In Swing Out Swing

crouchy1992

New Member
Hey
Posted yesterday about slower ball, but just wondered if anyones got tips on inswing outswing how th ball should be held you hear so many different ways how the grip should be just wondered what ones correct

Thanks again
 
Ah! Swing bowling!

General two up/two down grip; thumb at the bottom... shiny half to the left/seam angled right for inswing and vice versa for outswing. :)
 
I have a question, i find it easier to swing the ball bowling seam up, as opposed tho the conventional seam to first slip/leg slip theory. Am I a freak? Or is it just my bowling action??
 
Seam facing first slip, shiny side to leg and I can get the ball to swing away miles. Turn the ball round, seam facing fine leg, ball goes dead straight. Wrist position, grip on the ball or the bowling action? One of those mysteries.
 
ZacDuggan and shortextracover129, I doubt anyone could give definitive answers on a forum like this; particularly with so little information.

Zac, are you saying you can swing the ball either way with a seam up? That's not a big surprise in itself, the angle to slip/leg slip increaes swing for most people. If it doesn't for you, perhaps you put too much angle on it. It might be worth trying with slightly less angle, but still not straight just to see if you get any difference. Without being a coach, or seeing your action, that is my first guess.
But it could be any number of things. Do you do anything else differently for your in-swinger compared to your outswinger? Bowl more chest on, bowl from wider on the crease, etc? It may be that other things in your action compensate for not having an angle in your grip and it comes together with a straight up and down grip. But that's just guesswork.

sec129, again it could be any number of things. My guess either wrist position, or something in your action. If you bowl at all roundarm, getting in-swing (and I am assuming right arm bowler to right hand batsman in this post) tends to be much more difficult. Or if you have a slinging action, as they often result in something a bit more roundarm.
 
Thanks Howard, conventional high action, not round arm or slingy, so guess I should focus on the wrist position.
As I say, its a best guess without seeing your action. (And without bing a coach, I can only go by what worked for me and what I have seen/heard from others.) As you say, it could also be the grip or seam angle, or you might fall away in the action without realising it, causing a "right arm by right ear" action to be slightly round-arm.

Personally, I always found that all I had to do was turn the ball so the seam was facing slightly leg side, more towards leg stump than leg slip, and oviously have the rough side on leg side; I didn't have to change anything else to bowl in-swing.
My biggest problem was not knowing for years that my wrist rolled on delivery, once I found that out I started swinging the ball either way with ease.
I say this because I may be miseading as my experience is not the same as everyone else's. I did have to bowl in-swingers slightly chest on, not to get swing but to stop them sliding down leg side. There was no need against left-handed batsmen though, as the swing took the ball outside their off stump.

Given that you can bowl out-swing, it won't be the same issue that I had; but may be wrist position whereas mine was wrist movement.
 
My son doesn't get the ball to swing at all, someone has suggested that his wrist isn't stable/rigid enough and that if he was to hold his wrist rigid this would probably produce in-swing? Any comments?
 
My son doesn't get the ball to swing at all, someone has suggested that his wrist isn't stable/rigid enough and that if he was to hold his wrist rigid this would probably produce in-swing? Any comments?

Well there's an easy way to tell, does the seam stay visibly vertical on its way down the pitch? If he can consistently get the seam upright, then thats 90% of the battle. All the stable/rigid wrist advice is simply to encourage him to do this, but the problem is that it doesn't tell you what feedback to look for.

There's no real magic trick to swing bowling, if you are able to bowl with the seam nice and vertical at will, then its just a matter of learning to angle the seam slightly to one side or the other to make it swing in that direction. Most people struggle because they try to jump straight to this step without perfecting the art of the vertical seam first and end up scrambling the seam and then wonder why its not swinging.

I'm no seam bowler, but I can get the ball to swing both ways at will because my dad taught me when I was a kid. Its just a matter of practice and knowing what feedback to look for.
 
Well there's an easy way to tell, does the seam stay visibly vertical on its way down the pitch? If he can consistently get the seam upright, then thats 90% of the battle. All the stable/rigid wrist advice is simply to encourage him to do this, but the problem is that it doesn't tell you what feedback to look for.

There's no real magic trick to swing bowling, if you are able to bowl with the seam nice and vertical at will, then its just a matter of learning to angle the seam slightly to one side or the other to make it swing in that direction. Most people struggle because they try to jump straight to this step without perfecting the art of the vertical seam first and end up scrambling the seam and then wonder why its not swinging.

I'm no seam bowler, but I can get the ball to swing both ways at will because my dad taught me when I was a kid. Its just a matter of practice and knowing what feedback to look for.

I'll pass that on to him to get him to think about it, chances are with the current weather, who knows when that'll be possible!
 
One thing Ben could practice is just to flick the ball out and watch the seam (you see leggies doing it all the time!!!).

Just stand a few yards apart with his left arm supporting his right elbow (http://www.sportplan.net/viewer/movies/cricket/ecb2.pdf section 1.3) and practice getting his wrist in a position where the seam comes out straight - ideal for when its wets or a few minutes when its not worth walking over to the paddock. Liz may have something to say about this, as having looked for a suitable image/clip there is loads of stuff about elbow injuries when linking this to softball throwing, but I find it a useful way for players to isolate the wrist and the release of a ball
 
No, that is fine Tony. The elbow issues arise if the grip is too tight or with extended practice when fatigued. Just make sure the arm is relaxed... tension is the enemy!

The condition of the ball is, however, a big factor in medium paced swing.
 
Thanks Liz. Much as the condition of the ball may be a factor, we can only look to 'control the controlables' :) and the seam position is /should be a controllable. Oli used to have a natural inswinging delivery when he was more front on (about 50/50), but this season he has moved more side on which seems to have reduced any swing, but still able to get it going off the seam
 
Thanks Liz. Much as the condition of the ball may be a factor, we can only look to 'control the controlables' :) and the seam position is /should be a controllable. Oli used to have a natural inswinging delivery when he was more front on (about 50/50), but this season he has moved more side on which seems to have reduced any swing, but still able to get it going off the seam

While you're all here, someone (Same bloke) noticed that his pivot leg is bent when he gets to that stage. I then remembered seeing some Catherine Dalton vids especially this one here, which to me looks like a one way ticket to pulverised knees and mentioned this to the bloke saying 'Is this what you do and what you reckon Ben should be doing' and he then told me about the fact that he's now only 20 and his knees are screwed because he used to practice jamming the leg straight like this with no supervision and used to bowl for hours with no coaching. He then back tracked a bit and mentioned that McGrath was known for the fact that he bowled with the pivot leg flexed and that it didn't have too much of an negative affect on his bowling! I've not gone for advocating that Ben jams his leg in the Cath Dalton way and decided to let him continue as he is, as at the moment he's not personally striving to bowl ridiculously fast, he's happy with the way that he bowls at the moment and he just ups the speed every now and then, but I do get the sense that he'll want to increase his speed at some point in the future.
 
Interesting that you brought up the Ian Pont front foot block Dave. I have spoken to Liz about this before and is certainly not something I am confident coaching, although I am an ECB Club Coach (Level 2+), due to the potential for this to go horribly wrong. Ian is operating at a completely different level and working much closer with his charges than many of us volunteerers at club level are able to. Having met Ben, I would guess he could generate enough pace to cause problems for most batsmen with a conventional action, at least for now.
 
Interesting that you brought up the Ian Pont front foot block Dave. I have spoken to Liz about this before and is certainly not something I am confident coaching, although I am an ECB Club Coach (Level 2+), due to the potential for this to go horribly wrong. Ian is operating at a completely different level and working much closer with his charges than many of us volunteerers at club level are able to. Having met Ben, I would guess he could generate enough pace to cause problems for most batsmen with a conventional action, at least for now.
Yeah that was my feeling - if he could add the swing element to his bowling that would make him far more difficult to bat against I reckon. Off to fracture clinic with Joe now...
 
Best way to see if it is wrist position is get your hands on a 2-tone ball (white one side, red the other).
They give a really good indication of what is happening with the ball as it goes down the pitch, as seam position is super important for swing bowling. twpo common problems are a 'wobbly seam' or the axis is tilted... what i mean by that is rather than the seam still being like 12 o'clock to 6 o'clock just rotated slightly to slip or fine leg... it goes more like 2 o'clock to 8 o'clock (if you know what i am saying here)
 
Swing bowling is so much harder than i thought. I watched all the videos about it, and the releases and all. And at home, i tried releasing it like that(without the full action ofcourse), and it used to go correct. But in the nets, i can't make out if it's going correct or not. And by movement, i think very less times have i got the away swing correct. I have other factors to correct first(if someone can tell me how to create a thread), as i need good basics now.
 
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