Leg Spinner And Coach

Max Andrews

Member
For those of you out there that love their cricket and their science, here's an article on Pitchvision that I've put together just for you. In this article, I discuss how to exploit ground reaction forces to improve your bowling.
http://www.pitchvision.com/bracing-spin#/
bracing-spin(1).jpg
 
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One of my favourite moments was when one of our chinaman bowlers (he played for Australia U16 a few years ago and spins the ball more than anyone I've seen) was having difficulty landing the ball consistently. I noticed his non bowling arm was very lazy and wasn't pushing through towards the batsman. I told him to do a stand start drill using his front arm. When he went back and bowled he was bowling the perfect leg break with great control.
Unfortunately he only bowled for a short time before going to bat. As his main role in the team is batting he doesn't spend enough time developing his bowling.

Statement 1:
one of our chinaman bowlers was having difficulty landing the ball consistently

Statement 2:
I noticed his non bowling arm was very lazy and wasn't pushing through towards the batsman

Bad coaching: blindly assuming that statement 2 is the cause of statement 1 and immediately performing an intervention without doing even the most basic element of due diligence.


This is just appallingly poor coaching Max. Please stop before you ruin someone's career.
 
Statement 1:
one of our chinaman bowlers was having difficulty landing the ball consistently

Statement 2:
I noticed his non bowling arm was very lazy and wasn't pushing through towards the batsman

Bad coaching: blindly assuming that statement 2 is the cause of statement 1 and immediately performing an intervention without doing even the most basic element of due diligence.


This is just appallingly poor coaching Max. Please stop before you ruin someone's career.
Not sure what your problem is, the small intervention obviously helped the player and it was only a very small change. Pretty drastic saying that he's gonna ruin someone's career when it's the player's choice to take on the advice of a coach. The coach just recommends changes but, they can't make the player implement the changes, that's the player's choice. What would you have done since you think this was wrong champ?
 
Not sure what your problem is, the small intervention obviously helped the player and it was only a very small change. Pretty drastic saying that he's gonna ruin someone's career when it's the player's choice to take on the advice of a coach. The coach just recommends changes but, they can't make the player implement the changes, that's the player's choice. What would you have done since you think this was wrong champ?

It didn't "obviously help" at all. You're mistaking statistically insignificant correlation for causation. No competent coach would make such a reckless and unjustified intervention.

What would I have done? I'd have done what any other competent coach would have done. I'd have spent the necessary time to try to carefully and methodically identify the actual cause of the problem and formulate a plan to address that, rather than simply jumping in and meddling dangerously with the first thing I noticed.

In reality, most players don't have a meaningful "choice" whether or not to take a coach's advice. Their choice is either "do what I say, or leave the programme". This is not a joke: I've spoken plenty of cricketers who have completely lost the ability to play cricket altogether because they were given careless advice by a lazy coach and felt obliged to take it.
 
It didn't "obviously help" at all. You're mistaking statistically insignificant correlation for causation. No competent coach would make such a reckless and unjustified intervention.

What would I have done? I'd have done what any other competent coach would have done. I'd have spent the necessary time to try to carefully and methodically identify the actual cause of the problem and formulate a plan to address that, rather than simply jumping in and meddling dangerously with the first thing I noticed.

In reality, most players don't have a meaningful "choice" whether or not to take a coach's advice. Their choice is either "do what I say, or leave the programme". This is not a joke: I've spoken plenty of cricketers who have completely lost the ability to play cricket altogether because they were given careless advice by a lazy coach and felt obliged to take it.
Hi SLA

It's good to see that you're obviously wanting quality coaches coaching leg spin. Unfortunately, you did not see the whole story here. This was back a while ago when I was a 13 or 14-year-old just starting out in the team, mainly as a net bowler. I was the youngest there and I it was just great to be mixing with some of the first-class and international players we had in our squad. The player, in this case, was obviously older than me and I just suggested something simple for him to try, which was the stand start drill. I told him to just push out a little bit more with his front arm, this, in turn, assisted him in driving out and aligning his body slightly more towards the target, hence it was easier for him to bowl the ball straighter. We only did this for five minutes after the session had finished but, he liked what he saw and wanted to hear more about what I had to say. For the next couple of years, I worked with him a bit doing video analysis and helping him to improve his action, which improved his performance and he was happy with the progress. Unfortunately, he left the club this season but has been playing cricket very successfully in the UK.

While I'm at it, here's a little success story about one of the players I've worked with. I've been coaching this girl for about 4 years now and when she came to me she was playing local junior cricket and wasn't having the performances she wanted. Over the next few years, we spent time developing her mechanics and strength, just last year she was selected to play in the state grade competition. After a successful season there she was invited to join the state rookie squad. Earlier this year she played at the national indoor tournament and was selected for the Australian indoor team. One of the biggest highlights of her career thus far included this week being invited to train with the Australian Women's team during their training camp. We continue to work closely together and it's great to see the amazing success she's had so far.
 
Hi SLA

It's good to see that you're obviously wanting quality coaches coaching leg spin. Unfortunately, you did not see the whole story here. This was back a while ago when I was a 13 or 14-year-old just starting out in the team, mainly as a net bowler. I was the youngest there and I it was just great to be mixing with some of the first-class and international players we had in our squad. The player, in this case, was obviously older than me and I just suggested something simple for him to try, which was the stand start drill. I told him to just push out a little bit more with his front arm, this, in turn, assisted him in driving out and aligning his body slightly more towards the target, hence it was easier for him to bowl the ball straighter. We only did this for five minutes after the session had finished but, he liked what he saw and wanted to hear more about what I had to say. For the next couple of years, I worked with him a bit doing video analysis and helping him to improve his action, which improved his performance and he was happy with the progress. Unfortunately, he left the club this season but has been playing cricket very successfully in the UK.

While I'm at it, here's a little success story about one of the players I've worked with. I've been coaching this girl for about 4 years now and when she came to me she was playing local junior cricket and wasn't having the performances she wanted. Over the next few years, we spent time developing her mechanics and strength, just last year she was selected to play in the state grade competition. After a successful season there she was invited to join the state rookie squad. Earlier this year she played at the national indoor tournament and was selected for the Australian indoor team. One of the biggest highlights of her career thus far included this week being invited to train with the Australian Women's team during their training camp. We continue to work closely together and it's great to see the amazing success she's had so far.

Wow, a 14 year old net bowler with the arrogance and delusions of grandeur to think he can give useful advice as if he was a qualified and experienced coach. That's some brass neck you've got there.

Clearly you'd rather boast than engage, good luck to you, but please stop spamming our discussion board with your fantasy stories.
 
It’s long overdue but here is a link to my course ‘Biomechanics in Bowling’. http://payhip.com/b/3JNy. This course will look at the biomechanical principals involved in bowling and how to implement them to improve performance. From this guide, drills have been assigned to enhance technique. There is both an interactive eBook file and a PDF document for you guys when you purchase the course. And if you’re not sure if it’s for you there is a sample of the course for you to have a look at.
 
It’s long overdue but here is a link to my course ‘Biomechanics in Bowling’. http://payhip.com/b/3JNy. This course will look at the biomechanical principals involved in bowling and how to implement them to improve performance. From this guide, drills have been assigned to enhance technique. There is both an interactive eBook file and a PDF document for you guys when you purchase the course. And if you’re not sure if it’s for you there is a sample of the course for you to have a look at.
This was actually a really good course, I learned a lot from it and it had some good in depth detail. Just one question, does and increase stride length increase speed and if so why is this the case? Because, wouldn't a large stride take longer and therefore slow down the athlete?
 
This was actually a really good course, I learned a lot from it and it had some good in depth detail. Just one question, does and increase stride length increase speed and if so why is this the case? Because, wouldn't a large stride take longer and therefore slow down the athlete?
Hi SpinKing
I’m glad you enjoyed the eBook and hopefully you got some useful information out of it.
When it comes to stride length and ball speed there is definitely a relationship between the two. By lowing the centre of gravity it will also, potentially, enable and increased stride length. A study actually found that a reduced stride length also created a higher centre of mass and decreased the ground reaction force. This would reduce the amount of energy which would be transferred up the kinetic chain. Generally speaking, the body will lower its centre of mass with an increased speed in the lower half. Meaning that when the back leg is driving out to the target powerfully, the body will lower its centre of gravity allowing it to drive out further. Therefore, increasing stride length and as long as the stride does not slow down speed should be seen to increase as well. Also, the back leg drive drill, from the eBook, is one I would recommend to help implement this movement.
 
This was actually a really good course, I learned a lot from it and it had some good in depth detail. Just one question, does and increase stride length increase speed and if so why is this the case? Because, wouldn't a large stride take longer and therefore slow down the athlete?

The simple answer is, no it doesn't, and if someone tells you it does, immediately disregard anything else they say and question their credentials.
 
Hi SpinKing
I’m glad you enjoyed the eBook and hopefully you got some useful information out of it.
When it comes to stride length and ball speed there is definitely a relationship between the two. By lowing the centre of gravity it will also, potentially, enable and increased stride length. A study actually found that a reduced stride length also created a higher centre of mass and decreased the ground reaction force. This would reduce the amount of energy which would be transferred up the kinetic chain. Generally speaking, the body will lower its centre of mass with an increased speed in the lower half. Meaning that when the back leg is driving out to the target powerfully, the body will lower its centre of gravity allowing it to drive out further. Therefore, increasing stride length and as long as the stride does not slow down speed should be seen to increase as well. Also, the back leg drive drill, from the eBook, is one I would recommend to help implement this movement.

How did the study deal with endogeneity issues? What is your understanding of the difference between correlation and causation? How do you account for potential omitted variable bias in your logic framework?

Its fine if you don't really understand how science works, but to be selling e-books based on your own quite obvious lack of knowledge is both immoral and almost certainly illegal. If I was stupid enough to buy your crappy e-book and found snippets like the nonsense above, I'd quite seriously consider suing you. You're a snake oil salesman.
 
This was actually a really good course, I learned a lot from it and it had some good in depth detail. Just one question, does and increase stride length increase speed and if so why is this the case? Because, wouldn't a large stride take longer and therefore slow down the athlete?
With fast bowling, the point of the athlete running in fast is not so that the ball is running in with the bowler, so to speak - it's so that the bowler can transfer the momentum from the run-up into momentum of the delivery. So, interestingly, it's how much the bowler can brake during delivery that increases the pace.

So the slowing down of the bowler during delivery is not something to be concerned about, it is actually desirable.

There's a few papers from the Loughborough sports science department on this, I'll leave it for others to google if they wish. But for seeing it in practice Jeff Thompson isn't a bad example, no exceptional pace on run in, but a big delivery stride and he almost kills his forward momentum stone dead, like it's all gone into the ball.

I know it's not quite the same, but imagine a pole vaulter, and I think MaxAndrews is correct in that lowering your centre of gravity prior to front foot contact allows greater angular momentum to be generated as the body's centre of mass then comes up and over it. That feels intuitively the case to me. This angular momentum translates to ball speed, like the slingshot.
 
With fast bowling, the point of the athlete running in fast is not so that the ball is running in with the bowler, so to speak - it's so that the bowler can transfer the momentum from the run-up into momentum of the delivery. So, interestingly, it's how much the bowler can brake during delivery that increases the pace.

So the slowing down of the bowler during delivery is not something to be concerned about, it is actually desirable.

There's a few papers from the Loughborough sports science department on this, I'll leave it for others to google if they wish. But for seeing it in practice Jeff Thompson isn't a bad example, no exceptional pace on run in, but a big delivery stride and he almost kills his forward momentum stone dead, like it's all gone into the ball.

I know it's not quite the same, but imagine a pole vaulter, and I think MaxAndrews is correct in that lowering your centre of gravity prior to front foot contact allows greater angular momentum to be generated as the body's centre of mass then comes up and over it. That feels intuitively the case to me. This angular momentum translates to ball speed, like the slingshot.

Some of that is half true, which makes you considerably more knowledgeable than Max Andrews. Some fast bowlers actions are designed to carry their momentum for the crease, others are different.

But we're not talking about fast bowlers, and that's definitely not how spinners bowl. Forcing yourself to extend your stride length will not only waste all the forward momentum you've generated from your run-up, it will also hugely inhibit your ability to generate a fast powerful hip pivot.

Ask a qualified bowling coach, not this idiot!
 
I think it's interesting, looking at this picture, just how similar the bowler's stride lengths are. Obviously, the fast bowlers have a larger stride, because they have more momentum, but all of these spin bowlers have pretty large stride lengths, and they all seem to be able to pivot pretty aggressively. How many really successful spinners do you know with short stride lengths? Stride_length.jpg
 
I think it's interesting, looking at this picture, just how similar the bowler's stride lengths are. Obviously, the fast bowlers have a larger stride, because they have more momentum, but all of these spin bowlers have pretty large stride lengths, and they all seem to be able to pivot pretty aggressively. How many really successful spinners do you know with short stride lengths? View attachment 444

Most spin bowlers have quite short strides, barely as wide as the crease. You can't pivot with a long stride, I challenge you to try it. You'll probably put your hip out. You need a short stride - only 3 to 4 feet - and it only needs to be that long because of your momentum through the crease.

You realise your photos don't show the point of the stride, right, they show the stretch point before the pivot begins? Could you not find any better photos or are you deliberately attempting to confuse people? Why are you mixing up spin bowlers and fast bowlers?






All short strides less than the width of the crease. A stride of less than 4 foot is nothing when you're moving forward. You simply can't bowl spin with a large bowling stride.
 
Most spin bowlers have quite short strides, barely as wide as the crease. You can't pivot with a long stride, I challenge you to try it. You'll probably put your hip out. You need a short stride - only 3 to 4 feet - and it only needs to be that long because of your momentum through the crease.

You realise your photos don't show the point of the stride, right, they show the stretch point before the pivot begins? Could you not find any better photos or are you deliberately attempting to confuse people? Why are you mixing up spin bowlers and fast bowlers?






All short strides less than the width of the crease. A stride of less than 4 foot is nothing when you're moving forward. You simply can't bowl spin with a large bowling stride.
Not sure that your photos are a great representation of the stride length. Can't you see that the back foot is in the air for all of your photos? What's with the angle of your photos? For Saqlain Mushtaq's photo you can't even see the crease champ, and it's a bad angle, so how can you tell how long his stride is?

I simply included fast bowlers just so people can see the similarity in stride lengths. I figure that most people on here can identify who the bowlers are and whether they are spin or fast bowlers. You can see that most spinners have a stride length around the length of the crease, and fast bowlers are slightly longer, obviously, as they have more momentum going into the crease. I'm not exactly sure what your point here is SLA.
 
Not sure that your photos are a great representation of the stride length. Can't you see that the back foot is in the air for all of your photos? What's with the angle of your photos? For Saqlain Mushtaq's photo you can't even see the crease champ, and it's a bad angle, so how can you tell how long his stride is?

I simply included fast bowlers just so people can see the similarity in stride lengths. I figure that most people on here can identify who the bowlers are and whether they are spin or fast bowlers. You can see that most spinners have a stride length around the length of the crease, and fast bowlers are slightly longer, obviously, as they have more momentum going into the crease. I'm not exactly sure what your point here is SLA.

Any competent spin bowling coach will tell you that spinners require a relatively short stride, because its impossible to pivot correctly with a long stride. Fast bowlers don't pivot in the same way, so its not an issue. Fast bowlers and spin bowlers do not have similar stride lengths - fast bowlers typically have stride lengths around 5-6 foot, spinners have stride lengths of 3-4 feet.

Actively trying to extend your stride will make you worse. Just reach the crease with decent forward momentum and then pivot strongly and consistently around a firmly planted front foot, and your stride will just fall on its natural length.

Encouraging other players to actively try to extend their stride length is a deliberate attempt to sabotage them. Max Andrews is a incompetent, unqualified scam artist, ignore everything he says and for god's sake don't hand over any money!
 
I think the more momentum you carry into the crease will have an effect on the length of your stride. However, I'm not sure you understand the conversation properly, and you would if you actually read his book, I asked him why stride length affects ball speed, not spin. His book isn't purely about spin bowling, which you would know had you read the book.
 
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