best brand of ball for spin bowling - your experiences?

[Jim2109]

best brand of ball for spin bowling - your experiences?

just curious about what types of balls people have bowled spin with (finger spin or wrist spin) and what their thoughts were on which worked best?

personally ive used...

Gunn & Moore Clubman - really flat seam and lots of lacquer. theyre hard to turn but good for practicing with as if you get one turning youre doing well!! once the lacquer breaks off they get better, but harder to grip for my leg spin action. i got 6 of them brand new and cheap off eBay so they represent just under half of my practicing arsenal. they are good for perfecting seam position as they are quite unforgiving if you spin them slightly off axis.

Gray Nicholls Hurricane - super cheap 2-piece ball, with a really proud seam. if you land it perfectly square on the seam then it turns reasonably well and also bounces loads. the overall body of the ball is smaller though (the seam circumference is similar to most other balls) and they are quite odd to bowl with. my least favourite ball.

Slazenger County - my favourite ball for leg spin! they are quite soft compared to most balls and the surface scuffs up really fast. they are super easy to grip, and the softness seems to grip the pitch better and increase turn. if they get dusty they are very hard to grip though but some sweat fixes this!

Readers Club - really shiny smooth surface (and very dark as well) and the largest of all the balls i own, these are hard to impart spin on because of the size and low grip. however they turn pretty well off the pitch when you get it right and are super cheap for practice balls. they are very hard to spin on axis due to the size so probably encourage perfection in seam position.

Dukes (think it was a Special Crown) - used one of these at the weekend for a match and it was pretty nice to bowl with. probably the highest quality ball ive bowled with, pretty easy to grip, didnt degrade much at all through the match but was still easy to grip even though the surface didnt scuff up that much, even when dusty. it also turned very nicely as well.

what have other people used? and what are your thoughts on ball performance for spin bowling? if i could use a Slazenger ball every match on a rock hard wicket id be very happy lol.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: best brand of ball for spin bowling - your experiences?

I noticed you've mentioned the size of the balls. There is a definite case of small balls and what I did call proper sized balls and up until this year all the balls that were ever used in a game tended to be the 'Proper Balls' (Differing brands). When I started bowling I bought a load of balls off ebay different brands and generally cheap and hard but fine for bowling and similarly 3 years ago they were all 'Proper ball' size but the following year I could source any cheap balls that were the proper size. I have a bucket and it's got a mixture of 36 + balls small and large and used to avoid the smaller balls. But this year in matches I've only ever come across the smaller types of balls. I don't mind this and like you I prefer to bowl with the smaller types, but I find that when you then bowl with the larger type it is slightly trickier?

For bowling I use the cheap crap Davidson balls from India these days and they're fine they've got a pronounced seam and they're really shiny so what I do is artificially rough up one side using a rasp. They're the smaller variety and at about 2 pounds 30 a go they're okay.