anyone ever measured the RPM's they can impart on a ball with their spin bowling?

[Jim2109]

anyone ever measured the RPM's they can impart on a ball with their spin bowling?

i bought a new camcorder the other day, its a Sony CX100 1080 HD camera, its by no means a top of the range model, but its pretty well packed with features and the picture quality is incredible! anyway, its got a feature called "Smooth Slow Record", which got me intrigued!

what it basically does is film at 240 frames/sec (compared to 60fps normally) for a 3 second burst, then plays those 3 seconds back over 12 seconds in slow motion. you can choose to record either the 3 seconds BEFORE you hit the record button, or the 3 seconds after. the before function is awesome, you can point the camera at something, wait for the action to happen and then capture it in hindsight, rather than having to anticipate it!!

so what i did was record me spinning the ball from hand to hand with my wrist spin action, and put a strip of white tape on the ball at one point. as soon as i span a good one id hit the start button and it would capture the 3 seconds before i hit the button, which is just long enough to get the previous spin attempt. download this onto the computer and flick through it frame by frame and count the revolutions the ball makes, and then compare this to the clock at the bottom (which reads to a hundredth of a second), and then calculate the RPM on the ball with some simple maths

my leg break action spins at approx 240rpm, and my flipper spins at approx 230rpm (i say approximately because you still dont get the tape on the ball ending at the exact same position in the frame as it started at, you have to read between the lines a little).

just wondering if anyone else has ever measured the revs they can put on the ball, or if anyone else with a decent camcorder fancies trying!! i tried doing it with normal 60fps shooting, and it doesnt really work, i found it too hard to determine how much the ball was moving between each frame (i dont think my computer actually shows individual frames, it seems to jump about 3 frames at a time, im sure there is software that lets you go 1 frame at a time though.).

i tried to measure Shane Warnes revs on a piece of high definition slow motion footage from the last Ashes. but there is no marking on the ball to reference its position so you cant count the revs. which is a shame, im tempted to email Sky Sports and ask him to do it with tape on the ball in front of one of their cameras since he is commentating for Sky Sports right now, and theres so much rain that he cant have anything else to do all day! then i can compare my spin action to the great man himself

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: anyone ever measured the RPM's they can impart on a ball with their spin bowling?

Go for it! Send the email to Warnie at worse it might be info that they might already have at hand and they'll just turn round and say 'This blokes asked on email how fast Warnie Spins the ball'? They just turn round and say 'Oh that's an easy one - 77,000 revs per minute' and we all give up wrist spin bowling and become dibbly dobbly bowlers over night. Seriously though I've been writing about this today on my new blog because I reckon I give the ball a fair old rip, but there's not the slightest hint of a hum from the ball! Your right normal video recording equipment is useless for that kind of thing, so the rest of us will have to live in ignorance.

 

[Boris]

Re: anyone ever measured the RPM's they can impart on a ball with their spin bowling?

i really want to know now.

if you send me your camera in the mail i can pay for everything and even offer a handy tip........

 

[Jim2109]

Re: anyone ever measured the RPM's they can impart on a ball with their spin bowling?

i really want to know now.

if you send me your camera in the mail i can pay for everything and even offer a handy tip........

for the cost of shipping you could probably buy one cheaper on ebay lol. you can pick up the lower end Sony HD cameras now for £200-300 and i think most of them have the slow motion feature (its called "Smooth Slow Record" on Sony models). i paid £320 for mine on eBay brand new, i think its one of the newest versions in America as well, its not a UK model but it can still work in PAL recording mode!

 

[Boris]

Re: anyone ever measured the RPM's they can impart on a ball with their spin bowling?

for the cost of shipping you could probably buy one cheaper on ebay lol. you can pick up the lower end Sony HD cameras now for £200-300 and i think most of them have the slow motion feature (its called "Smooth Slow Record" on Sony models). i paid £320 for mine on eBay brand new, i think its one of the newest versions in America as well, its not a UK model but it can still work in PAL recording mode!

good point.

im told as an off spinner i have a wrist like action and i put a lot of RPMs on the ball despite having only a very small pivot. i get more spin then most of the leggies in our grade. i want one now.

i will take another stand point then. how bout you just send me the money?

 

[Jim2109]

Re: anyone ever measured the RPM's they can impart on a ball with their spin bowling?

good point.

im told as an off spinner i have a wrist like action and i put a lot of RPMs on the ball despite having only a very small pivot. i get more spin then most of the leggies in our grade. i want one now.

i will take another stand point then. how bout you just send me the money?

pay for my flights and give me somewhere to stay for a couple of weeks, il bring the camera, and take a nice holiday in Australia at the same time

 

[Boris]

Re: anyone ever measured the RPM's they can impart on a ball with their spin bowling?

pay for my flights and give me somewhere to stay for a couple of weeks, il bring the camera, and take a nice holiday in Australia at the same time

be my guest... just give me about a year and i will have enough money for a one way ticket. sorry if you want to get home.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: anyone ever measured the RPM's they can impart on a ball with their spin bowling?

On the subject of how much spin do you put on the ball have a look at this video clip. Towards the end Jenner flicks the ball from one hand to the other a couple of times YouTube - (3/6) Science of Sport - Cricket considering how influential this bloke is and how much of an expert he is he don't look that clever at flicking the ball a la Peter Philpott style. It's got me thinking how much spin is actually required to get the ball to deviate off the wicket, I've been trying for months and months to incorporate Philpotts 'Big Flick' into my bowling in order to produce a Warnesque 'Big Leg Break'. Recently I've change my grip slightly and suddenly I'm getting the ball to turn more - a lot more. In addition I've actually taken time to watch the ball spin through the air which is something I've never done before and I've been amazed at how slow it spins and yet it still turns very well. This has got me thinking that maybe I've been trying to hard to spin the ball because the same thing that Jenner does in this clip I can do but a zillion times better - but can't convert it to a proper bowling action!

 

[Jim2109]

Re: anyone ever measured the RPM's they can impart on a ball with their spin bowling?

Jenner spins the ball in much the same way as i do. im not convinced that the "big flick" is as big as it sounds. i think its the explosion of energy that generates the spin. youre basically coiling your fingers and wrist up like a spring, and its about releasing the energy as quickly and well timed as possible so that every lever acts on the ball at the same time for as short a period as possible, and that determines the amount of spin. Jenner doesnt generate huge revs, but Warnes action is almost identical and he does, and mine is very similar and i think im generating good amounts of rotation on the ball.

physically "throwing" your wrist into the action with a huge flick i would think is a much slower release of energy. you watch Warne flick the ball between hands and he gives it as little apparent effort as Jenner does. i think that the easier it looks and the less effort you can visibly see, the more spin there is on the ball. if you watch Jenners balls in flight there is quite a substantial amount of spin on the ball, with Warne there is HUGE amounts!

watch this video at around the 2:34 mark, its got a slow mo of him spinning the ball from hand to hand, look at how much spin there is!! YouTube - Technology in Cricket - Super Slow Motion Highlights at 2:11 there is what looks like a top spinner leaving his hand

YouTube - Cricket to Mozart at 1:14 there is a leg break leaving his hand on this vid too, all in slow motion. and at 1:29 there is another shot of him spinning between hands.

compared to the slow mo vids of myself, the Sky Sports cameras alledgedly were running around 600fps at the 2005 Ashes, they now have technology to go MUCH slower (over 1000fps apparently)!! my camera records 3 seconds real time and plays it back across 12 seconds, which for £300 is pretty incredible considering the Sky Sports cameras cost in excess of £100k a piece!!

ive downloaded the sky sports slow mo vid and analysed it in the same way as i analysed my own spinning, but the quality is sketchy. so far as i can tell Warne imparts 6 revolutions in 7.2 seconds of video. at 600fps this results in 480 rpm.

my previous measurements for my own bowling were incorrect, ive gone over them again and this time done the maths properly and i put 960 rpm on the ball, i wasnt accounting for the fact the video is 4 times slower than real life before (3 seconds of video is shot and plays back over 12 seconds. in 1 second of slow-mo i achieve 4 revolutions, 240 per minute, at 1/4 speed. thus 960 rpm in one real life minute). my own measurements are 100% correct, which makes me wonder about the validity of measuring Warnes revs from a dodgy quality video which i dont know the exact frame rate of. say the video was actually 1000fps (which it feasibly could be), this would then result in 800 revs, which i would find more believable (but maybe still not quite enough), and would actually be less than my own spinning!!

what i really need is a proper high definition copy of that slow motion video and to know the exact frame rate it was shot at. the chances of that seem slim at best lol

 

[Jim2109]

Re: anyone ever measured the RPM's they can impart on a ball with their spin bowling?

ive just found some conflicting information that says the Sky Sports Ashes slow motion footage was captured at 2000fps. now this makes things more interesting, as it means Warne generates more like 1600rpm. but who knows, so far ive found 4 or 5 articles and the fps rate ranges from 300-2000fps depending on whos saying it.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: anyone ever measured the RPM's they can impart on a ball with their spin bowling?

I've just looked and I'm just out now with the family so I'll comment in detail later, but yeah I'm becoming less and less convinced of the 'Big Flick' as I've perceived it up till, now, all of these deliveries and Jenner flicking the ball from hand to hand all look like what I'd call woosy little flicks, but I'm now beginning to think that perhaps the Flick only needs to be small as in these clips, in fact looking at these there doesn't seem to be a flick, but more of an 'Unfurl' of the wrist!

 

[sadspinner]

Re: anyone ever measured the RPM's they can impart on a ball with their spin bowling?

It is more akin to closing a doorknob. But on the video with Mark Nicholas, you can see even in slow motion how many revs warne generates. Having said that, in his book philpott has pictures where the seam is very blurred by the high revs produced. Additionally when you see Chawla and even McGain spin the ball from hand to hand and back towards them, they use a definitely strong shoulder, arm and wrist flick much more than jenner and you can see the ball really spin. Maybe Jenner was not a very big spinner of the ball, I think he bowled with a high amount of topspin. Macca will fill us in with the details.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: anyone ever measured the RPM's they can impart on a ball with their spin bowling?

Okay, this is kind of where I'm at with this. I currently bowl the Leg Break in three distinctly different ways, one has an almost rigid wrist where the ball is delivered and simply leaves the hand coming off the 3rd finger, the whole bowling action combines with this 3rd finger aspect to produce a ball that spins a little and is very accurate. The 2nd is the ufurling technique which looks like all of these video clips, which gives it a lot more spin than the first option and uses the wrist and the 3rd finger and gives a good amount of turn, but it's not what I'd describe as a big flick. The 3rd option includes the big flick and produces ludicrous amounts of spin but it is so difficult that I've not been able to nail it yet, I have phases when it comes together but as yet 100% mastery of it alludes me. I've got no way of filming it so that I can record it in slow motion, but nothing that I've seen here in the previously mentioned clips looks anything like what I do with my big flick Leg Break, the flick is so pronounced and violent that the ball 'snaps' out of the 3rd finger with an audible click similar to a flipper sound, but as I've said I can't consistently use this Big Flick in my delivery. This delivery produces very fast revs.

In conclusion and from recent observations in practices I reckon most people bowl the Leg Break using a smooth flick more akin to my description of the unfurling wrist which I still reckon combined with good contact and release off of the 3rd finger still puts a lot of rev's on the ball. In conjunction with my Leg Spin blogs elsewhere I've got every intention of producing video clips demonstrating Philpotts exercise where you spin the ball across the body and into the body. Hopefully when I get to do this it'll be quiet with no wind and the flick from the hand will be accompanied by the audible snap noise and you'll get some sense of how much of a big flick mine is. Then maybe we can collectively agree that perhaps what I'm trying to do is physically impossible and totally wrong or that you're all doing it already and I'm the only idiot that can't do it!!!

 

[Jim2109]

Re: anyone ever measured the RPM's they can impart on a ball with their spin bowling?

just a thought with regards Jenner - he didnt play many tests, i dont think his figures were particularly excellent when he did. he was obviously a good bowler or he wouldnt have had an international call up in the first place, but maybe he was just a good first class leg spinner with good accuracy, and never really generated huge amounts of spin?

after all, you dont need to be the master of something to know how it should be done and teach it. for example, most football managers and coaches either didnt play football professionally in their younger days or were fairly average players. that doesnt stop them from developing superstars. Jenner is probably similar, a decent player and a top notch coach. he must be doing something right because he is widely credited as Shane Warnes mentor, and Warne definitely has the same action as Jenner did, just improved.

i was watching some videos earlier trying to find the clips i linked to before, and i cant help but notice how underrated and incredibly talented Stuart MacGill is. watching how much turn he generates makes Warne look pretty ordinary, and he does so at substantially higher speed. anyone got any good quality slow motion footage of his action, because he must be generating some serious revs to get the ball turning as much as it does at the speeds he bowls at. he looks to have quite a pronounced flicking action in the wrist as well. maybe this is what you are searching for Dave?

P.S. im going to try to get some good videos of my spinning action when i get a spare few hours to have a play so i can put them online. i want to get a good video of my actual bowling too, but that will require an assistant, il see if i can sort that in the week as well. id like some video for my own analysis as well, if i can see what im doing wrong then it will be easier to correct it!

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: anyone ever measured the RPM's they can impart on a ball with their spin bowling?

Yeah I like McGills bowling and everyone acknowledges how unlucky the poor bloke was in coming of age at the same time that Warne was around. I've never seen any footage of him bowing in slow motion, it would certainly be worth a look at. Are you aware of the video 'Wings to Fly' it's an ECB training video that's only available to ECB coaches. My captain ordered it for me months ago and he keeps forgetting to take it to the matches so I can get it and watch it, it seems there's loads of footage on their of Warne Bowling, so perhaps there's McGill as well?

 

[sadspinner]

Re: anyone ever measured the RPM's they can impart on a ball with their spin bowling?

I think MacGill was very underrated. Unfortunately he did not have the personality and accuracy of warne, but I suspect he spun it more and seemed faster through the air. As far as I know the only game he played with warne he got a few more wickets than warne.

Yes and that wings to fly we had forgotten. Apparently Liz had a copy as well. Shame it is not out for sale if it is a good video with teaching points and drills.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: anyone ever measured the RPM's they can impart on a ball with their spin bowling?

Saddo I haven't forgotten it and I keep asking the bloke to bring it in and he keeps coming back with some crap excuse for not having it.

 

[Jim2109]

Re: anyone ever measured the RPM's they can impart on a ball with their spin bowling?

measured my deliveries again yesterday evening, the video quality is really poor, my camera doesnt seem to like low light conditions. so il get some video worth putting online another day. anyway, my spin rates have improved

a few weeks ago when i first measured things i was putting 960rpm on my leg breaks, and 840rpm on my flippers. (these figures were mis-stated in my original post, i stupidly didnt account for the video being at 0.25x speed)

now i am putting 1050rpm on my leg breaks, and 1050rpm on my flipper action so ive managed to equal them out, and improve on both. the leg break is about 10% improved, the flipper is 25% improved. those improvements have come in under 3 weeks. nothing has really changed, ive just been spinning the ball between my hands whilst watching TV.

the next step is to film my actual action and see how much rotation i can generate in actual flight. i reckon there is actually more spin in a proper delivery just because im using my whole body as opposed to just my arm and shoulder. this slow motion camera is an invaluable tool for comparison. Dave, i think you particularly might benefit as youve been pondering over your 2 different types of spinning action lately. slow motion would tell you for sure which one is more effective, although what works in real life is ultimately the best analysis tool.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: anyone ever measured the RPM's they can impart on a ball with their spin bowling?

Jim I've got a half decent camera that records digital files, but it's not up to the standard of yours and I don't think it would ever be good enough to meaure the ball rotating through the air, but I might give it a go one day. To be truthful as you say if the revs I'm getting produces results that's all that matters really, but it is interesting - 17 revolutions a second sounds pretty nippy to me, I reckon I'm a fraction of that maybe 5 or 6 revs a second and it still turns well.

 

[Jim2109]

Re: anyone ever measured the RPM's they can impart on a ball with their spin bowling?

if youre only generating 5 or 6 revs/sec then a normal camera might cut it, i reckon to accurately measure the rotation you need the fps to be at least 4 times the actual revs on the ball. 25fps would be perfect if youre only getting 5 or 6 per second. i think youll be surprised though at how many revs a relatively slowly rotating ball is producing! when i first measured mine and got the maths wrong, 4 revs/sec seemed plausible to me. it wasnt until i really thought about it that i realised it must be turning way more than that. when you flip the ball from hand to hand it takes approx 0.5 secs from release to catch (at least it does in my case, anything from 0.5-0.6 it seems, and i flip it up a bit). if youre only spinning at 6 revs/sec then that means the ball is only turning 3 times between your hands. i could physically see that mine was turning way more than that, so i thought about it and looked at the video again and spotted my mistake. il bet it turns at least double what you think it does. mine spins 10 full rotations between hands.

stick a thin strip of masking tape on the ball about an inch long on one side. have someone watch the ball while you spin it and see if they can count the number of times the tape goes past the bottom. whatever they count, multiply it by 100-120 and youll have an estimate at least.