Line and length without spin?

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Re: Line and length without spin?

I'm a convert and would like to retract any statements that I've made relating to advice where I've said 'Try not spinning the ball'!!!! As Peter Philpotts says 'Spin the ball and spin it hard'!

But see Jim's now gone and put a spanner in the works in the post before yours - he's suggested that by not spinning the ball he's potentially Identified a basic fault in his bowling (in the other thread)?
 
Re: Line and length without spin?

someblokecalleddave;395980 said:
I'm always amazed how you seem to have an acute awareness of what your wrist is doing through your action and you seem to be aware that you're producing a ball that turns one way or another in seemingly small increments that amount to 33 degrees or less!
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i can generally spin the ball to about 30 degrees accuracy, with about 80% consistency, at a guess. 45 degrees is my natural seam angle, its how it comes out if i dont think about it. i can rotate round to 90 degrees (square seam) quite easily, and i can bowl with extra overspin (with less control). i can bowl an almost-top spinner with about 90% overspin now as well, and do it mostly on demand. then ive got the slight backspinner, the heavy backspinner (about 80% backspin), and the zooter.

the key to wrist perception is to recognise what your wrist actually does compared to how it feels. e.g. when i started out, what i perceived as a wrist position for the wrong'un was always producing massive leg breaks! i couldnt get my head around it until i slowed it right down and looked up, and could see that my wrist snapped back at the point of release to produce a leg break. the other deliveries are too subtle to see in that way, but then ive got a ton of slow motion camera footage of my bowling!!

so ive got an out-of-body perception in my head of what my bowling looks like, that is based on actual visual footage, rather than perception alone. get yourself on video more and i reckon youll find the same clicks into place.

when youre bowling blind your mind plays tricks. you think you are doing something that youre actually not. e.g. the other week when i made alterations to my action based on Liz's advice, i was certain i was planting my front foot dead straight, and not crossing my feet over. when in reality i was still crossing over quite a lot, but was a bit more front on than before, so it was still a positive step. the same thing applies to the wrist though. i reckon if i analysed the wrong'un in the same way id be able to bowl it fairly quickly. but im too scared to commit to it in case it hurts my other deliveries for now.

once you can accurately see in your head what you are doing, its a LOT easier to adjust. its a similar mentality to Shane Warne when he says that he used to visualise the shot he wanted a batsman to play, and that would dictate his delivery. i visualise the ball i want to deliver, and that dictates my action. if i can incorporate batsman tactics into that as well then it should prove even better.

P.S. my spanner in the works is a pretty rare anomaly. i still dont think 99% of people would find bowling a straight ball of any use at all. im extremely aware of the problems i have in my bowling, and thus bowling a couple of straight ones just highlighted something i already knew. otherwise id have chalked it up to a difference in my action between spin and straight. if you dont know where your problems lie then it wouldnt be helpful (it wasnt helpful to me anyway, i already know i bowl leg side. it was just interesting). spin hard!!
 
Re: Line and length without spin?

Yeah the answer in part will come with slo-mo video analysis and I'm looking to buy the camera next month when my practice wicket dries out and I can get set up on there. I've been bowling recently with what feels like a ridiculously 'Karate Chop' style action with my leg break and it's been producing more turn, but I also incorporated the cocked wrist at the start which is also new. This at the minute is working well and quite consistent and feels like a more rapid variation on my 'Unfurling' Leg-Break and seems to be more 'Flick' than 'Un-furl' and therefore slowly seems to be moving towards the action that produces my big Leg-Break but is poor with line and length. The use of slo-mo video with these nuances would be interesting to see.
 
Re: Line and length without spin?

Obviously I'm still very much a learner but after a period of not knowing why I was wayward I'm getting to the point where if a ball is a long way away from where I intended I know what I've done wrong. Perhaps I'm at the perfect stage between beginner and expert to comment, as I now know enough to know what I'm doing wrong, while my faults are still large enough to be easily noticed...

When I'm bowling I can usually diagnose the cause of a bad delivery as falling into one of these categories: shoulder attitude, hip attitude, position of the back foot, lack of follow-through, left arm not sticking into ribs, low bowling arm, grip on the ball, and finally head movement.

The major factor I've found is my head. There's something in Bob Woolmer's "Art and Science of Cricket" about how he found bowlers who were lacking accuracy had a hard time aiming their heads to hit his outstretched palm as they pretended to bowl, even though he stayed absolutely still. I found that if I concentrate on making sure my head moves as smoothly as possible from the back foot landing to releasing the ball this usually solves most of my problems.

I tried the seam-up thing and it didn't seem to help much to be honest, except to demonstrate that I'm a lousy seamer... I've already mentioned way back about my round-arm tendencies and I think this is less of a problem for a wrist-spinner than for a seamer.
 
Re: Line and length without spin?

Definitely agree with head movement. I had a habit of looking at either the position of my front foot or how the ball came out my arm during the delivery stride. As a result my balance would be completely off and sling left, right, but rarely centre. Keeping the head still is vital, but I find it hard unless I'm fully concentrated.
 
Re: Line and length without spin?

legspinner_don;397868 said:
Definitely agree with head movement. I had a habit of looking at either the position of my front foot or how the ball came out my arm during the delivery stride. As a result my balance would be completely off and sling left, right, but rarely centre. Keeping the head still is vital, but I find it hard unless I'm fully concentrated.
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concentrating on watching the target can help keep your head still. having a run up that is so ingrained and mechanical that you can literally do it blindfolded means you should not worry about overstepping.
 
Re: Line and length without spin?

My run-up is very much still a work in progress. I'm concentrating on getting the shoulder rotation/pivot and wrist action (mainly seam alignment) right first, and then move onto a steady run-up.
 
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