Speed Vs Spin

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Young_Desy

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Hi all,

Sorry it's been a while since I last posted but ive got a niggling problem that I need to address, regarding the optimum speed at which to successfully bowl a stock leg break.
After a good start to the cricket season which yielded several wickets, I was taken apart by a top batsmen, and hit for many sixes.
After this plastering I came to the opinion that the reason I was hit was because I simply bowled too slow, and that any batmen could handle my pace.
I reverted to quickening the pace at which I bowled legbreaks believing that I would be harder to face with the extra speed. If only I could have realised what I was doing, as increasing the pace is possibly the worst thing I could have done.
These new quicker legbreaks or 'Darts' simply skidded onto the batsmen at a gentle pace, and came well of the bat. I was milked for many runs. The the increased speed also resulted in less turn as there was less time for the ball to grip on the surface of the pitch, as well as less loop, flight and drift.
After recently reading Peter Philpotts book and several articles across this thread, and other websites ( I found this one particularly useful http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/510863.html) I quickly found out what I was doing run. However I am now struggling to get out of the habit of trying to bowl to fast and the beliefs the "More speed = More turn, and harder to face".
Any ideas or personnel experiences on finding the right mix would be much appreciated.

Thanks
 
Young_Desy said:
Hi all,

Sorry it's been a while since I last posted but ive got a niggling problem that I need to address, regarding the optimum speed at which to successfully bowl a stock leg break.
After a good start to the cricket season which yielded several wickets, I was taken apart by a top batsmen, and hit for many sixes.
After this plastering I came to the opinion that the reason I was hit was because I simply bowled too slow, and that any batmen could handle my pace.
I reverted to quickening the pace at which I bowled legbreaks believing that I would be harder to face with the extra speed. If only I could have realised what I was doing, as increasing the pace is possibly the worst thing I could have done.
These new quicker legbreaks or 'Darts' simply skidded onto the batsmen at a gentle pace, and came well of the bat. I was milked for many runs. The the increased speed also resulted in less turn as there was less time for the ball to grip on the surface of the pitch, as well as less loop, flight and drift.
After recently reading Peter Philpotts book and several articles across this thread, and other websites ( I found this one particularly useful http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/510863.html) I quickly found out what I was doing run. However I am now struggling to get out of the habit of trying to bowl to fast and the beliefs the "More speed = More turn, and harder to face".
Any ideas or personnel experiences on finding the right mix would be much appreciated.

Thanks
Click to expand...

That article is talking about top class bowlers whose slower balls are still 80kph where they have the ability to bowl "darts" at 90kph plus. Not a huge diffence there.
I think there is a mininmum speed that you must be able to bowl depending the level you are playing at and the skill of the batsman you are facing. If you bowl too slow, no matter that they are landing on the spot and even turning a mile they are still easy to play and any good batsman will get to the pitch of it and belt you out of the park.
The pace I aim to bowl at is as fast as I can without losing the shape in the delivery. That is still getting it above the batsmans eyes and getting the ball to dip. Of course the more revs you put on the ball the faster you can bowl and still keep shape in the delivery.
The best bowlers in the world start to lose the shape in their delivery when they push up to 90kph so I guess you could say its a physical impossibility to get enough revs on the ball and keep shape in the delivey after that.
 
Yes, definately,
I could be found guilty of trying to emulate the speeds of top class spinners who bowl late 70's to ealry 90 kms. Trying to bowl this fast so early on in a wrist spining career can lead to trouble. However sometimes I get the impression that the faster I bowl, the more revs I am putting on it, however this is not the case.
 
chippyben said:
The best bowlers in the world start to lose the shape in their delivery when they push up to 90kph so I guess you could say its a physical impossibility to get enough revs on the ball and keep shape in the delivey after that.
Click to expand...

apart from Shahid Afridi, who on sub-continental wickets will still turn the ball miles at well over 100kph!!

as for the original question though, this is something I spent all of last season messing with, and finally cracked it over the winter (well, I've figured out what I need to do, I'm still nowhere near fully achieving it).

basically, you have a "natural" speed at which to bowl, where your action works best. this is dependant primarily on physical conditioning, and technique. you'll notice that it isn't always the biggest strongest guys that bowl the fastest, certainly with spinners you will often see a tiny guy bowling pretty quick spin deliveries whilst larger men are slower. this is a question of technique and ability.

your action will be where it is based on your technique and your physical strength (in specific areas, as you use fairly specialised muscle groups for bowling). trying to force the ball out faster than is natural will result in you throwing up darts that rarely turn, lack spin, lack a clean seam, and thus you lose out on the flight effects somewhat too. this is exactly what you have found, and what I found when I tried it last season. as soon as you take pace back off the ball everything clicks, but then a batsman dispatches you and suddenly you're left chasing pace again.

my first port of call was the gym. I joined up last September thinking that if I strengthened up my core, back and shoulders, I would suddenly be able to find the 10mph I was looking for (my stock speed was probably around 35mph at the time). sure enough, after just a few sessions at the gym I was noticing the results and a few winter indoor net practices looked extremely promising. I was forever over-pitching with similar flight to before, indicating I had found lots more power.

It was only whilst watching the cricket world cup though recently that I truly realised where I was going wrong. I saw a slow motion side-shot of the Indian spinner Ashwin, and noticed how he was hitting pretty quick speeds with seemingly no effort (no more than I put in). how was he doing this? so I asked Liz Ward how the pros get so much pace from actions (and bodies) with no more strength than my own. and she gave me some advice on basically taking my shoulders out of the equation, and using my "back" muscles to do the work. I think the key is probably the Scapula and its related muscles, but I dont fully understand the mechanics yet. but basically if you pinch your shoulder blades together, then drop them down, and pull your neck back (without arching your back, or pushing your chest out), you then use the correct muscles to deliver the ball, and in doing so I found 4mph overnight. developing it further (which has proven trickier than that initial epiphany moment, further progress is harder to come by) I am gaining pace all the time. and in improving some other areas of my action that I already understood it is getting much more energetic.

at whatever level you play your cricket, batsmen will tend to be of a certain standard. the really good ones will seem to handle you comfortably even if you land the ball on the money every time, if it is slow enough that they can make time to play it. you cant really change that, you simply have to set your field accordingly, keep putting the ball on the spot, and wait for the inevitable mistake (which WILL come, its a question of "when" not "if". "when" might be in 10 overs, by which time you might have been taken off though haha).

if batsmen are using their feet to waltz down the wicket to the pitch of the ball then you can sometimes try dropping a yard or 2 shorter every now and again. if you do it every ball they'll play you off the back foot instead, but with revs on the ball and overspin/underspin you can alter the pitch of the ball with the same initial flight. so even the best batsmen cant fully judge the pitching point, and you'll cause problems that way. my club has such a batsmen (who probably plays 3 or 4 divisions below his true ability) and in pre-season nets I was using this exact tactic, and I'd get his wicket every time. he might hit me for a few 4's and 6's first, but eventually he would misjudge one. and he wasn't being at all aggressive, just playing every ball on merit!

hope that helps you a bit. its just how I've handled the same dilemma really. some days you will get carted, thats the nature of leg spin. just keep your head up, see the funny side, and keep pitching it up there on a driving length at your natural pace. the rest is pretty much down to good field settings and knowing when to use the variations.
 
Blimey, I'm just off out, but Jim's just thrown a bunch of spanners into what is already the most difficult thing to do in cricket!!! Now I've got to think about pinching me shoulder blades together as well!!!!!:eek:
 
someblokecalleddave said:
Blimey, I'm just off out, but Jim's just thrown a bunch of spanners into what is already the most difficult thing to do in cricket!!! Now I've got to think about pinching me shoulder blades together as well!!!!!:eek:
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I think pinching your shoulders together is just about getting better posture of the upper body through the action. Dr tran mentioned having a good strong posture to me ages ago. I wondered what the hell Jim was on about so I stood up and did it and voila! thats the answer, just got to it in different ways.
 
It is more than 'pinching' your shoulder blades together. If you follow through the whole of the movement Jim described, it is about engaging the correct muscles for the work... more like 'forcing' the correct muscles to do the work. Too many cricketers, throwers, bowlers and batsmen, make their shoulder joint cope with mobility and stability. They are not designed to do both tasks so work result is reduced. It also causes most RC injuries, particularly with throwing!
 
Liz Ward said:
It is more than 'pinching' your shoulder blades together. If you follow through the whole of the movement Jim described, it is about engaging the correct muscles for the work... more like 'forcing' the correct muscles to do the work. Too many cricketers, throwers, bowlers and batsmen, make their shoulder joint cope with mobility and stability. They are not designed to do both tasks so work result is reduced. It also causes most RC injuries, particularly with throwing!
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Jim- what you said seems very very relevant to throwing. We need to train a new team this year and for a lot of people the techniques are poor and there is no power in those throws.

Liz-If you can let me know some way where we can make everyone use back muscles more, if there are exercises - I will try to ensure everyone in our team does it and we will have fewer injuries. A few pictures to explain the same would be great.
 
Young_Desy said:
Hi all,
Any ideas or personnel experiences on finding the right mix would be much appreciated.

Thanks
Click to expand...

I think you have to realize a few things about bowling. Good offense always beats good defense. If Dhoni decides to smack you out of the park and executes it then good work by him. If you get hit for sixes then well done to the batsman. You cannot help it when a batsman walks in, is in form, has his balance perfect, and seeing the ball like a watermelon.

Making radical changes because of the work of one batsman -- that is the ultimate victory for all batsman. Get one person to destroy you and have the rest feast on your lack of confidence (this is a part of batting partnerships). This predicament is even worse because it affects your psychology.

When you bowl you CANNOT think about the past. You have so many different things to do when you bowl -- you have to plan and you have to set fields, you have to work through your mechanics (I think I could list 20 to 30 facets of bowling mechanics) -- you cannot consciously think about changing your bowling for something that traumatized you in the past! How can anyone work while thinking simultaneously about the past, present and future?

That is why experience is so crucial to a leg-spinner. Warne and Kumble knew what to do in situations where they faced six hitting batsman because they not only planned previously, they not only had confidence in their fields, they not only had amazing confidence in their mechanics -- but transcendently so that they didn't even need to think at the point of delivery.

McGrath is amazing because he puts a song in his head and bowls -- and I doubt he's still singing to himself at ball release.

At the start of your run up think of your plan and then forget to think... and just bowl. And remember if you have trouble -- you are supposed to! In baseball you have a catcher who tells you which pitch to throw-- in cricket you have yourself... and that's incredibly hard.

Advice on speed/spin
It depends on your action, what your plans are, and what sort of leg spinning background you come from. However when I read what you post I think you must have a very different action. It is soooooo difficult to bowl pure wrist spin and automatically bowl it faster. I mean that's one of Terry Jenner's big points about leg spin -- a leg spinner unlike a finger spinner cannot just bowl 10 mph faster by bowling harder! If you find you are not spinning it, and especially if you are not imparting any sort of over-spin on the ball to deceive in flight.... then you are just bowling slow mediums. Might as well bowl seam up.
 
It is soooooo difficult to bowl pure wrist spin and automatically bowl it faster. I mean that's one of Terry Jenner's big points about leg spin -- a leg spinner unlike a finger spinner cannot just bowl 10 mph faster by bowling harder!
Click to expand...

You raise a valid point. After viewing several of Jim2109 and someblokecalleddave's legreak videos on youtube I am beginning to realise how big a part the cocked wrist plays in the delivery.
I think that a major problem of myself is that I fail to maintain a cocked wrist throughout the delivery, and simply rely on my fingers to impart spin on the delivery, thus I am not truly a wrist spinner but a slow bowler who imparts anti clockwise spin with his fingers
 
Young_Desy said:
You raise a valid point. After viewing several of Jim2109 and someblokecalleddave's legreak videos on youtube I am beginning to realise how big a part the cocked wrist plays in the delivery.
I think that a major problem of myself is that I fail to maintain a cocked wrist throughout the delivery, and simply rely on my fingers to impart spin on the delivery, thus I am not truly a wrist spinner but a slow bowler who imparts anti clockwise spin with his fingers
Click to expand...

I think you should really work on getting the wrist working in the delivery. I can get more spin with just the wrist and not using the fingers at all. If you get both going then you will be amazed at the amount of turn you get on the ball. Just keep the wrist cocked to the last second and it pretty much snaps all by itself.
Having said that your action is probably good for the backspinning deliveries because I find the fingers do most of the work.
 
someblokecalleddave said:
Blimey, I'm just off out, but Jim's just thrown a bunch of spanners into what is already the most difficult thing to do in cricket!!! Now I've got to think about pinching me shoulder blades together as well!!!!!:eek:
Click to expand...

as Liz says, theres loads more to it than that! its about your entire posture, and to get the best results you have to try and live your entire life in this pose!! you think its hard to do whilst bowling, try doing it whilst sitting down at the end of a hard day haha. I am failing a little in this regard, as my lazy hunched back posture wins out every time when I don't consciously think about it, also its really hard not to arch your back or push your chest out, especially if you don't have a solid core (mine is weak). without wanting to sound rude Dave, I'd imagine this is probably more easily executed for younger players than older ones, as old habits die hard, but at the same time it would probably help you as well.

this technique is very hard to implement by yourself, its probably the sort of "advanced" technique that is the difference between professionally trained bowlers and us amateurs (and maybe why there are county leggies that got into county setups as batsmen/seam bowlers, but with a little coaching have ended up as full time leg spinners!). I wouldn't necessarily try it straight away, I don't always do it when I'm bowling at the moment, I can't do it in match situations because I have to seriously think what I am doing, and in matches I just don't have the composure and time to analyse my deliveries with so many other things to consider. its one of those "ideals" to strive for though. much like being able to bowl like Shane Warne!
 
Jim2109 said:
as Liz says, theres loads more to it than that! its about your entire posture, and to get the best results you have to try and live your entire life in this pose!! you think its hard to do whilst bowling, try doing it whilst sitting down at the end of a hard day haha. I am failing a little in this regard, as my lazy hunched back posture wins out every time when I don't consciously think about it, also its really hard not to arch your back or push your chest out, especially if you don't have a solid core (mine is weak). without wanting to sound rude Dave, I'd imagine this is probably more easily executed for younger players than older ones, as old habits die hard, but at the same time it would probably help you as well.

this technique is very hard to implement by yourself, its probably the sort of "advanced" technique that is the difference between professionally trained bowlers and us amateurs (and maybe why there are county leggies that got into county setups as batsmen/seam bowlers, but with a little coaching have ended up as full time leg spinners!). I wouldn't necessarily try it straight away, I don't always do it when I'm bowling at the moment, I can't do it in match situations because I have to seriously think what I am doing, and in matches I just don't have the composure and time to analyse my deliveries with so many other things to consider. its one of those "ideals" to strive for though. much like being able to bowl like Shane Warne!
Click to expand...

My sitting posture is pretty good, people often comment that I sit very up-right, whether that follows through into my bowling or not I'm not sure.
 
Yeah, you've said that you need to see a back view of the bowling because you have issues with the way that I engage my back muscles. I'm just on the verge of shooting another set of vids with the bound from all angles now that my knee is feeling a lot better, the only thing is it's been feeling a bit tender today for no apparent reason? If it gets back on track (The Knee) I'll do some more vids.
 
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