I can't remember if it was 2005 or 2007.
 
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macca;345825 said:
The use of backspin isn't mentioned elsewhere , because most online sources dont go into much detail. But this thread has allowed Philpotts loop theory, which is like e=mc2 for legspin bowlers to be learnt and understood especially if you read " the art of wrist spin" or one of his earlier coaching manuals.
Philpott was once employed by Mike Atherton to teach the England players the loop theory to try and counter Warne. If you understand the theory and how the various spins, (backspin, underspin, topspin, overspin, offspin, legspin) behave, then you are no longer in the dark, and leg-spin loses a lot of its mystery. It has always suited legspinners to overplay the " art" and intrigue involved in their craft, when in fact it is just another trade that can be learnt by almost anyone with the knowledge and the application to learn.
It used to be very much a guild where secrets where kept amongst legspinners and even carried to their graves! Colin Mc Cool never told anyone his backspinner, which was different again from everbody elses.
These days information is more widely shared, so it should be easier to coach young legspinners, but one thing that wont change is the amount of practise it takes to get any good.I am convinced Legspinners have to work harder than any other type of bowler to gain and maintain accuracy
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I reckon that is definitely the case. My adversary on my team for selection for games bowls a really nice Leg Break, but it's more or less his only ball and because he doesn't put the kind of hours in that I do, he doesn't really develop as a player and yet he's probably only 30ish with no commitments. So when he bowls he does so with the minimum of confidence and soon bowls wides and then it's all downhill from there as he gets the Yips and goes to pieces. Yet if you say to him 'Mate - how do you do that - show us your grip, what is it that you're doing to get it to spin so well'? You can tell there's a part of him that is gagging to explain, but there's also that sense that really he doesn't want you to know and learn his secret! Whereas me - I'm showing everyone and anyone who wants to listen. But even then they tend to look at me as if I'm mad as if to say 'Bull**** does that work'. But they're not aware of the amount of time and effort I put into it and therefore don't believe that I'm bowling these variations.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Cotton Eye Joe;345854 said:
^_^

Yay! I got my leg break straightened out. And by straightened out, I mean it's breaking again. Of course, I can't throw a wrong 'un or topspinner anymore, but that'll come back, right? :cool:
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I'd stick with the Leg Break for a while yet till it feels like a wholly natural thing to do, then bring back the Top - Spinner and start to bring in the Wrong Un on the odd ocassion and as you say they'll come in time, just be patient.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Here they are:http://www.flickr.com/photos/stateli...sw/3064006465/
Sportspages.com: GRIMMETT, CLARENCE VICTOR (AUSTRALIA)

Yes the Avatar shows the grip used by Iverson and in fact is iverson, who died tragically from depression. I got the book by gideon haigh about two years ago and was really touched by the story. Yet again he was another innovator, who bamboozled the best batsmen of his era due to his unorthodox methods. They started working him out by playing him as an offspin bowler. By the way he was never coached as well, but spent his life spinning balls. He was obsessed by the effects of spinning. Finally though his story ended tragically. I am surprised that before mendis appeared, that was very little information on this bowler.
 
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My new leg spinner is working on his spin.
I have taught him a couple of basics and more so encouraging him to bowl leg spin.His line and length at times is way ward but he is ready to practice.
As a result in last 4 days of nets; he bowled me twice:eek: and i am happy he is enojying...
In fact today itself;l raised a challenge to my 3 new bowlers(2-Medium fast and 1-leg spin) and he was the only one to bowl me out with his quicker one(got me totally un-expected).The reward was a 10 Rupees Note:).
These sort of enjoyment certainly boosts a player's confidence...
I am hoping he would take more effort in his spin bowling.

Virender
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

That link doesn't work - but have a look at this as it's from a slightly different angle - http://www.planetnz.com/palmheads/images/grips2_2.jpg I can't believe that the spin is imparted through the flicking of the middle finger!

Have a look at this as well - I reckon this blokes looking in on what we're doing as this has all been updated with new stuff! Do you know this link and do you reckon that he's updated this recently?

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?i...&ndsp=20&hl=en&safe=active&sa=N&start=20&um=1

I've just looked at this again and the blokes got a youtube link which I'll go on and try and get him involved on here as he's equally as obessed as we are and we need his input! But back to the video. You know I've been banging on about my Leg break that I can bowl over the full 22 yards and another more wristy version, well this Iverson Gleeson video clips has attributes of my other leg break which is very 'Fingery' as well as wristy. So this is something I'm going to delve into and see if there's any mileage to be had from it?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

I had posted the links on Post numbers 980 and 981 in the wrist spin bowling threads if you want to take a look.

As regards that website, I saw it for the first time about two years ago when i started getting interseted in leg spin. This and your blog where the only relevant ones I found besides the warne/jenner videos and you tube.


I also find that when i use the iverson grip, it is the only way I can bowl a staightish delivery, or else getminimal leg spin. I tried to bowl offspin/googly with this grip without much sucess over 22 yards.

As you say he seems very interested in the subject and experiments lots by the look of it.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

I've been working on my other Leg break recently, this is the one with the wrist flick as well as the fingers. This one if I stand still and throw it over a short distance almost breaks at right angles to the direction of travel. I refer to it as 'The Real' Leg Break because it has the wrist flick. Thing is I can't get it to work over any distance as it turns into a wrong un or a straight ball.

So for the last 2 weeks or so (I think I may have mentioned this on here) I've been bowling it at a small bit of wall between mine and neighbours garage. This has been over about 11 yards but there's no scope for lengthening the distance, but over the 2 weeks it's been coming together and I've got good accuracy at that distance and it turns so much more than my other leg break that relies on the fingers only. So today on the train reading Philpott again - The chapter "Eight Stages of Spin". I realised that I'd been doing exactly the right thing to perhaps develop this real Leg Break and it might be the time to take it to the next stage.

Just across the road there's an Oak Tree so I bowled to the Oak Tree setting a can a foot or so wide of the legside of the trunk and about 10' in front. I then bowled to the can trying to get the ball to turn in and hit the trunk. Additionally I lengthened the distance to 14 yards and I spent the best part of an hour bowling Leg Breaks. I reckon about 33% of them came good with the ball spinning into the trunk from the where the can was, some of them spinning so much they went wide of the trunk on the off-side.

What I reckon I'll do is stick to the 14 yards for the next week (maybe longer) until I'm able to pitch it on the can and hit the trunk 75% of the time. Only then I'll move to 16 yards, maybe 17 and then start again? The mistake I normally make is that I jump from 14 yards straight up to 22 and it always goes to pieces, so this time because of the promising results that have come from the slow gradual approach I'm going to stick to the taking this very slowly.
 
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John Gleeson adopted the Iverson grip with great success he added an orthodox offspinner and a seamer. The ball is held between the thumb and the bent middle finger and spin imparted by flicking and straightening that finger. you dont use any fingers other than thumb and middle finger, your hand has to be large and strong. for legspin the hand cuts outside the ball and looks like an off break position, the opposite is true for the off break ,it looks like a legbreak.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

I can attest to the efficacy of Philpotts method of using underarm/roundarm/overarm over short distances for teaching the legbreak and wrongun to beginners. Philpott claims the method can be used by learners and experieced players to learn, or indeed unlearn, the wrongun in one hour.
There is something else that helps, I dont know where I got this from, maybe Philpott? but you can learn a lot about all the deliveries by "bowling "against a wall and observing the balls behaviour as it spins against the wall.
If you stand 2 or 3 feet away and using mainly the forearm and wrist and fingers , aim the ball, it doesnt always have to be a cricket ball, about 18 inches to the right of your eyeline and bowl a legspinner it should spin to the left and you can catch it with your left hand, the wrongun will of course spin to the right and will have to be caught by stretching out your right hand and can be quite hard to catch. The topspinner will be somewhere in between and will come straight back at 90 degrees to the wall, and the backspinner will almost run down the wall, all the time observing the seam and the rotation.
The difference between the wrongun and legbreak become apparent, the elbow will go from facing downward for the latter and skyward for the former, I sometimes make my sons hand freeze in an exaggerated hand position like you are trying to stop traffic , with his palm facing the wall, after the legbreak. After the wrongun I get him to freeze his hand at delivery, not worry about catching the ball, and emphasise how much the elbow has to rotate to get the back of his hand to face the wall, and observe how the ball leaves the palm outside the fourth finger, whilst being spun by the third.
You can work on all your deliveries like this and the best thing is , the wall never lies!
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

macca;345837 said:
John Gleeson adopted the Iverson grip with great success he added an orthodox offspinner and a seamer. The ball is held between the thumb and the bent middle finger and spin imparted by flicking and straightening that finger. you dont use any fingers other than thumb and middle finger, your hand has to be large and strong. for legspin the hand cuts outside the ball and looks like an off break position, the opposite is true for the off break ,it looks like a legbreak.
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They worked out that if his finger pointed to the batsmans offside it would be a leg break and vice versa for the offspinner. It seems his stock ball though was the offspinning version according to the book.

Macca in his other books, does philpott add anything to what he says in the bible as they are all out of print or difficult to get.
 
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Dave, if you only have a short distance to bowl on, you could try sitting down and trying to bowl ! It makes you work your wrist and fingers.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

I've just found his email address and emailed him asking him if he'd be interested in joining us in order that we have world domination of spin bowling resources.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Macca I've done some wall work before now - but it's useful to have you describe it so eloquently and explain which way you should be expecting the ball to bounce/spin from and indeed it is Philpott that recommends that you bounce the ball directly at a wall and observe the direction in which it spins. I wasn't sure as my wall is brick work and I was suspicious that some of the deviation was due to the uneveness of the bricks and mortar.
 
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His first book was " how to play cricket" in 1973 and has his theory but not as developed as in "art of wrist spin". His books are at the university so I am going to have a look at them soon. They are cricket coaching manuals aimed at coaches I think. He is also a great batting and fielding coach.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

macca;346051 said:
Dave, if you only have a short distance to bowl on, you could try sitting down and trying to bowl ! It makes you work your wrist and fingers.
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Now that sounds like a really good idea, I'll give that a go and see how it works.
 
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macca;345840 said:
His first book was " how to play cricket" in 1973 and has his theory but not as developed as in "art of wrist spin". His books are at the university so I am going to have a look at them soon. They are cricket coaching manuals aimed at coaches I think. He is also a great batting and fielding coach.
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Yes i think he could nearly qualify as an all rounder, even though i guess the run average has to be higher than the run per wicket average to qualify as an allrounder. He was also aussie and sri lanka coach, so he is a complete allrounder. Shame he did not play longer. By the way it is interesting he says he discovered the backspinner late in his carrear and could not develop it. It seems no other leggie shared the secret with him.
 
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I'm still appreciating what you're saying and your suggestions, remember I'm still struggling with my Leg Break, it still needs a lot of work till I'll be happy with it and any drills such as the ones you've suggested I'm more than willing to try. One of them might lead the the epiphany moment that I'm seeking where it'll all come together?

I had few 20 - 30 minute sessions today. First one over 14 yards went exceptionally well - 70% success rate with the ball turning like the video that's just up-loading as I write (Give it another hour or so and search using 'someblokecalleddave leg break' and you should find it. I'll post the link once it's up-loaded later). Bouyed by the success in that session I did exactly what I said I wouldn't do yesterday on my blog, I went over onto the field with the video camera and marked out a 16 yard distance to bowl over. Needless to say it didn't go that well at all for some reason? It seems hard to believe that just changing to 16 yards makes such a massive difference - but it did.

After half an hour of that and it only being 10% successful I went back to the 14 yard wicket under the Oak Tree and did so much better again. So I'll stick with the 14 yards for a week or so at least. Not easy this.

Here it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWY5Tmbm5-I what do you reckon? Look at the shadow as well. I'll have to suss out a different angle for the tripod - maybe further behind and a lot higher so that you can see my bowling action.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Off the back of all this I've just had a look at Ajantha Mendis again YouTube - The Carrom Ball - Ajantha Mendis the ball hardly turns off the pitch and one of them is even described as a leg cutter which to me suggest that his bowling is more akin to a Medium pacers speed and style? Is this about right and then with the Iverson Gleeson finger spin the turn that it does get combined with a delivery that looks like a straight forward Medium Pacers ball causes all the problems? Or am I selling him short? I wonder what he was doing before he discovered the Carrom Ball AKA Iverson Gleeson grip?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

looks good dave, love the shadow, lol. I'm sure you will get there eventually as that looks like a good leg break over that distance it will probablly be your body just needing to adjust to the different distances. I know my bowling is going backwards at the moment as i've only practiced for an hour in the last 2 weeks and that was awful, so much worse than just 2 weeks before where I was back at my best.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Philpott spent a lot of time teaching and coaching in N.Z. He was born in Sydney and had serious health problems as a child. His test career ended for various reasons, it was still an amateur sport in Australia and he had to make a living. But he was unfairly criticised for one performance ,where he was carrying a major finger injury, but if you look at his figures in that, his last test ,they are not so bad at all. He would waltz into the current aussie side.
 
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It'll be nice to get it up to 17 yards in the next few weeks, maybe I'll be able to bowl out some 10 year olds with it!

Seriously though - it's a painfully slow business when you're gagging to get it up there for the full 22 yards, but as soon as I do that it just goes to pieces. I feel like there is just some small thing that I need to get right and it'll be there, when it is right I can feel it out of the hand and as soon as it come off the fingers I can say that's a good un and 9 times out of ten it is a good un. It'll come good eventually - I'm hoping by July.
 
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someblokecalleddave;345823 said:
I think a recent case in point is the fast bowler Jimmy Anderson. I was reading a few weeks back prior to the recent matches in the WI his coaches had given up on trying to rectify his weird and potentially damaging bowling action. I've got a picture on the wall next to the computer of him (Despite the fact that he's a fast bowler) because the picture is bizarre. He's caught at a point after releasing the ball & he's pictured almost bodily parrallel to the ground with his arms almost at his sides and he's looking out towards where Leg slip would be. See this picture http://d.yimg.com/ca.yimg.com/p/090310/afp/iphoto_1236724403776-3-0jpg.jpg my image has both his legs together without any dangling down.

Cricinfo - James Anderson goes airborne in his attempt to break through for England

This technique the coaches decided needed to be corrected if he was to play international cricket for England on a regular basis and for the last two years they've been trying to change his bowling action. The article then went on to say that just recently they'd scrapped that idea and were allowing him to revert back to his natural bowling style with which he took far more wickets.

All of which reinforces the argument for letting people develop their own techniques and ways of doing stuff. Who else has taken 4 wickets in succession in one over? I only know of the very unorthodox Malinga.
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Well the situation with dangerous bowling actions is an interesting one; if the action has serious potential to cause injury, then I really think it should be changed. That said, it can be hard to learn something new, particularly if you have been doing the same thing for a different way for at least half your life. Ideally, you would want to catch dangerous actions as early(although you would have to be very careful, as they may get frustrated if they were getting good results with their old action) as possible, so that their body doesn't get so used to the dangerous action.

Unfortunately, a lot of coaches may not pick up on that one of their players has a dangerous action. I don't know how widespread this would be(maybe Liz knows?); but from what you've said about how little some clubs know of bowling, it wouldn't surprise me there were a few clubs with a coach/coaches who don't know how to recognise dangerous actions.

But there is certainly no reason to change an unorthodox action if it gets results and is not an injury threat.

someblokecalleddave said:
I think with our specialism you need some direction, but there's not a lot of it about. The team that my sons play for almost exclude spin bowling outright. There seems to be one kid that bowls finger spin and he's crap and there doesn't seem to be anyone in the club that's able to offer him any help and I've watched the poor kid in the nets and he's all over the place trying to figure out what it is that he needs to be doing. My own son was told not to grip the ball across the seam and it was only when I told him to ignore the bloke and bowl in his own way (Wrist spin) and he nearly got three wickets off 6 balls (2 drops and one useless wicket keeper) that the bloke back tracked and said to him "Listen to your Dad when it comes to your bowling son".

I think that once you have the basics you just need to self evaluate/assess and listen to the advice that people do offer you and then decide whether to act on it. There does seems to be a reluctance for people to offer advice at club level because it is such a dark art and they don't know what's involved.
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Absolutely, seven years ago, at the age of 11, I went to a three day cricket clinic; I attempted to bowl leg-spin and didn't turn it at all. Did the coach pick up that I couldn't bowl it very well? No. Or he did and didn't say anything for fear of upsetting me. Of course I was partly to blame as well. I didn't ask him(I was very shy at that age): "I'm trying to bowl leg-spin but seem unable to turn it at all. Any ideas on what could be wrong?

But looking back on it would seem weird if he knew how leg-spin was bowled, yet he didn't say anything; the first(well after I made sure their action wasn't mixed)thing I would do as a coach is ask the bowler what he is trying to bowl(which this coach didn't) and see whether the results matched what you would get doing the most basic technique correctly(which I clearly wasn't).

Yes, what the bowler wants is one of the most important things. I mean I've considerably changed all my actions(leg-spin, off-spin, seam-up) a few times each. I have found it incredibly easy to change my actions once I have the knowledge of how to do it, whether this is because I am just good at it or because the old action just never got deeply embedded I don't know; but the biggest thing about whenever I changed an action is that it was what I wanted.
 
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gundalf7;346140 said:
looks good dave, love the shadow, lol. I'm sure you will get there eventually as that looks like a good leg break over that distance it will probablly be your body just needing to adjust to the different distances. I know my bowling is going backwards at the moment as i've only practiced for an hour in the last 2 weeks and that was awful, so much worse than just 2 weeks before where I was back at my best.
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I suppose you're up to your neck with studies? Do you find it difficult to make time?
 
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^_^

Yay! I got my leg break straightened out. And by straightened out, I mean it's breaking again. Of course, I can't throw a wrong 'un or topspinner anymore, but that'll come back, right? :cool:
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Cotton Eye Joe;345854 said:
^_^

Yay! I got my leg break straightened out. And by straightened out, I mean it's breaking again. Of course, I can't throw a wrong 'un or topspinner anymore, but that'll come back, right? :cool:
Click to expand...

How did you do it Cotton Eye Joe ?
 
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macca;346143 said:
The shadow makes that clip interesting. You look like you are getting good body rotation.
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If I am (rotation) it's not one of the things I'm thinking about or concentrating on particularly, it's all about the position of the wrist and the flick at the minute, although I acknowledge all those other elements have to be there and maybe they are to some extent.
 
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Good ol' wrist spinning! I've tried teaching my some of my upcoming kids that I coached, It's not easy but I feel they are getting there. With season over, I hope there not forgetting, Although I am a wrist spinner for life. I feel wrist spinning is great for getting out the mid order more than the top order. The teams we have over here in the AUS have some pretty good batsmen so my boys will need to step that up.
 
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macca;346143 said:
The shadow makes that clip interesting. You look like you are getting good body rotation.
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I'm afraid I can't really see enough from the clip to say one way or another; I need to see the full action to make a judgement on that.
 
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