[Hi - this is some of the reasoning behind some of the stuff in my "LegSpin Horror" bout of verbal diarrhoea. Similar disclaimer - I've never been officially coached and not seen much of the stuff I'm writing about discussed
*in so many words* by proper coaches, however I think my theoretical reasoning is in agreement with a lot of what the better ones say, reading between the lines. I have a science/physics/chemistry background, so there's a fighting chance some of the mechanics bit of my homespun biomechanics bit might be right. Was originally going to be and may yet be part of a video diary]
After much experimentation, observation and thought, I've sort of concluded that the bowling run up and action (both fast and spin) is mostly about getting you from side-on to front on (and further round).
Why side on?
Side on gives you straight lines. You bat side on. You play tennis, badminton and squash side on. Most players have bowled side-on, although the West-Indian and similar bowlers were not. It reduces the game to 2D. If you read Ed Smith's account of his time researching the baseball/cricket similarities and differences with the NY Mets, as soon as he explained the rules of cricket to their coaches (who are all hot on biomechanics) they immediately said - oh, you'd want to bat (and stay) side on for consistency in cricket; in baseball you get chest on for power, 'cos one lucky massive hit in 4 goes is better than 4 gentle forward prods.
Why not stay side on?
Because you can't bowl through the top of your head. When I was about 11, our not very cricket savvy school PE teachers gave us all the bowling like a windmill with the arm brushing past your ear. But that's rubbish - if you don't move your body at all, there's a sticking point near the top of the swing, where the shoulder locks up, that is very hard to get past. So a lot of the delivery stride is about starting side on but then getting your body out of the way so that your arm can whip through.
Where does your pace come from?
It doesn't come from your run up. The pace is a combination of my arm speed and body speed, in the same way that my overall speed as I go on one of those moving walkways at an airport is the sum of the speed I am walking with the speed the walkway is moving. Thing is, the fastest a human can bowl is >90mph. The fastest a human can run, if you do the maths on a 100m sprinter, is about 22 mph, and a bowler probably doesn't sprint quite that fast. So > 70% of your speed comes from your arm, and is nothing to do with your body speed. The run up is just to give you momentum to get through the crease and get the body out of the way. The faster the arm speed you need to generate, the faster you need to move your body and so the quicker your run up will probably need to be.
*in so many words* by proper coaches, however I think my theoretical reasoning is in agreement with a lot of what the better ones say, reading between the lines. I have a science/physics/chemistry background, so there's a fighting chance some of the mechanics bit of my homespun biomechanics bit might be right. Was originally going to be and may yet be part of a video diary]
After much experimentation, observation and thought, I've sort of concluded that the bowling run up and action (both fast and spin) is mostly about getting you from side-on to front on (and further round).
Why side on?
Side on gives you straight lines. You bat side on. You play tennis, badminton and squash side on. Most players have bowled side-on, although the West-Indian and similar bowlers were not. It reduces the game to 2D. If you read Ed Smith's account of his time researching the baseball/cricket similarities and differences with the NY Mets, as soon as he explained the rules of cricket to their coaches (who are all hot on biomechanics) they immediately said - oh, you'd want to bat (and stay) side on for consistency in cricket; in baseball you get chest on for power, 'cos one lucky massive hit in 4 goes is better than 4 gentle forward prods.
Why not stay side on?
Because you can't bowl through the top of your head. When I was about 11, our not very cricket savvy school PE teachers gave us all the bowling like a windmill with the arm brushing past your ear. But that's rubbish - if you don't move your body at all, there's a sticking point near the top of the swing, where the shoulder locks up, that is very hard to get past. So a lot of the delivery stride is about starting side on but then getting your body out of the way so that your arm can whip through.
Where does your pace come from?
It doesn't come from your run up. The pace is a combination of my arm speed and body speed, in the same way that my overall speed as I go on one of those moving walkways at an airport is the sum of the speed I am walking with the speed the walkway is moving. Thing is, the fastest a human can bowl is >90mph. The fastest a human can run, if you do the maths on a 100m sprinter, is about 22 mph, and a bowler probably doesn't sprint quite that fast. So > 70% of your speed comes from your arm, and is nothing to do with your body speed. The run up is just to give you momentum to get through the crease and get the body out of the way. The faster the arm speed you need to generate, the faster you need to move your body and so the quicker your run up will probably need to be.
