Wrist Spin Bowling

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

someblokecalleddave;350403 said:
Was this bloke your best spin option?

Macca I've been reading through 'Getting Wickets' and just read the bit about Medium pace bowling and how Grimmett reckons that Medium pacers should learn how to bowl the wrong un. It was interesting to read that Grimmett considers that the wrong un being bowled out of the back of the hand at Medium pace speed is a far easier and effective delivery and comes natural. My experience with the wrong un kind of supports his observations. I went from a weak leg break to a good wrong un really easily and my wrong un includes a much faster ball that turns quite well. Hence my problems when I tried to recover the Leg Break after bowling 2 years of wrong uns. The Leg break coming out of the front of the hand not only feels wholly un-natural but perhaps is un-natural to some extent?

I've noted that some of the kids at G&C that bowl seam up, can readily turn to bowling half decent leg breaks and this may be because of their own release is uses the palm facing the batsman through the release of the ball. So if they're shown how to cock the wrist and then simply flick it from cocked to straight at the point of relase with the 2 up 2 down wrist spin grip many of them can bowl a Leg Break. What do you reckon to my hypothesis?
Click to expand...

Some kids can pick up the basics and get a legbreak pretty quick can't they? I have seen some good young pace bowlers (under 12) that can bowl good legspinners too but they seem to lose interest in legspin because they just are not consistently accurate enough and turn back to fast bowling because it easier to land the ball on the spot. If they practised they would get better, but they dont put the time in.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

sadspinner;350612 said:
He sure is round arm. Like a discus thrower. Mor round arm than warne. I also suspect he spinned it much less. Interesting the clip when he was old with those thick glasses. I am very round arm very much like him. Might not change to more vertical after seeing that. Wished I could have half his accuracy though. Nite , nite
Click to expand...

A bit like Mc Gill or Mc Cool , pretty roundarm but when they release it they have got vertical. That style of bowling was very common with old blokes when I was young, and they must have been influenced by Grimmett, like my young bloke copies Warne.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

The other interesting thing that it seems only Grimmett would ever have looked into and explored is the Flipper variations. He talks about them at the stage I've read up to so far but only in the context of bowling them over short distances conceding that they would be difficult to bowl over the full 22 yards as we're all finding out oursleves with the exception of Gundalf. Interestingly he mentions the version here in my you tube clip

YouTube - Doosra affect

Where if the fingers are clicked early with the wrist still cocked the ball breaks to the left as in the clip like Leg break. I personally reckon this is how Murali bowls his Doosra, because if your click the fingers a fraction of a second later with the hand stretched out the ball breaks like an off-break. But the thing is I can't see how with a normal bowling action whereby the wrist and forearm are turned anti-clockwise to produce the up-turned hand this can be done? Or was it that Grimmet was turning his wrist clockwise through the delivery like Murali to get the hand into that position?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

macca;350614 said:
The footage of Grimmett is also remarkable in that it shows how fast a Grimmett over could be. An 8 ball over in under 2 minutes, the batsmen has no time to gather himself, Grimmett is way down the pitch fielding off his bowling then an instant later he is at the top of his run-up.

Wally Hammond said facing Grimmett was the most nerve wracking thing he had to do in cricket it gave him sweats and nightmares!

Some times his captain and fast bowlers tried to slow his over rate down but the good captains knew it was part of his stategy.

Batsmen were more predictable in those days in that they followed correct technique to such an extent that Grimmett knew if he pitched on a certain line or length the batsman was likely to play a certain shot, whereas these days blokes like Kevin Pieterson or Phill Hughes are so unorthodox as to be unpredictable.
Click to expand...


My teams captain bowls like that, I'll time him this weekend and see if he beat Grimmetts 2 minutes!
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Again on the subject of Medium pace bowling, I don't know whether you've been following my main blog Wrist Spin Bowling but recently because of the injury I'm carrying I've reverted to bowling medium pace as it's the delivery that my sons come up against in their games and I'm surprised how easy it is to bowl straight.

I'm now thinking because of the observations made previously in this thread with regards the ease with which kids can turn their hand to bowling Leg Breaks, might it be a strategy to get kids that have a genuine desire to bowl leg breaks to also look at bowling Medium pace? The rationale being that as previously observed their learned and eventually wholly natural release of the ball is not dis-similar to the release of the leg break, the ball comes out of the front of the hand albeit with a different finger/grip combination. It strikes me that the journey from medium pace bowler to Leg Break bowler could be as simple as incorporating the 2 up 2 down grip and the cocked wrist and understanding that the key is the quick unfurling of the cocked wrist to the palm fowards position on release? The theory being that some of the grafting e.g. line and length would have been mastered using the far less complex medium pace bowling technique. So that incorporating of the wrist flick might temporarily cause line and length issues, but the bowler would have the self belief and prior knowledge that it is possible with some work?

Rather than trying to bowl Leg breaks right from the outset trying to spin the ball whilst also trying to come to terms with getting the line and length correct. What do you reckon?

Expanding on this point I've updated the Leg Break page of my wrist spin blog http://legspinbowling.blogspot.com/2009/03/x.html the updated bits are highlighted blue, so if you're up for some proof reading I'd appreciate any comments on the new content please?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

I've got a game Sunday Grays & Chadwell CC and the weather's shaping up pretty nicely with a prediction of 26 degrees and sunny all day. My lads have a game as well in the morning 9.30 - till it finishes which should be around 12 leaving me an hour to get them home and get to my match. I had a bowl tonight - about 8 overs worth and the elbow/arm was playing up. What I think I'll do is take pain killers before the match and see how it goes and then see what the aftermath is from bowling. If it is obviously bad I'll retire from the bowling and then not bowl anything for a full week and see how that works out and if that doesn't work I'll then have to stop for a fortnight and so on. So it looks as though across the season this year I may only get 3 maybe 4 games? The bowling line up for my team if you look at the link is interesting again -

Samwell - Chinaman
McLellan - Leg Spinner
Shojahl - Off-spinner RH
Thompson (Me) - Leg Spinner
Simmons - Off-spinner LH

And only one fast bowler as far as I can make out although some of the other blokes are new and perhaps one of them is a fast?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Dave that breeze you bowled into " diaganol wind in direct opposition to my spinning leg break " sounds pretty good to me, was it coming from cover or more from third man?, did you notice any drift ? Any spin blown off the ball by the wind should be compensated by an increase in drift. Starting off with a maiden is a big confidence boost.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Sunday will be busy for you, too bad about the injury. It should be on the mend after 2 weeks shouldn't it be? You still have a couple of days for mending it further.

I agree about how easy it is to be accurate bowling pace as compared to legspin, it can be a temptation to turn into a seamer because of that, but I used to get smashed bowling seamers even though I was accurate enough, so I kept up with the legspin. My young bloke can only bowl legspin and it is impossible to get him to bowl seamers, which makes bowling a zooter or some other straight one so hard for him. This is what we are working on right now.

Mallett makes a point about accuracy in " Scarlet", which is the more you spin it the bigger the area that you can land the ball in to cause damage. He compares Kumble and Warne and says Kumble has a " dinner plate" sized area for him to land the ball whereas Warne had an area as big as a "dinner table" to land the ball and trouble the batsmen and this is due to the amount of spin each bowler generated.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

macca;351141 said:
Dave that breeze you bowled into " diaganol wind in direct opposition to my spinning leg break " sounds pretty good to me, was it coming from cover or more from third man?, did you notice any drift ? Any spin blown off the ball by the wind should be compensated by an increase in drift. Starting off with a maiden is a big confidence boost.
Click to expand...


Yep that's the one more 3rd man than cover, I thought of you when I realised my mate was bowling with the wind behind him - I thought a-ha this is a 'Macca approved' situation! I didn't notice any drift but I wasn't able to rip it at all so I don't think there was a lot of spin but it was turning off the crease very nicely, so the wicket this year looks as though it's very conducive to getting the ball to turn. I just need to get my arm back in shape so I can rip it and bowl wrong uns. I've got it in one of those tight elastic supports at the minute primarily to simply reinforce the fact that I need to rest it. I'm determined not to bowl now till next Sunday to rest it, it's going to be hard though as I love bowling so much and I'm really determined to make a lot of progress this year. So this spell was fantastic, I'm just about to post up the score sheet on my blog so you can see how well I did compared to all the others. You're right bowling the maiden was a good start. I just wished I'd kept to bowling it straight rather than trying to turn one in from the off-side.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Yeah I'm not too optimistic about the elbow/arm. I'll not bowl for the next couple of days and leave it till the morning of the game and throw a few at Ben and Joe's match when they're practicing beforehand. It seemed to go this evening bowling the Grimmett Flipper using all the fingers, but I'm not able at the moment to bowl the Flipper particularly well because of the uncontrollable swing I'm getting, so I'll just avoid the Flipper altogether for a while. There's more detail in my blog if you're interested - Wrist Spin Bowling: Medial Epicondylitis day 7 my older son had a good day today with his bowling and that's in the blog. Little Joe bought a wicket as well.

I've just finished 'taking wickets' and I'm gagging for more Grimmett stories, where did you read the stuff about his attitude to batting and all those stories about how he didn't get on that well with Bradman. Was that on-line or was that in another book?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

The disappointing thing with this injury is that it's coincided with me getting the leg break and at last being able to bowl it and get it to spin well. But I think it's connected with the leg break action and it's the leg break that's causing the strain. That tied in with the fact that I was a ill a few weeks back and stopped doing all my training and arm/rotator cuff exercises and then suddenly started to bowl intensively.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

someblokecalleddave;350523 said:
I've just finished 'taking wickets' and I'm gagging for more Grimmett stories, where did you read the stuff about his attitude to batting and all those stories about how he didn't get on that well with Bradman. Was that on-line or was that in another book?
Click to expand...

I notice the version you have is "Getting Wickets" and mine is called "Taking Wickets"? Maybe it was published under another title in England. They are the same book I think, I will have to check that out. He also wrote "Tricking the Batsman (1932)" and "Grimmett on Cricket"(1948). The 1948 book is the best but I have not read the 1932 book for ages, but I have tracked down a copy and should have it soon.

The Grimmett / Bradman clash is covered in most of the Bradman books but never from Grimmetts side of the story. Ashley Mallett in "Scarlet" covers it from both sides , which is probably the fairest thing to do.

The one story of Grimmett that all his former pupils have, is this; He tells them that they need to develop a well spun accurate legbreak before they worry too much about the variations .
Then he cuts up a 10 inch by 10 inch cardboard piece and places it on a good length, then Grimmett puts on a blinfold and comes in and bowls his first ball , a fast spinning leg-break, right on the piece of cardboard!
" That is what you need to be able to do" he tells them!

Now he was still doing this well into his 60's according to the recollections of some of the people he coached.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

That's pretty amazing if he can do it again and again. When I learned the Flipper I did a load of experiments bowling with my eyes closed as I got extremely accurate and I think I used to hit a target that was circular and only had a 5" circumference, but I only hit it once every 5 or 6 balls. I'll see if I can find the blog entry.....

Here it is http://mpafirsteleven.blogspot.com/2007/05/6-days-to-go-bowling-blind-legspin.html Not quite a Grimmett but with my 2nd ball.........

I walk in spring and bowl and open my eyes to see it hit my target which is 5 yards in front of the stumps and then skid on to hit the middles stump! Unbelievable! I try again and again. With 16 balls I threw 2 wides, 4 Strikes and 10 really good balls that went down the channel perfectly - some of which hit the 4" target that I place on the grass as my length marker. It wasn't a fluke either as I threw another subsequent 4 lots of 16 and it was almost identical each 16 balls, hitting the stumps and going down the channel. Man was this a revelation!
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

No keep it up I can't believe you have time and patience to go looking for and finding this stuff! I've just had my 'Clarrie Grimmett the Don Bradman of spin' by mallet come in the post via that on-line bookshop you informed me about. It's a good book so far.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

What about the book 'Clarrie Grimmett (The Bradman of Spin)' by Ashley Mallett? do you know of this one? With regards the name of my book it's definitely 'Getting Wickets' and it's published in London in 1930. It's got the same illustrations that you've previously sent me by email.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

This looks like a beauty. Do you think you could link it to your web site? Or is copyright a problem? It looks like the best footage to date. He looks like he is really throwing a discus. Can you note any obvious wrist flick? Not very obvious to me. His action is very similar to mine, that is the action not the result. I thought I was the only round arm freak. British Pathe - CLARRIE GRIMMETT
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Mallett reckons that Grimmett at his peak would end his practise sessions by hitting a target 6 times in a row and he would not leave the nets till he did( no blinfold of course). Warne mentions in his autobiography bowling blindfold as a practise tool he employed at one stage.
Mallett says Grimmett batted blinfold as well to demonstrate how predictable a bowler was but Mallett said in one tv interview that he suspected Grimmett could actually see a fair bit even with the blinfold on, and it was a little bit of trickery by Grimmett.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

I've just ordered that book, so that's something to look forward to, I'm guessing it's the same book that you've read but a different title again?

Was Mallett one of Grimmetts students then?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

sadspinner;351312 said:
This looks like a beauty. Do you think you could link it to your web site? Or is copyright a problem? It looks like the best footage to date. He looks like he is really throwing a discus. Can you note any obvious wrist flick? Not very obvious to me. His action is very similar to mine, that is the action not the result. I thought I was the only round arm freak. British Pathe - CLARRIE GRIMMETT
Click to expand...

Yeah I'll link it to my blog - that's classic but I gotta say it looks wrong. He brings his arm round but tilts his body in order that the arm comes over more vertical, it's a very weird action. O'reilly has got something of a Harbijan Singh about him or rather the other way round. It looks like club cricket because as you say it looks very unorthodox in many ways.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

someblokecalleddave;350604 said:
What about the book 'Clarrie Grimmett (The Bradman of Spin)' by Ashley Mallett? do you know of this one? With regards the name of my book it's definitely 'Getting Wickets' and it's published in London in 1930. It's got the same illustrations that you've previously sent me by email.
Click to expand...
"Scarlet" is the updated version of "The Bradman of Spin", where he brings up some things that are not mentioned in the first book about Bradman. "Scarlet" can also bring in some comparisons with Warne and some other stuff but they are basically very similar books.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

I had a bowl tonight with my lads, only taking it easy and my elbow has flared up again. Reading about the condition it sounds as though if I keep bowling the condition will become chronic. I'll not bowl anymore now till Sunday and see what happens in the game. I'm pretty certain it will flare up and if it does I reckon that'll be it then I'll not bowl for for the rest of June and possibly July till I go on holiday and then see how it is when I'm surfing becuase there's a similar if not same condition that comes about from surfing.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

The only fault with both books is Mallett gets the history of the flipper slightly wrong and most people use his version as their main reference.

Grimmett himself in " Grimmett on Cricket" also dismisses the story of how he clicked his left hand fingers to disguise his flipper, he says he did it for his own amusement and that of the non striker but he says there was no way the batsman on strike could concentrate enough to hear the finger click, yet it is still a widely held belief that Grimmet snapped his left fingers to disguise his flipper, and is mentioned as fact in most of the online stuff , but it is not quite true. People use Malletts books to reference that story as well.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Thanks for those links Saddo, every player shown on both sides in that series is a legend, that was a golden age for cricket that's for sure.

At indoor cricket my young bloke has forged his first working relationship with what I would describe as a proper wicket keeper. This is the first specialist keeper he has had behind the stumps to his bowling and even though he is only 12 the kid knows proper technique. Last week they combined for 3 caught behind and 1 stumped off my sons bowling. It helps my son is a slow bowler but the ball spins fast off the edge so the kid has to be good to catch it and hold on to it, but he makes it look easy.

His age group start to specialise next outdoor season so hopefully he can look forward to a good keeper and first slip then as well.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

I posted some footage of Grimmett bowling earlier,The 7.30 Report - ABC Sir Ron Brierley had a dvd of Grimmetts bowling produced. There is not a great deal of him at his peak but the first thing you notice is how small he was, enormous energy in everthing he does, incredible fielding off his own bowling, batsman tied down and restricted to the straight drive as his only safe shot.

You have to watch closely to get the bit where he is bowling in between his home movies ,the extended interview with Mallett is there as well, and footage of Grimmett bowling in his old age. It is tv quality so you have to watch your usage I suppose.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

someblokecalleddave;351497 said:
I had a bowl tonight with my lads, only taking it easy and my elbow has flared up again. Reading about the condition it sounds as though if I keep bowling the condition will become chronic. I'll not bowl anymore now till Sunday and see what happens in the game. I'm pretty certain it will flare up and if it does I reckon that'll be it then I'll not bowl for for the rest of June and possibly July till I go on holiday and then see how it is when I'm surfing becuase there's a similar if not same condition that comes about from surfing.
Click to expand...

That does not sound too good. Have you been to the doctor about it?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

yeah dave you probablly want to take it easy, i've only just started bowling at 100% again in the last few days after my shoulder injury, its amazing how quick it is to revert to bowling well with a bit of practice, in fact i'm bowling better than before, lol. Just wish i had a chance to play a match though :(
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

He sure is round arm. Like a discus thrower. Mor round arm than warne. I also suspect he spinned it much less. Interesting the clip when he was old with those thick glasses. I am very round arm very much like him. Might not change to more vertical after seeing that. Wished I could have half his accuracy though. Nite , nite
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Yeah I'm wondering now whether I should bowl at all this Sunday. Having read about this injury it sounds as though it's similar in some ways to an achilles injury and I've been through that 5 or 6 years ago. I initially damaged my achilles (a tear) and then rested it for a week and it felt a lot better, so I went out and did the exact same sport and re-tore it seemingly 1/4 of the way through it's repair phase when the achilles is ultra vulnerable and in doing so made the tear so bad that I had to wear one of those big Storm trooper boots for 8 months only able to take it off at night when I was asleep.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

Regarding going to the doctors I'm one of those blokes that saves up 2 or 3 injuries or conditions before I feel it's justified or I'm in agony or bleeding all over the place. But you're probably right I should go as he may say 'You must stop bowling NOW or you'll never be able to do it again'.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

The footage of Grimmett is also remarkable in that it shows how fast a Grimmett over could be. An 8 ball over in under 2 minutes, the batsmen has no time to gather himself, Grimmett is way down the pitch fielding off his bowling then an instant later he is at the top of his run-up.

Wally Hammond said facing Grimmett was the most nerve wracking thing he had to do in cricket it gave him sweats and nightmares!

Some times his captain and fast bowlers tried to slow his over rate down but the good captains knew it was part of his stategy.

Batsmen were more predictable in those days in that they followed correct technique to such an extent that Grimmett knew if he pitched on a certain line or length the batsman was likely to play a certain shot, whereas these days blokes like Kevin Pieterson or Phill Hughes are so unorthodox as to be unpredictable.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling

I've just finished off my main blog tonight (Sundays match) and remembered that I may had two wickets with my Flippers LBW. One of them was plumb and the other was 95% certain. The plumb one I kind of murmured 'Isn't that LBW and my mate the Wizard at Mid On half heartedly shouted Owzat on my behalf. The 95% one as well I turned to the umpire and said 'LBW'? Obviously this is something I need to work on, so I've got to be a lot more confident in asking and put some effort into it. Retrospectively I reckon if I'd done the whole Shane Warne/Stuart McGill type thing the bats may have been given LBW?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top