Leg Spin Horror - Some Disasters And How (maybe) To Avoid Them (ii)

bosie

New Member
Symptom: I'm bowling some nice balls, but every so often I seem to fire this horrible loopy waist-high full toss outside leg stump.
Suggestion: You are getting stuck side on, and trying to put oomph in and complete your action without, as it were, starting it. Your arm is trying to come over but your body is in the way and the only thing it can do is catapult out. The more welly you try and put in the more spectacular the full toss. Make sure you start your pivot *and keep going*. This doesn't require so much physical effort as mental effort to not let yourself chicken out as the momentum from your run up gets absorbed as you brace over your front foot. Don't get excited after bowling a good one, and then spoil the next one by exploding too soon. Try and spend as much time as possible over the front foot, and only 'explode' at the very very last minute, when you are balanced and as coiled and as high as you can go and are going to start to topple off balance.

Symptom: I'm bowling some nice balls, but every so often I seem to drag the ball short and wide outside off stump.
Suggestion: This is the evil twin of the Loopy Waist High Leg Stump Full Toss. You are getting stuck side on and trying to apply oomph from arm and shoulder without having pivoted round. Only this time, you are cheating and getting your body out of the way by collapsing slightly with the front leg and left shoulder. The solution is as for the last item, only make sure your left side and front foot do not collapse, but push you upwards with your shoulders level. Make sure your right-hand side, driven by your back foot, is pushing you forwards and through, as this will cause you to start to push round.

Symptom: I'm bowling some nice balls, but I keep bowling these balls that, although nice length and pace, and which turn and seem to have a bit of spin, are getting fired down the leg side.
Suggestion: You are starting your body rotation. This at least stops your body getting in way, which would cause the Loopy Waist High Leg Stump Full Toss or the Short Ball Dragged Down Outside Off. However, you are chickening out and not forcing yourself to keep going, so that you are completing the action and finishing the arm action when only partly round. Make sure as you start to pivot you *keep going*. As your body starts to resist going round you gently push harder and harder, ''coiling the spring'. Spend as much time and coil as high up as possible over the front foot before 'cracking the whip' and allowing yourself to explode through. Try and get up on your toes on your front foot as you pivot through and release (watching Shane Warne or Graeme Swann carefully on youtube is quite instructive) - the less surface area of your front foot you have in contact with the ground, the less friction will be there resisting as you try and pivot.

Symptom: The line's ok, it feels like I'm getting through the action and it's coming out of the fingers ok, and it's turning nicely if not spectacularly, but it's consistently short and lacking fizz. It's not a disastrously short length, but it just doesn't quite seem to 'get there' and sits up to be milked.
Suggestion: You are balanced and pivoting nicely, but possibly lacking height - particularly over the front foot - and whiplash from the arm as it comes through. Your trunk is not too collapsed but it feels cramped and slouchy - like you're bowling in a straightjacket - and doesn't have that nice, loose, braced posture. Get a bit more upright and high on the toes, particularly on the front foot, then use your back foot to push you 'up and over' as you bowl. If you are leaning forward then that will tend to give you a lower trajectory; the opposite will be true if you are leaning back.
 
Bosie,
You have my eternal gratitude, until now I had been trying to correct various aspects of my bowling without forcing myself to pivot as I had been thinking that pivot is more about fizz than about control. After reading your posts, I went back to nets to try it out and lo! both the waist high fulltosses and short outside off were taken out. Although, I noticed I'm starting to bowl a little flatter, that can be corrected as long as it is consistent
 
Hi Shrek, thanks for that! I'm glad at least some of my experiences ring true with someone. I've added some more babbling (Body Pivot - Why? and Body Pivot - How? that explains some of my reasoning on this matter).

I'm not surprised to find you are bowling a bit flatter if you were struggling with getting stuck side on because the way that prevents your arm getting over properly naturally causes the 'catapult' effect - you have no choice but to release with a high trajectory (unless you collapse with your left side). I find that if I am balanced and in control right at the point of release then I can vary the flight a bit (not with total control, but it's coming), but it might take a while to adjust your timing now you've made a change.
 
Symptom: I'm bowling some nice balls, but every so often I seem to fire this horrible loopy waist-high full toss outside leg stump.
Suggestion: You are getting stuck side on, and trying to put oomph in and complete your action without, as it were, starting it. Your arm is trying to come over but your body is in the way and the only thing it can do is catapult out. The more welly you try and put in the more spectacular the full toss. Make sure you start your pivot *and keep going*. This doesn't require so much physical effort as mental effort to not let yourself chicken out as the momentum from your run up gets absorbed as you brace over your front foot. Don't get excited after bowling a good one, and then spoil the next one by exploding too soon. Try and spend as much time as possible over the front foot, and only 'explode' at the very very last minute, when you are balanced and as coiled and as high as you can go and are going to start to topple off balance.

Symptom: I'm bowling some nice balls, but every so often I seem to drag the ball short and wide outside off stump.
Suggestion: This is the evil twin of the Loopy Waist High Leg Stump Full Toss. You are getting stuck side on and trying to apply oomph from arm and shoulder without having pivoted round. Only this time, you are cheating and getting your body out of the way by collapsing slightly with the front leg and left shoulder. The solution is as for the last item, only make sure your left side and front foot do not collapse, but push you upwards with your shoulders level. Make sure your right-hand side, driven by your back foot, is pushing you forwards and through, as this will cause you to start to push round.

Symptom: I'm bowling some nice balls, but I keep bowling these balls that, although nice length and pace, and which turn and seem to have a bit of spin, are getting fired down the leg side.
Suggestion: You are starting your body rotation. This at least stops your body getting in way, which would cause the Loopy Waist High Leg Stump Full Toss or the Short Ball Dragged Down Outside Off. However, you are chickening out and not forcing yourself to keep going, so that you are completing the action and finishing the arm action when only partly round. Make sure as you start to pivot you *keep going*. As your body starts to resist going round you gently push harder and harder, ''coiling the spring'. Spend as much time and coil as high up as possible over the front foot before 'cracking the whip' and allowing yourself to explode through. Try and get up on your toes on your front foot as you pivot through and release (watching Shane Warne or Graeme Swann carefully on youtube is quite instructive) - the less surface area of your front foot you have in contact with the ground, the less friction will be there resisting as you try and pivot.

Symptom: The line's ok, it feels like I'm getting through the action and it's coming out of the fingers ok, and it's turning nicely if not spectacularly, but it's consistently short and lacking fizz. It's not a disastrously short length, but it just doesn't quite seem to 'get there' and sits up to be milked.
Suggestion: You are balanced and pivoting nicely, but possibly lacking height - particularly over the front foot - and whiplash from the arm as it comes through. Your trunk is not too collapsed but it feels cramped and slouchy - like you're bowling in a straightjacket - and doesn't have that nice, loose, braced posture. Get a bit more upright and high on the toes, particularly on the front foot, then use your back foot to push you 'up and over' as you bowl. If you are leaning forward then that will tend to give you a lower trajectory; the opposite will be true if you are leaning back.


Are all these bad balls really caused by your action? In my opinion it is never your actions' fault if you bowl your good balls with the exact same action as your bad balls. Isn't it just a general lack of accuracy? I also bowled 3 good balls then 3 pies when I started out. Shane Warne too. Now I bowl 5 good balls and 1 "almost off target" ball an over. Not because I changed ANYTHING in my action, as a matter of fact it could even be a worse action than before, but I did so much target practice that I am now an accurate bowler. Maybe we should all focus less on our actions and more on achieving accuracy. Once you bowl accurately you can start refining it, but is it really worth it to try and "fix" your action if it isn't necessarily the cause of inaccuracy? Just my opinion / theory , what are your thoughts?
 
I'm fifteen and quite improving as a leggie in the last two years. Which is better to have a straight run up or have an angle (5-10) like warne does? I tend to ball 4 good unplayable balls and and release two juicy over the waist high full tosses and i cnt figure out the reason? I'm more a side on bowler and my bowling action is not fluent (i get stucked in my action sometime). Please i wish someone would give some tips? And i'm afraid that any modifications to my action would reduce spin.
 
I'm fifteen and quite improving as a leggie in the last two years. Which is better to have a straight run up or have an angle (5-10) like warne does? I tend to ball 4 good unplayable balls and and release two juicy over the waist high full tosses and i cnt figure out the reason? I'm more a side on bowler and my bowling action is not fluent (i get stucked in my action sometime). Please i wish someone would give some tips? And i'm afraid that any modifications to my action would reduce spin.
I tend to go for a slightly angled run up, before my run up was too angled so I couldn't land it on off or middle stump line when I wanted to, and the action block thing somtimes happens to me too, just try not to get stuck too much side on.
 
I tend to go for a slightly angled run up, before my run up was too angled so I couldn't land it on off or middle stump line when I wanted to, and the action block thing somtimes happens to me too, just try not to get stuck too much side on.
Thank You S shahidpak for the tips i'll certainly try those things and inform you
 
I'm fifteen and quite improving as a leggie in the last two years. Which is better to have a straight run up or have an angle (5-10) like warne does? I tend to ball 4 good unplayable balls and and release two juicy over the waist high full tosses and i cnt figure out the reason? I'm more a side on bowler and my bowling action is not fluent (i get stucked in my action sometime). Please i wish someone would give some tips? And i'm afraid that any modifications to my action would reduce spin.
Man if you are bowling 4 unplayable balls an over - that is awesome, well done!

tip - you might not want to hear this, but - practice. Legspin is just not easy. practice, practice, practice. Have you got the Philpott book? That is a book I wish I had read when I fifteen. That is a very good starting point. How are you practising?
 
In our school there are like 3 teams ( A - first eleven ,B,C ) in under 15. Every year i improved in my spin but accuracy has always been my problem. This year the coaches almost gave up on me because my accuracy.my rhythm is not good when starting a spell, I ball rubbish at first but when i start to get my rhythm back and bowl at the correct spot its almost unplayable for the batsman. I now play in C, and my coaches always tell me with my spin i should have been playing in A team. It's very frustrating now, i have the biggest spin of all spinners in the 3 teams and cant bowl 6 accurate deliveries. The season starts in 2 weeks. And My action has never been constant, It changes all most everytime and now i've changed to a much simpler action but i'm afraid that my revs on the ball and spin has somewhat lost.
If i bowl with rhythm in the previous match, i cnt start bowling from the point i finished in the next match.
 
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In our school there are like 3 teams ( A - first eleven ,B,C ) in under 15. Every year i improved in my spin but accuracy has always been my problem. This year the coaches almost gave up on me because my accuracy.my rhythm is not good when starting a spell, I ball rubbish at first but when i start to get my rhythm back and bowl at the correct spot its almost unplayable for the batsman. I now play in C, and my coaches always tell me with my spin i should have been playing in A team. It's very frustrating now, i have the biggest spin of all spinners in the 3 teams and cant bowl 6 accurate deliveries. The season starts in 2 weeks. And My action has never been constant, It changes all most everytime and now i've changed to a much simpler action but i'm afraid that my revs on the ball and spin has somewhat lost.
If i bowl with rhythm in the previous match, i cnt start bowling from the point i finished in the next match.
I hear you. The thing is this - pitching a hard-spun leg break accurately is just much much harder than seam up or off-spin. It is not easy at all. What you are saying is perfectly understandable. Your coaches should know this and not make you feel bad about it. It should be expected. tbh, I wonder if your coaches are helping you. If they are anything like my school coaches were, they may know little about how to coach legspin. You should just politely ignore them if you feel they are messing things up.

if you want to be a really good legspinner then you don't want to be sacrificing spin for some short-term accuracy. you want to keep spinning it hard, then it's a matter of learning how to control it. It may take years to get mastery of that - I'm still learning. But you cannot really go the other way.

The best advice I think I can give is on how you practice. Solo practice (or practice with another bowling partner) is the most important thing. It is going to take thousands of repetitions. Ideally you might have a bucket of cricket balls and an empty net. Alternatively maybe there's a brick wall somewhere that you can bowl against. You can then bowl literally hundreds of balls from standing or one-pace and this is where your action will groove and improve and you can work on all the subleties of releases without fear of batsmen getting annoyed or making you fetch the ball. Find that brick wall or net! This is so important. How you practice is everything. I don't think there could possibly be any substitute for this. Ideally you want to be doing daily practice. When you do this, your brain actually reorganises itself.

Don't take my word for that - the other best advice I can give is to seek out the advice from the best legspinners and also the best books. They'll confirm that vast amounts of solo practice is the thing. The Philpott book is good, and I wish I'd had it when I was fifteen. If you have no other one, get that first. And of course stick around here, there are very knowleadgeable bowlers here.

Most importantly relax, you really have plenty of time.
 
Man if you are bowling 4 unplayable balls an over - that is awesome, well done!

tip - you might not want to hear this, but - practice. Legspin is just not easy. practice, practice, practice. Have you got the Philpott book? That is a book I wish I had read when I fifteen. That is a very good starting point. How are you practising?
Whats in this book lol? Ive been hearing about this since I joined, and Im fifteen lol
 
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