Recent content by Fleetwood

I suspect yoga is just the ticket, the Mrs does a lot of it and I've gone along occasionally & enjoyed it, and it would obviously be helpful - I've struggled to fit a regular session around running , bowling and other stuff, but I think I need to make the effort.

15c dry and sunny sounds better than our summer half the time! Played my first T20 of the season last night (4-0-19-0, dnb), although this early in the year it's still T18, as it's too dark to play by about 2030 - it was warm enough to start with, but I was wishing I'd brought some handwarmers...

Congrats! Don't think I've scored that many in my whole career to date 😄

Yes Dave - I read anything I can find about legspin/spin bowling in general , so found your blog a while ago - if you google "googly syndrome", quite a few of the results lead back to you! I'm very careful not to spend too long long bowling it vs stock delivery, but as I say tbh at the moment...

yes, definitely - I've only just started bowling around, but did so in winter nets - quite a few bats seemed to struggle with the change of angle, and the flipper is much more of a threat to the stumps from round

Cheers Dave - I've been doing that a bit in the nets, makes sense - hopefully the batter will shape for a pull, expecting the short offbreak. I've been following your example in trying to vary the amount of sidespin on the flipper, with reasonable results so far - I seem to bowl it with a fair...

Thanks Doc, I've been thinking along similar lines; I bowl with a lot of topspin on my stock delivery so hopefully the introduction of backspin might make it a bit harder to judge the drop on the stock ball. I'd still prefer to have a wrongun as well, just for the additional dip - I've been...

That sucks, I've crocked my shoulder laying turf so haven't been able to bowl for a week, surprised by how much it's pissed me off. I'm going to have a tentative go on my own in the nets today - my team should have been outdoor netting for a couple of weeks, but it's pissed down relentlessly...

This does seem to be the case, but I really hope they hold on a bit longer - you don't get this sort of ongoing conversation on more modern social media, and as you say, forums are invaluable for this sort of niche area. Not an accident that busiest coaching thread by far is full of the...

Yes, quite often, especially when I 've been trying to up my pace. I've had to really focus on the wrist action in particular and sometimes bowl from a standing start to get the rip back

This is great stuff - have you read Brian Wilkins' book The Bowler's Art? covers this sort of ground (and agrees with you entirely btw)

This is a great discussion - it makes sense that the same conditions that help swing would help drift, very noticeable that Warnie's ball of the century with its massive drift was delivered in perfect English swing conditions - dry, cold & cloudy. Do we think that seam position affects drift...

What a time it is to be a left-arm wristspinner - back in the nineties, I had to make do with the odd glimpse of Michael Bevan. Very honourable mention to GB Hogg, but Kuldeep has got to be the best leftie I've seen in tests - I particularly enjoy him because he's a really classical legspinner...

Thanks very much for your thoughts Dave - definitely agree that you don't need all the toys in the box! If I can get a topspinner to work, and have full control of switching between topspin and offspin, I'd probably be happy with that. I've been trying to bowl a pure-ish topspinner, but oddly...

Yeah, that's sort of what I'm aiming for, hopefully a slightly faster ball with the same arm speed. Even for an orthodox legbreak, it's funny & counterintuitive how a looser grip can mean more revs - every instinct is rip the ball harder when I'm trying to spin it more, but the odd time that...