my leg spin bowling - slow motion video analysis

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Jim2109

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my leg spin bowling - slow motion video analysis

anyone thats a regular on the Wrist Spin thread will have seen me and someblokecalleddave hijacking the thread for the past week or so talking endlessly about slow motion video. i bought a Sony CX100 camcorder a month or so back, and it has a feature where it records 3 seconds of video in slow motion at 1/4 speed. after some DIY electronics to make a camera trigger i have finally got some videos of me bowling in the nets. firstly some excuses lol, i tried to record this yesterday afternoon, but my local nets have been dismantled for winter. so i went to the club i play for to record it in the evening, and the sun was low and behind the nets and i couldnt even see, let alone record! once the sun went down it got too dark for good quality recordings, but i bowled about 3 hours straight anyway, just practicing to save wasting a journey. i went back this morning to record in proper daylight wth the sun high in the sky and wasnt bowling at 100% due to still being stiff from yesterday, so this isnt the best bowling i am capable of, probably more like 60-70%. subsequently, i wasnt able to bowl all of my variations perfectly, so some of them are missing. i plan to get another video next week maybe with me bowling with better rhythm.

the quality isnt brilliant, this is just the nature of the camcorder for slow motion. it only does full HD in normal modes, the slow motion is at low quality. but its good enough to see whats going on. watch all the videos in HQ mode on YouTube and you can see more detail. ive got footage of a few variations, so il go through the videos one by one.

YouTube - Wrist Spin Leg Break (square seam) Close-up - slow motion
this is a close up (at the pitch of the ball) of a 90 deg leg break, watch for the late drift, its drifting all the way, but for the last couple of feet before it pitches it really moves.

YouTube - Wrist Spin Leg Break (square seam) Close up 2
same as the above, it drifts less, but pitches well outside leg and comes back to hit middle and off.

YouTube - Wrist Spin Overspun Leg Break
this is a mildly overspun leg break, a little bit of drift, pitching outside leg and coming back to hit off stump.

YouTube - Wrist Spin Overspun Leg Break - Drift and Turn
same as above, but drifts across the stumps, pitches inline with leg stump and turns back to well outside off.

YouTube - Wrist Spin Overspun Leg Break - Huge Drift and Bounce
same again, but this one has massive drift and lots of bounce as well.

YouTube - Wrist Spin Overspun Leg Break Close-up
this is a close up of an overspun leg break, note the additional bounce compared to the square leg breaks.

YouTube - Wrist Spin Slider
this is my round-the-loop slider (try picking it out of the hand!!! it looks near enough identical to my leg break because of the fast wrist flick to generate the backspin :D). it goes fairly straight (this one has a very small amount of leg break to it) but stays very low. watch carefully - the ball pitches, bounces very flat, but then it drops again VERY sharply. this is the best part of this delivery. the backspun flipper will stay low, but it doesnt have the shape to the bounce, it doesnt drop sharply after the bounce, it just skids through.

YouTube - Wrist Spin Slider Gone Wrong Close-up
this is what happens when the slider comes out wrong, and turns into a big leg break that stays very low. this one had quite a bit of side spin, it wasnt really a slider at all, just a heavily backspun leg break. but i was attempting a slider when i bowled this.


unfortunately i couldnt get a decent shot of my other variations. i want to try and get a top spinner, off-spun flipper, back-spun flipper, a better shot of my round-the-loop slider, scrambled seam slider (i could have done this today but didnt want to waste effort, its the easiest of all to bowl lol), and maybe a zooter too.

obviously you can see my action from behind in most of the videos above. here is a video of my action from sort of in front (more like 45 degrees). because of the angle my stepping across at the point of delivery looks a little more exaggerated than it actually is. i think maybe i need to remove this aspect of my action though and get more momentum going forwards, on the other hand it aids my rotation and generates more revolutions on the ball.
YouTube - 20090925132337

also, here is a video from yesterday evening which shows the revolutions fairly well, its in 1/25 speed, spinning at about 1350rpm. when im spinning the ball between my hands i can only manage around 1200rpm. ive been saying the whole time that im sure i can generate more revs when i actually bowl as im using a lot more of the "levers", and this serves as some form of proof of that. also yesterday i was bowling nowhere near as well as i did today, but the light levels were too high to get any really good shots of the ball with tape on it to calculate the RPM. so in theory today i should have been generating more revs. on some of the deliveries you can see the light reflect off the ball and see how fast it is spinning. bearing in mind they are all in slow motion!
YouTube - 20090924181742

please let me know your thoughts and suggestions. im fairly comfortable in my action and know its strengths and weaknesses and areas id like to adjust and improve. but it never hurts to hear other peoples thoughts, im certainly willing to try most suggestions.
 
Re: my leg spin bowling - slow motion video analysis

Yeah I reckon you've set a pretty decent standard there for me to supercede! But I reckon they could be bettered even by yourself. Jim with respect I'm not that interested with seeing the end result, I know you bowl sliders and Leg Breaks and you yourself know when you're bowling well and not so well. What I'm looking for is the technical details of the release, the position of the wrist at release and evidence of the Big Flick which I'm becoming ever sceptical about even exists in most peoples bowling.

Continued on the wrist spin page..........
 
Re: my leg spin bowling - slow motion video analysis

Awesome videos,great turn. I think if you get your consistency you will be a big handful. A couple of comments on the action that I noted where that you do not use your left/leading hand much as it falls away, and then your left hand opens up to the side rather than tucks in to the left side of your left ribs. I think if you sort that out you will get much more consistency and spray the ball less down the two sides of the wicket. Turn does not seem to be a problem for you, those are my impressions, but I am no spin doctor alas. We are in the age of cloning, so maybe getting dave with his accuracy and googly and you with your fine legbreak and mixing your genes we will get an awesome leg break/googly/mystery ball bowler. I will work on it
 
Re: my leg spin bowling - slow motion video analysis

sadspinner;366672 said:
A couple of comments on the action that I noted where that you do not use your left/leading hand much as it falls away, and then your left hand opens up to the side rather than tucks in to the left side of your left ribs. I think if you sort that out you will get much more consistency and spray the ball less down the two sides of the wicket.
Click to expand...

im in 2 minds on where my arm should end up. you watch Shane Warne early in his career and his arm was very much tucked in, and would only wander out from his body at the end of his follow through. later in his career he had it out the side a lot more, the same way as i do.

my personal thoughts are that having my arm well out and rotating it through fully generates lots of body rotation, this in turn generates spin. ive always had the mentality that accuracy will come with practice, and that i should look to spin the ball as hard as possible all the time and just be patient with the accuracy and consistency aspect.

on the other hand, if i could tidy up that arm and still generate the same revolutions on the ball and also improve accuracy (which is markedly improving week by week) then its possibly worth playing with.

one thing i do want to alter is to get my leading arm rotating over more after i bring it away from my face/chest rather than throwing it forwards horizontally and then downwards and around. at the moment its kind of broken up into 2 movements, it needs to be a single flowing movement.

my left arm plays a more important role in my action than the videos maybe demonstrate though. in terms of what i can feel physically that is. its key to the revs on the ball, its key to my balance (maybe if i stop stepping across myself i wont be off balance and wont need the arm out so wide to counteract this?), and it forces my right arm to follow through so my hand ends up down by my left hip. note the fingers at the end of the action, they are in the same positions as when im spinning between hands lol.
 
Re: my leg spin bowling - slow motion video analysis

wow great videos. love the action and u get nice turn and bounce. ur action is great too. ur slider looks similar to ur leggie
 
Re: my leg spin bowling - slow motion video analysis

I think that your action looks sound, apart from your front arm. You need to get much more out of it and also have it pointing up to the sky then pulling down, now just twisting off to the side.
 
Re: my leg spin bowling - slow motion video analysis

someblokecalleddave;366670 said:
Yeah I reckon you've set a pretty decent standard there for me to supercede! But I reckon they could be bettered even by yourself. Jim with respect I'm not that interested with seeing the end result, I know you bowl sliders and Leg Breaks and you yourself know when you're bowling well and not so well. What I'm looking for is the technical details of the release, the position of the wrist at release and evidence of the Big Flick which I'm becoming ever sceptical about even exists in most peoples bowling.

Continued on the wrist spin page..........
Click to expand...

i figured out a way to edit the video and resave it without any compression that is still YouTube compatible (it turns out the raw files off the camcorder are actually the preferred YouTube HD format anyway!!) so ive managed to produce a full quality version of the revolutions and release video. it was still shot in low light conditions though so still isnt perfect.

YouTube - Untitled2

make sure you watch it in HD on YouTube though. its in 1/16 speed which is as slow as i can get it without quality loss. its slow enough to see the full action though. you can see the big flick of the wrist very clearly (so it does exist in my bowling), you can see the fingers unfurl, and then the revolutions on the ball. the tape is perpendicular to the seam halfway down once side, so you can see in this video that the seam is bolt upright with a very small amount of overspin.

i plan to get some even better videos similar to this one. but this is the best example of the release ive got thus far.

i also had a brainwave today. the red balls arent contrasting enough compared to the greeny brown tree background behind the nets. so its hard to properly see the ball, and the video seems to lose the edges so you cant see anything that clearly. ideally i think either a white sheet hung at the back of the nets or using a very brightly coloured ball (dayglow pink or orange maybe) is probably the solution. the local cricket shop only had white balls in adult size though, but with a black seam, so hopefully that might work. i also though that maybe yellow/green striped insulating tape might be easier to pick up as well, so ive prepped one ball with it perpendicular to the seam, one ball with it perpendicular to the seam and also wrapped around the seam, and the white ball with black tape perpendicular. hopefully that will be easier to see on the next videos. i should have some more video sometime this week.
 
Re: my leg spin bowling - slow motion video analysis

major update, ive got a load more videos. unfortunately i wasnt bowling particularly well today though, the added pressure of knowing ive got 2 spare hours and i need to get some perfect video doesnt help either. i bowl much better when im relaxed.

anyhow, since i was bowling badly, and also because someblokecalleddave has been hassling me about close up shots of my hand during delivery, i focussed most of my attention on this aspect of the filming. i found that if i tipped the camera sideways on the tripod i could capture a lot of the action and still be zoomed in quite close. there are a variety of different zoom levels, but some really good videos.

mostly they are just leg breaks. my slider wasnt working at all today so the videos were rubbish. however i managed to bowl a few of my off-spinning flippers!! my new white ball is a revelation!! i put black insulating tape around the seam, and perpendicular to the seam. in hindsight it needs a different colour for each because it gets confusing, il get some red tape too. you can actually see the seam position and the rotation PERFECTLY whilst youre bowling (without even needing slow motion camera), so everyone needs to buy a white ball immediately for practice. the only downside is that the tape is super slippery and thus the seam doesnt grip that well. i was still turning it around corners on the good deliveries mind, but it would have turned even more without the tape :D

heres the videos though with the relevant description/discussion of each one...

first up some close up videos. the first 2 are both 90 degree leg breaks, i was constantly varying the camera angle to make sure i captured some useful action because its hard to tell when youre looking at the videos on a tiny LCD screen. these 2 are both close-ups that only really show the hand, not the full arm and body.

YouTube - Wrist Spin Bowling - Leg Break Action Closeup 1 (slow motion)
YouTube - Wrist Spin Bowling - Leg Break Action Closeup 2 (slow motion)

then theres a video of an overspun leg break, this time shot with the camera tipped sideways so that it captures the full action.

YouTube - Wrist Spin Bowling - Overspun Leg Break Action Closeup 1 (slow motion)

and then a 90 degree leg break at the same camera angle

YouTube - Wrist Spin Bowling - Leg Break Action Closeup 3 (slow motion)


the rest of the videos are shot from a wider angle so you can see the full delivery.

there are 2 90 degree leg breaks

YouTube - Wrist Spin Bowling - Square Leg Break 1 (slow motion)
YouTube - Wrist Spin Bowling - Square Leg Break 2 (slow motion)

followed by 3 overspun leg breaks

YouTube - Wrist Spin Bowling - Overspun Leg Break 1 (slow motion)
YouTube - Wrist Spin Bowling - Overspun Leg Break 2 (slow motion)
YouTube - Wrist Spin Bowling - Overspun Leg Break 3 (slow motion)

and then onto some variatons. first up is my back spinning flipper. because there is tape on the seam and the flipper is basically resisting the natural motion of the ball (not simply adding some sideways movement to it, its trying to stop the ball off the pitch) the tape stopped the ball from gripping, so it doesnt stay low like it normally would, it just skids off the pitch. as you can see there are substantial revolutions on the ball (850rpm by my count), normally this one would have gone through about halfway up the stumps. its got a very small amount of off spin on it as well.

YouTube - Wrist Spin Bowling - Flipper (slow motion)

and then the infamous overspun off break flipper. at least thats what i thought!! when i bowl, i have a picture in my head of what the ball is doing out of my hand. i position my hand as i deliver the ball to do what i want it to do. there are 2 deliveries where my arm just doesnt do what i think it is doing. one is the wrong'un, my arm delivers it as a giant leg break because my shoulder tries to correct itself instead of doing what i want it to do (the opposite of the googly syndrome lol, ive got leg break syndrome!!). my "overspun" flipper is similar, my arm reverts to a leg break angle, as does my wrist, which results in it actually being a backspun flipper almost identical to my normal flipper, but with a bit more side spin. sometimes i can get it to turn quite big, today it would only turn small, but it turns all the same. kind of annoying that its not overspun though, upto now it was impossible to tell because it turns back in, and the seam is always slightly scrambled (some times more than others). slow motion video has set the record straight though

YouTube - Wrist Spin Bowling - Off-Spinning Flipper (slow motion)


thats all the videos. you should be able to clearly see the finger release and the seam positions in every one. most of the balls have tape on the seam and also perpendicular to it. one of the balls only has tape perpendicular. you may have to watch carefully to see which piece of tape is the seam though. once your eyes pick it up its obvious. make sure you watch the videos in HD!!

let me know your thoughts and comments. i think those are the last videos il make this year, filming my bowling is hindering my development because i spend all my time trying to impress the camera lol, and not enough time ironing out the issues. ive got all the video i need now to analyse my action, so i need to get back to practicing and then il take some more videos next spring i think to compare to. unless i decide i need to check some other aspect of my bowling in the meantime.
 
Re: my leg spin bowling - slow motion video analysis

sadspinner;366672 said:
A couple of comments on the action that I noted where that you do not use your left/leading hand much as it falls away, and then your left hand opens up to the side rather than tucks in to the left side of your left ribs. I think if you sort that out you will get much more consistency and spray the ball less down the two sides of the wicket.
Click to expand...

i tried this today and the results were encouraging. more turn, more drift, better accuracy. and i wasnt even bowling remotely well. so this is definitely something that warrants further investigation in future practices.
 
Re: my leg spin bowling - slow motion video analysis

I don't know what to say about your concerns with not having a wrong un. I think in the long run if you were to lose your Leg Break in learning the Wrong Un you'd be gutted. I think it's better to have a weak Wrong Un but a good solid Leg Break than the other way round. For me now having bowled the Leg Break 95% of the time since April when I finally got it back, I still go through that process you've just spoken about about with your Off-break Flipper. Every time I bowl a Leg Break it's a traumatic experience, it's not yet embedded in my brain and muscle memory that this is my natural bowling action, so every time I bowl it I have to focus and concentrate and pre-visualise what my wrist is doing and how my hand is supposed to look as I release. Honestly it's not a place you want to go, even now when I bowl the wrong un - it is so natural, so fluid and rips out of the hand with such great ease and it would take an hour or so for me to bowl it with accuracy but give me the same sensation with the Leg Break any day and I'd swap it.
 
Re: my leg spin bowling - slow motion video analysis

someblokecalleddave;367864 said:
I don't know what to say about your concerns with not having a wrong un. I think in the long run if you were to lose your Leg Break in learning the Wrong Un you'd be gutted. I think it's better to have a weak Wrong Un but a good solid Leg Break than the other way round. For me now having bowled the Leg Break 95% of the time since April when I finally got it back, I still go through that process you've just spoken about about with your Off-break Flipper. Every time I bowl a Leg Break it's a traumatic experience, it's not yet embedded in my brain and muscle memory that this is my natural bowling action, so every time I bowl it I have to focus and concentrate and pre-visualise what my wrist is doing and how my hand is supposed to look as I release. Honestly it's not a place you want to go, even now when I bowl the wrong un - it is so natural, so fluid and rips out of the hand with such great ease and it would take an hour or so for me to bowl it with accuracy but give me the same sensation with the Leg Break any day and I'd swap it.
Click to expand...

for sure i wouldnt want to lose my leg break. on the other hand, your wrong'un is good enough that you could probably become an off spinner with it lol. unconventional bowlers tend to take loads of wickets. think Murali, Mendis, and Kumble (off spinner, who-knows-what spinner, top spinner).

i was thinking about this earlier, and it clicked that when you hear professionals with the full repertoire talk about their deliveries, you never hear any of them saying how they had the full repertoire within a year of starting to bowl. they develop the deliveries gradually over very long periods of time, some of them take their entire career to learn a single delivery (Benaud and the flipper for example). even the great man Warne was into his international career before he added most of his best variations (some of which he also lost throughout his career, the zooter came and went for example, his wrong'un was never great and after his shoulder injury was barely more than a top spinner), and i believe Grimmett took an equally long time to add some of his.

so maybe im trying to get ahead of myself. my leg break is working nicely, it needs work still but its getting there. i also have a few variations that do work. maybe its a positive thing that my muscle memory is already fixed on leg breaks though. its definitely better than it being vice versa.
 
Re: my leg spin bowling - slow motion video analysis

I used to argue that point (Off-spinner) and say that I was a Googy Bowler, but eveyone without exception that new anything about cricket said 'If you're a Wrist Spinner, you've got to have a Leg Break - it's your stock ball'. So being a Googly Bowler is like being eunuch - don't do it to yourself!!!!
 
Re: my leg spin bowling - slow motion video analysis

I seem to remember Cameron White, when he came on the international scene, was an all-rounder who bowled googlies as his stock ball and leg spinners as his wrong 'un.

I was actually quite looking forward to watching a bit of him in the recent series (and Rashid) but although he was in every game they didn't bowl him once, and prefered clarke as the "very much part time" spinner if they needed one.

That doesn't speak well of being a googly bowler, if they'd prefer a 80-20 bat/bowler's off spinners over (what was) a genuine 50-50 all rounders googly bowling.

As I remember in the couple of games several years ago that I saw him do it he didn't get big turn and got smashed around a bit.

Looking at his averages at Cameron White | Australia Cricket | Cricket Players and Officials | Cricinfo.com (Where h's listed as "Bowling Style: Googly Legbreak") he's got 5 wickets in tests at 68.40 over 8 innings. His ODI's are 12 wickets in 18 inns in 40 matches at 28.75 (but 6.36 RPO).

Ah, what might have been if he'd read these threads as a youn 'un and become a "proper" legpsinner !

Yours,

TGP
 
Re: my leg spin bowling - slow motion video analysis

Hey GREAT VIDEOS!!

As they say in baseball, you can't coach any bowler without video because without it then all you're doing is guessing.

I understood from reading the thread that you have problems with consistency? Two things.... the take-away... and your legs. The close-ups are good, but really what happens up there is controlled by what happens down below. If we don't see your leg work then all we can assume is that you're an arm bowler.... and that can really cause elbow and shoulder problems.

Hence looking at YouTube - 20090925132337.....

The take-back for bowling, for golf, and for baseball for so many sports is so often forgotten. It is the most critical part of control. Think of Shane Warne... or watch him... YouTube - Warne to Strauss.
He brings his indiosyncratic bicep curl, but then just before the upswing he brings his arm from wide.... down next to his body. He take-backs his arm from leg to off. You actually do it too!!! But it's less pronounced. From your video at time 0:03 to 0:05, your arm moves slightly into your body just before you deliver it. Make that more pronounced, make the arm movement more pronounced. That may mean you have to bring your arm out wider - and that in turn could also mean you end up spinning the ball more! Spin and control.... ooooooo

Next is your leg work - well it's not really leg work, but synchronisation of leg work with arm work. Your arm moves up twice.... once at around 4 seconds and then again at around 6 seconds. The first is accompanied by a nice jump.... GOOD! The second upswing should have a HUGE leg drive. This gives you more momentum, more speed, and less chance of wrank long hops. Mark Nicholas always says that when Shane Warne is bowling well his leg drive or that flick of his leg at the end of his stride is up and energetic..... that's because he's pushing with enormous amounts of energy with his leg and hence must follow through.

What do you do? Your heel is up!!! You are pushing upwards with just about 30% of your foot. You lose a HUGE amount of energy that could help you push up and over your front leg. With more energy pointed at the batsman you will get much better control of line, length, and speed - and hence another weapon in your arsenal.... be aware of it and you seemingly gain natural change of pace.

I would also say the effort with your front arm is a bit weak. HAHA.... but honestly it doesn't do as much as people say it does. It's just for control, and to get yourself into a position after you deliver to field the ball hit back at you. Have your front arm taken from your right hip and just bring it across your waist as you bowl with your arm making sort of an L shape with your elbow. Feel a force coming from your elbow towards where you want to bowl and you will bowl it there - your elbow controls your bowling arm. Then when you finish tuck it in like Glenn Mcgrath. This helps to balance your body so that when you finish bowling you are ready to field the ball hit straight back at you.

There's also other stuff - like bracing your front knee more. Getting into a more athletic posture... i.e. not so upright, but more knee bend and more torso lean. But really get more video of your entire body bowling with sort of a picture of how the ball was bowled -like a split picture to see how your mechanics cause a particular effect.

Good luck... good bowling... and hopefully a lot of good sloggers to bowl to.
 
Re: my leg spin bowling - slow motion video analysis

doctortran;371572 said:
Hey GREAT VIDEOS!!

As they say in baseball, you can't coach any bowler without video because without it then all you're doing is guessing.

I understood from reading the thread that you have problems with consistency? Two things.... the take-away... and your legs. The close-ups are good, but really what happens up there is controlled by what happens down below. If we don't see your leg work then all we can assume is that you're an arm bowler.... and that can really cause elbow and shoulder problems.

Hence looking at YouTube - 20090925132337.....

The take-back for bowling, for golf, and for baseball for so many sports is so often forgotten. It is the most critical part of control. Think of Shane Warne... or watch him... YouTube - Warne to Strauss.
He brings his indiosyncratic bicep curl, but then just before the upswing he brings his arm from wide.... down next to his body. He take-backs his arm from leg to off. You actually do it too!!! But it's less pronounced. From your video at time 0:03 to 0:05, your arm moves slightly into your body just before you deliver it. Make that more pronounced, make the arm movement more pronounced. That may mean you have to bring your arm out wider - and that in turn could also mean you end up spinning the ball more! Spin and control.... ooooooo

Next is your leg work - well it's not really leg work, but synchronisation of leg work with arm work. Your arm moves up twice.... once at around 4 seconds and then again at around 6 seconds. The first is accompanied by a nice jump.... GOOD! The second upswing should have a HUGE leg drive. This gives you more momentum, more speed, and less chance of wrank long hops. Mark Nicholas always says that when Shane Warne is bowling well his leg drive or that flick of his leg at the end of his stride is up and energetic..... that's because he's pushing with enormous amounts of energy with his leg and hence must follow through.

What do you do? Your heel is up!!! You are pushing upwards with just about 30% of your foot. You lose a HUGE amount of energy that could help you push up and over your front leg. With more energy pointed at the batsman you will get much better control of line, length, and speed - and hence another weapon in your arsenal.... be aware of it and you seemingly gain natural change of pace.

I would also say the effort with your front arm is a bit weak. HAHA.... but honestly it doesn't do as much as people say it does. It's just for control, and to get yourself into a position after you deliver to field the ball hit back at you. Have your front arm taken from your right hip and just bring it across your waist as you bowl with your arm making sort of an L shape with your elbow. Feel a force coming from your elbow towards where you want to bowl and you will bowl it there - your elbow controls your bowling arm. Then when you finish tuck it in like Glenn Mcgrath. This helps to balance your body so that when you finish bowling you are ready to field the ball hit straight back at you.

There's also other stuff - like bracing your front knee more. Getting into a more athletic posture... i.e. not so upright, but more knee bend and more torso lean. But really get more video of your entire body bowling with sort of a picture of how the ball was bowled -like a split picture to see how your mechanics cause a particular effect.

Good luck... good bowling... and hopefully a lot of good sloggers to bowl to.
Click to expand...

thanks for the advice, all seems like pretty sound stuff, not things i had necessarily thought about myself but they all sound as though they would contribute to an improvement in my bowling. i think i can see what you mean on every point, im just going to try and clarify though...

1. my bowling arm - i can see what you mean about the bicep curl, Warne has his shoulder rotated outwards more, so his bicep curl is wider, and then he tucks his elbow back into his ribs the same as i do. i guess this widens the angle of the overall arm rotation and will imcrease the wrist "snap" at release. its definitely worth me trying.

2. the leg drive - i had one for a while! when i first figured out my leg work i discovered that a solidly braced front leg made a massive improvement to my bowling, and that a hard follow through over the leg increased my speed, accuracy, length, spin, basically everything! however ive kinda lost it as ive gone on. its too easy for the body to simply revert to what is comfortable, and if its working well then i guess the mind doesnt try to correct it. its something i need to force myself to do, especially since i want to add 10mph to my pace over the winter. im around 35mph at present, i want that up at 43-48mph by next season without losing any of the turn off the pitch.

3. leading arm - it kinda does what it wants to do, always has. ive been working on this in my last couple of sessions, and within a few minutes of trying the L-shaped elbow tuck method i was able to generate much more turn on a wet nets pitch that wasnt really turning!! so it definitely needs improving as the results are already very plain to see. i dont necessarily do it how you describe though, i do it more like Warne at the start of his career. the leading arm is L-shaped with my hand in front of my face, elbow pointing forwards, as my bowling arm comes over i tuck the leading arm downwards so that my elbow literally pokes into my hip, my forearm then rotates outwards from the elbow, and then the whole arm rotates out from the shoulder to get my shoulders/chest to follow through the rotational motion. my end position is still fairly similar to what it is in the videos, but my body is much more compact during my delivery and then the final follow through expands more explosively. hence i generate more spin on the ball, and more pace. accuracy seems fairly unchanged, but my accuracy in general is getting better all the time now so i dont see it as an issue at present. simply practicing a couple of times a week all through winter is going to sort the accuracy, my primary goals are more spin and more pace, with more consistency off the pitch (e.g. i want every leg break to turn, on ANY surface, i dont want 1 out of 3 to skid on straight in the nets and 2 out of 3 on a proper wicket. which is how it has been upto now)

thanks very much for your advice though, it has all been taken on board, il have a play with it at my next practice. i havent touched a cricket ball in 2 weeks due to work commitments. so im hoping the break will allow me to get back to my basic action without any of the bad habits i had started to develop whilst trying to get good videos.
 
Re: my leg spin bowling - slow motion video analysis

Doctortran, you sound like you know about this stuff, you should come over to the wrist spin thread and join in with the comments, it sounds like you'd be able to teach us some stuff and give some of us some good advice?
 
Re: my leg spin bowling - slow motion video analysis

Sorry to rake up an old post, but I've noticed something in the ultra slow-mo video

In both leg break and over spun leg break, the ball leaves the hand after it rotates over the ring finger, but doesn't even come into contact with little finger.
I've always thought that all the fingers should help spin the ball, so ball should come out from behind the little finger.

I felt that when it comes out of the ring finger, ball tends to slide a lot more than spin. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but would love to hear your thoughts
 
Re: my leg spin bowling - slow motion video analysis

shrek;398627 said:
Sorry to rake up an old post, but I've noticed something in the ultra slow-mo video

In both leg break and over spun leg break, the ball leaves the hand after it rotates over the ring finger, but doesn't even come into contact with little finger.
I've always thought that all the fingers should help spin the ball, so ball should come out from behind the little finger.

I felt that when it comes out of the ring finger, ball tends to slide a lot more than spin. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but would love to hear your thoughts
Click to expand...

My 4th finger is a prop for finger 3. For leg break the ball feels like it is spins out of 3rd finger and that finger touches the ball last. If I want to bowl a wrongun then I think of it leaving the 4th finger even though finger 3 imparts the spin. For the wrongun finger 4 is last to touch the ball but only barely.

One of the reasons kids get wrongun syndrome is they hold the ball with all their fingers naturally because the ball is relatively big for them and this can lead to wrongun with the 4th finger sperated from 3rd.
 
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