Drift

How important is speed to achieve drift ???
I'm not 100% sure, but I know kids that bowl leg breaks and they bowl at a similar speed to me and they get the ball to drift, I bowl somewhere in the 35-42 mph region I reckon, but I've not had it checked for years. I was heartened this world cup series to hear and see Majid Haq bowling at 35mph and taking some wickets and keeping batsmen in their place, very impressive.
 
From what I have seen, it is just from the Magnus effect. If the ball is spinning with only overspin and sidespin, it won't drift, however, if you angle the seam so that there is a slight amount of flying-saucer spin, it will create a bit of drift from the flying saucer spin. Graeme Swann did this quite well. He even has a variation with only flying saucer spin so that it drifts a little more but doesn't turn much. Speed would kind of affect drift in the way that if you bowled a ball 30 mph and another one 50 mph with identical spin amount and direction, they would both have the same trajectory with regard to drift, not gravity. Here is Graeme Swann explaining his flying saucer delivery, starting at 1:20 in the video:

 
I don't like Swanne, but his bowling action just looks absolutely perfect, everything about it looks smooth. I especially like the way he goes from the gather through the un-furling of his arm, in that increasing arc from under his chin to the release and how it just looks amazingly synchronised with the rest of the body.
 
From what I have seen, it is just from the Magnus effect. If the ball is spinning with only overspin and sidespin, it won't drift, however, if you angle the seam so that there is a slight amount of flying-saucer spin, it will create a bit of drift from the flying saucer spin. Graeme Swann did this quite well. He even has a variation with only flying saucer spin so that it drifts a little more but doesn't turn much. Speed would kind of affect drift in the way that if you bowled a ball 30 mph and another one 50 mph with identical spin amount and direction, they would both have the same trajectory with regard to drift, not gravity. Here is Graeme Swann explaining his flying saucer delivery, starting at 1:20 in the video:

hi eiglow, that's not quite correct: the ball delivered with a 'pure' leg spin (or indeed mixture of legspin/topspin with spin axis horizontal) *will* magnus drift, predominantly to leg, this surprisingly significant phenomena is comprehensively explained in the pencil cricket link.

As I understand the theory you are right about the ball speed although my practical experience is that slower stuff doesn't (seem to) drift.
 
Does the seam have to be on a 45 degree angle to get drift or not or is it all about the amount of rev's on the ball

Any type of sidespin with enough revs will get drift.

Topspin = dip
Sidespin = drift
A mixture of topspin and sidespin = a mixture of drift and dip = the ideal delivery
 
sometime when i try to topspin the ball sticks to my hand and i seem to drag it short and this really annoys me because i have given the batsman a chance to score.
 
sometime when i try to topspin the ball sticks to my hand and i seem to drag it short and this really annoys me because i have given the batsman a chance to score.

Have you tried rubbing your hands in the dust at the start of each over?
 
Back
Top