Leg Breaks To Left Hand Batsman!

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Andrew Bourne

Andrew Bourne

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After reading a post from a big contributor in the forums (cheers Dave) it really got me thinking about the difficulties of bowling leg spin to a left handed batsman. No leg spinner i know really enjoys it, and many struggle to combat it, however chinaman bowlers seem to make life tough for right handed players.. so it should be more than possible for us leggies to make the left handers day tough as well!

Wondering what bowling tactics/deliveries/field settings the leg spinners us against lefties.

Personally, i like to give them a big gap in the ring through the covers/cover point and really try to turn the ball hard. Getting some drift away from the left handed batsmen always helps, drawing bat away from pad, and leaving a gap at cover point can really add to the chances of enducing the drive against the spin and the chances of getting one through the gate.It also brings a slip/stumping chance into play for the slider/topspinner or just natural variation outside their off-stump. The biggest problem i have with lefties is that they sweep me very well.
 
Personally I find overspin the key, whatever delivery you use. Eventually left handers go with the spin whether it be with a sweep or a slog so getting the ball to kick on them tends to shut them up and then set them up.

My googly's probably my best ball so although I've taken some pain from left handers I always get my own back.
 
yeah cool, do you set a guy fine behind square on the offside for the late cut? or do you bowl a straighter line... in which case where do you set your man square on the legside, finer to save a single for the tuck around the corner?
 
Andrew Bourne said:
yeah cool, do you set a guy fine behind square on the offside for the late cut? or do you bowl a straighter line... in which case where do you set your man square on the legside, finer to save a single for the tuck around the corner?
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Due to the angle my slip can be at 1 1/2. I do not like having a 45 as you are suggesting to the batsman straight away that you will either bowl a defensive line or that you are setting them up for the googly (by starting with a straighter line), plus the softer NZ pitches don't lend themselves to top-edged sweeps

My field tends to be (for LH)

Backward square or leg slip/gully
Square leg in front, in if leg slip/gully otherwise on the fence (can be moved around the boundary depending on the conditions/batsman)
midwicket
Mid-on or long on
mid off
cover or gully
point (slightly behind if no gully)
square leg
slip

In a decent 2 innings game the midwicket comes in under the lid and the square leg goes further in front, when things are going really well the cover comes in and the mid off goes slightly squarer.

This suits me as my googly goes about as much as my leg break on a good day, I'd imagine a different field for a bowler who primarily uses a big leg break coupled with a straighter one.

...of course this doesn't mean much when the LH can top edge you for six over square, happened a couple of times in my life.
 
if your googly is well disguised i love the leg gully option...forward square leg with a shorter midwicket? let them try and take you on through the leg side if they are not picking you?
 
Definately an important topic. As a legspinner you have to work hard on bowling at LHB and that means bowling at targets and lots of lefthanders in practise without developing a "thing" about them. I look at it like you have about half a pitch width to bowl on when faced with a LHB.

My young bloke usually has a go at coming around the wicket at a lefthander eventually if they stay on strike.
 
macca said:
Definately an important topic. As a legspinner you have to work hard on bowling at LHB and that means bowling at targets and lots of lefthanders in practise without developing a "thing" about them. I look at it like you have about half a pitch width to bowl on when faced with a LHB.

My young bloke usually has a go at coming around the wicket at a lefthander eventually if they stay on strike.
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Hate them - but I came up with a solution to this bloke Colin Sher who I opened against yesterday. I came round the wicket and bowled to his legside/leg stump with a man at Fine Leg on the boundary he was playing cut shots some of which were finding there way to the boundary, but possibly 50% of them were being intercepted by the bloke at Fine Leg for one meaning he was then off strike. That then meant I was able to bowl to the right-handers and they were a different story and I was able to cause problems and eventually got a wicket. This is definitley something I'll remember in the future and deploy again in another game with a Left hander. In the longer term I reckon anyone worth their reputation as a Wrist Spinner should have a top-spinner and a wrong un to bring out in these situations, but that's a lot of practice to be able to pull these out of the kit bag and produce as equally accurate as your stock ball.
 
Andrew Bourne said:
if your googly is well disguised i love the leg gully option...forward square leg with a shorter midwicket? let them try and take you on through the leg side if they are not picking you?
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Yep, by having a long on and a short mid wicket the LH is presented with a bit of a dilemma:
1. If they go to cow corner any delivery that gets big on them will be taken by the square leg but if the go big slightly straighter then the long on comes into play with the googly or topspinner
2. If fhey choose to punch the ball straight for the easy single then the short midwicket is ready and waiting for the inside edge

No matter what, you have to assess the batsmans technique based on their stance to determine which fielder(s) may be required to hit the boundary and where the batsman's power shot options (and your wicket taking areas) are.
 
Andrew Bourne said:
what do you change if a batsman is picking your googly and going through the off side with it?
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Assuming it's a batsman that's playing safe the method will be to stick to a standard line and length varying the over and side spin by using leg breaks, topspinners and OBS' to choke the batsman. If the batsman holds firm then I'll go round the wicket.

If the team's desperate for wickets then I'll use the batsman's picking of the googly to my advantage by scrambling the seam and mixing it with topspinners.
 
someblokecalleddave said:
Hate them - but I came up with a solution to this bloke Colin Sher who I opened against yesterday. I came round the wicket and bowled to his legside/leg stump with a man at Fine Leg on the boundary he was playing cut shots some of which were finding there way to the boundary, but possibly 50% of them were being intercepted by the bloke at Fine Leg for one meaning he was then off strike. That then meant I was able to bowl to the right-handers and they were a different story and I was able to cause problems and eventually got a wicket. This is definitley something I'll remember in the future and deploy again in another game with a Left hander. In the longer term I reckon anyone worth their reputation as a Wrist Spinner should have a top-spinner and a wrong un to bring out in these situations, but that's a lot of practice to be able to pull these out of the kit bag and produce as equally accurate as your stock ball.
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I didn't understand this post. You're a legspinner, bowling around the wicket to a LH batsman. ok. and you're bowling a leg stump line - so presumably if the stock ball spins its going to be a leg side wide, no?

and then he is cutting the ball from outside leg stump, presumably through the offside. how is he managing that, is he taking guard on the adjacent wicket? and your fine leg is fielding his cut shots.
 
SLA said:
I didn't understand this post. You're a legspinner, bowling around the wicket to a LH batsman. ok. and you're bowling a leg stump line - so presumably if the stock ball spins its going to be a leg side wide, no?

and then he is cutting the ball from outside leg stump, presumably through the offside. how is he managing that, is he taking guard on the adjacent wicket? and your fine leg is fielding his cut shots.
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Doh! Yeah you're right, I can never visualise things from a bats point of view at the best of time and then with it being a lefty it confuses me even more. The shot he was using was more akin to a sweep shot.
 
someblokecalleddave said:
Doh! Yeah you're right, I can never visualise things from a bats point of view at the best of time and then with it being a lefty it confuses me even more. The shot he was using was more akin to a sweep shot.
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Have you tried doing that with a leg gulley in place in case he gloves or topedges one? A good attacking ploy IMO.
 
The main problem I find is that I'm the only left hand bat in the club who attends nets, which means that I never get to practice bowling against lefties. In fact I very rarely seem to bowl agaisnt them, but when I do its very much a case of "I'm sure I've bowled out lefthanders before but I can't remember what I did to do it".

Whereas bowling at righties is easy, fire it in at middle stump, try to hit the top of off, watch them play around a straight one.

You got two options - go around the wicket and pitch it up wide of the stumps, try to force them to cover drive agaisnt the spin, or go over the wicket and look to angle the ball to first slip, with the occasional ball straightening on them.
 
I bowl in the nets a lot to a US U-19 player. He will kill anything middle or leg.
Having him drive to cover with the ball turning keeps him quiet and I vary
the amount of spin. Well disguised top spinner is the wicket taking ball.
I am not consistent yet with googly and working on it.
 
tcs said:
I bowl in the nets a lot to a US U-19 player. He will kill anything middle or leg.
Having him drive to cover with the ball turning keeps him quiet and I vary
the amount of spin. Well disguised top spinner is the wicket taking ball.
I am not consistent yet with googly and working on it.
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That's very nice, may I ask where in the us you play?
 
i treat lefties the same way tcs does i think, i find that if you get straight, to any left hander, they feel comfortable.
not many left handers are very comfortable with a ball coming into them from outside off stump as they don't experience it very often.... vary the spin with them reaching to push into the offside seems to be my most effective method... but interesting to hear the other options floating around! would love to hear input from anyone who has had success going around the wicket a lot...
 
Andrew Bourne said:
i treat lefties the same way tcs does i think, i find that if you get straight, to any left hander, they feel comfortable.
not many left handers are very comfortable with a ball coming into them from outside off stump as they don't experience it very often.... vary the spin with them reaching to push into the offside seems to be my most effective method... but interesting to hear the other options floating around! would love to hear input from anyone who has had success going around the wicket a lot...
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Well im with you and tcs on the basic tactics and a legbreak/topspinner combo is the place to start and master before even worrying about wronguns. Thinking a bit like an off spinner

Legspinner has a lot less to play with in terms of line when bowling to LHB. We train to LHB as if we have roughly a half width wicket and aiming for a target midway on that which puts you maybe a foot outside their off stump and you just dont bowl on their middle and leg stump.

My young bloke goes around the wicket to lefties all the time. Never straight away and usually only the better ones or the ones that stick around and end up on strike. Bit of a convention but he reckons it is "trolling" the batsman and to get him thinking.

I bat lefthanded to him in net scenarios and he accidently varies his pace a lot coming round compared to when i face him RHB, he cant control it its just him trying to bowl on that half width wicket but still trying to spin a few big as well but it throws the batsman at least it throws me.

Same old thing though, i am no great shakes at being a lh batsman but if he strays down leg, whooshka, it gets smashed followed by a serve from me about bowling on the lefties legs. This is where he shines as a bowler, he has this huge personality and confidence he can spin it past anyone and will come back at me with with a smartarse comment and more often then not get me out next ball.
 
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