Struggling against spinners

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MrSmilez

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Struggling against spinners

Hey all, as said in the title im getting problems facing leg spinners and offies. I guess my main problem is when i charge at the ball to work it for a 1 or smack it for a 6. I then completely miss it and i'll get stumped by a mile. Also another problem i have is when they bowl it short and it then bounces to around chest height, i then haven't a clue which shot to play. What should i do?
 
Re: Struggling against spinners

For your second problem - if the ball is really bouncing at chest height then leave it. If wide enough to cut or pull then do so, but otherwise safety first. You'll also need to work on judging length - it's a pretty hard skill to master so be prepared to work hard at it.

As for the first problem, could be a number of things but I would guess it's either due to you not keeping your eye on the ball (head not keeping still) or the bat coming down at an angle. You may also be charging down the wicket widely, when you only really need to take a few strides.

Get a video and you'll get more advice - at the moment I can only generalise.
 
Re: Struggling against spinners

speaking as a spinner, and from the perspective of what batsmen do against me which makes them hard to bowl at...

dont charge spinners unless the delivery absolutely warrants it, you are well set and playing a good innings, or you dont care about getting out.

there are very few deliveries that require a charge down the pitch to score runs. if the ball is short enough that you need to take more than 1 stride then it can generally be played comfortably off the back foot. get deep in your crease and work the ball around for singles, or take boundaries where they are on offer.

when the ball is on that good length that makes it hard to play, thats when you need to get forwards. going back will have you in all sorts of trouble, but charging still isnt order of the day. you ONLY need to get to the pitch of the ball, nothing more. and you need to do so in a controlled manner, which more often than not will require either a bit front foot stride, or against a quicker spinner you may have to put a skip in as well. when you see someone like Kevin Pietersen or Michael Clarke waltz down the wicket they are facing 50+mph spin, against club spinners you simply arent dealing with those kind of lengths, you only really need to put in a big front foot stride. if its too short for that then play it off the back foot.

if the ball is bouncing up high on you then either play it high, or get forwards so that youre playing the ball at a more comfortable height. or leave it, since it wont hit your stumps and youre better off leaving a ball than playing a shot you dont have control of and getting caught or stumped.

the best players ive bowled at are ones that dontappear to need to move much. they judge length early and make subtle adjustments to get into position early and then play me with plenty of time. the aggressive batsmen that are hell bent on charging at me are the easiest to get out. footwork doesnt just mean pracing around the wicket for highlight reel on drives. its as much about moving the ball around and making life as difficult as possible for the spinner. the last thing they want is the strike rotating all the time, they want to pin you down at one end and build pressure.
 
Re: Struggling against spinners

MrSmilez;409535 said:
Hey all, as said in the title im getting problems facing leg spinners and offies. I guess my main problem is when i charge at the ball to work it for a 1 or smack it for a 6. I then completely miss it and i'll get stumped by a mile. Also another problem i have is when they bowl it short and it then bounces to around chest height, i then haven't a clue which shot to play. What should i do?
Click to expand...

Dunno if i like the idea of "charge at a ball". I know we say so and so used his feet and charged the spinners, that's ok, but if it is premeditated and reckless well you know it will end in grief.

The biggest mistake made is coming straight down and not getting across, if need be, a bit as well.
 
Re: Struggling against spinners

Charging a spinner is to be only used when a spinner is flighting the ball and you have confidence that you will hit the ball. I have studied attacking batsman such as Andrew Symonds and MS Dhoni, the secret when they come down is before the spinner bowls, they take a step down the wicket and then they can judge the length to use they're feet. Watch a player like AB de Villiers for a good seasoning of using your feet as he uses his feet beautifully.
 
most of the previous post's have pointed out some good ideas for playing spin.

The thing with dancing down the wicket is that it should not be done to any delivery. If it's shorter you can't get to it and you're in trouble. So it's got to be fuller and you are basically negating risk that it will drop on you. This eliminates off-spinners bowling you through the gate etc. Look for the full delivery and then come down.

If you play back because it's short -- play the Bradman way. Most people who read up on Bradman know that he had the most wicked pull shot. I remember a story where he faced an English bowler in a county game who came on to bowl last over before stumps. The question was raised.... are you gonna block the over out? Bradman hit 6 fours each going between midwicket and mid off. If it's short, or even if it's a good length you can step back to hit the pull -- the latter perhaps only if you're Bradman.

Looking to minimize risk? Leave it unless its a flipper.
 
I have two rules of thumb about charging spinners -
1. I don't charge for an attacking shot unless I am sure I can meet the ball on the full
2. If I am being troubled by bounce and/or turn, use the charge defensively to smother the ball and play a safe defensive block

There is an unhealthy culture in Australia that says "you can't be a good player of spin unless you can dance down the wicket and smash it over the bowler's head". Ian Chappel is one who keeps peddling this, and whenever he says "he's a good player of spin" - he really means, "I likes watching him dance down the wicket to play attacking shots." Just because that was his method doesn't mean its the only "good" way to play spin. Let me make it clear - you can be a perfectly good player of spin - a great player even, and never leave the crease. Its purely a matter of personal preference. Here's a tip - try this test in the nets - whenever you feel like charging a ball, see how many of these balls you can play off the back foot. You might be surprised - much of spinners skill is fooling the batsman into thinking that a short of a length ball is a juicy half volley. Once you start playing them off the back foot it really screws their line.

Oh and as for your other problem - if spin bowlers are bouncing it into your chest, then those balls should have "smash me for six" written all over it.
 
MrSmilez said:
Struggling against spinners

Hey all, as said in the title im getting problems facing leg spinners and offies. I guess my main problem is when i charge at the ball to work it for a 1 or smack it for a 6. I then completely miss it and i'll get stumped by a mile. Also another problem i have is when they bowl it short and it then bounces to around chest height, i then haven't a clue which shot to play. What should i do?
Click to expand...
hey smilez, im a leggie myself and the best thing to do is to watch the first few balls. stay in your crease and have a look at his bowling. when you know how much bounce and turn he gets, you can start to work him around. if you wanna charge him then you gotta quickly decide what hes gonna bowl. eg: a leg break, u play with the spin and make sure u keep ur head over the ball. some people try to go for glory and their head is all over the place. make sure that when u charge u are confident of the shot u are playing and how the ball will spin or bounce. hoped this helped
 
Watch how the spinner has been bowling to the other blokes and get a sense of whether he's having a bad day or a good day. If you're facing his first over, see how it goes and if it looks like he's not up to much follow some of the advice above, but if it looks like he's got something about him and there may be a clue in that you're the batsman replacing the bloke he just dismissed then re-consider this approach and come up with another tactic?
 
The thing about spin bowling, is that you cannot belt the ball irrespective of how the bowler is bowling. You have to see what the bowler is bowling, and then act accordingly. When you face fast bowling, you have no time, and when you face spin bowling, you have the most time.The spin bowler gets his wickets, when the batsman decides to play the delivery in a particular manner, before the delivery is bowled, whatever the delivery bowled. I'm talking from experience. There are some spin bowlers whom you don't know anything about. I'm talking about my dad, when I was eleven years old. His speciality was the delivery which hurried on to the bat, after spinning, like Harbhajan and Kumble bowling together. Perhaps, I wasn't a bad player, because I couldn't face one delivery bowled by my dad. I never tried my hand at spin bowling, because no one advised me how to bowl spin.
 
As a spin bowler, I would like to advise all batsmen reading this (particularly the ones in my league), that the best way to play spin is definitely to charge down the track with your eyes shut.
 
gandalf said:
I have two rules of thumb about charging spinners -
1. I don't charge for an attacking shot unless I am sure I can meet the ball on the full
2. If I am being troubled by bounce and/or turn, use the charge defensively to smother the ball and play a safe defensive block

There is an unhealthy culture in Australia that says "you can't be a good player of spin unless you can dance down the wicket and smash it over the bowler's head". Ian Chappel is one who keeps peddling this, and whenever he says "he's a good player of spin" - he really means, "I likes watching him dance down the wicket to play attacking shots." Just because that was his method doesn't mean its the only "good" way to play spin. Let me make it clear - you can be a perfectly good player of spin - a great player even, and never leave the crease. Its purely a matter of personal preference. Here's a tip - try this test in the nets - whenever you feel like charging a ball, see how many of these balls you can play off the back foot. You might be surprised - much of spinners skill is fooling the batsman into thinking that a short of a length ball is a juicy half volley. Once you start playing them off the back foot it really screws their line.

Oh and as for your other problem - if spin bowlers are bouncing it into your chest, then those balls should have "smash me for six" written all over it.
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Not necessarily - if it's come in with loads of over-spin, it may have dipped really late and viciously, you'd have to be a pretty good batsman to hit a six in that kind of scenario. I only ever get hit for six by good batsmen (Blokes that go on to score in excess of 100 and can play everyone) and only on days when I'm bowling badly. My advice is to play defensively with a straight bat;)
 
Being a good player of spin also means using the depth of your crease, being able to go deep and playing off the back foot. I like to feign charging down the track, making the spinner drop it short, and then leaning back and using a cut/pull. As a finger spinner myself, I also have a good idea of when people are feigning down the track, and when they're not! So it's the best of both worlds for me :)
 
I had this problem specially against leggies. A few things that helped me improve:

1) Watch the release of the ball - Avoid stepping out to flat deliveries. Also look out for the direction of the seam - a fairly good indicator of the direction of spin
2) Observe the trajectory - does it looks like forming a nice curve or is there an unusual loop - More loop very often results in sharper dip.
3) Practice play everything in the backfoot in the nets... you might not play all correct shots but it reduces the impulse to down
4) Create a pitch grid in your mind and decide frontfoot play or backfoot play depending upon where the ball lands in your grid.

Practicing these techniques helped me improve from getting out to spinners within an over to successfully negotiate 10-15 overs of spin.
 
bigturner said:
I had this problem specially against leggies. A few things that helped me improve:

1) Watch the release of the ball - Avoid stepping out to flat deliveries. Also look out for the direction of the seam - a fairly good indicator of the direction of spin
2) Observe the trajectory - does it looks like forming a nice curve or is there an unusual loop - More loop very often results in sharper dip.
3) Practice play everything in the backfoot in the nets... you might not play all correct shots but it reduces the impulse to down
4) Create a pitch grid in your mind and decide frontfoot play or backfoot play depending upon where the ball lands in your grid.

Practicing these techniques helped me improve from getting out to spinners within an over to successfully negotiate 10-15 overs of spin.
Click to expand...

Interesting stuff, Offies are my nemesis, last year in nets a bloke bowled me six times in succession, unbelievable! But I did have better season against them generally, standing more forwards and then stepping back and playing defensive off the back-foot, getting them away for runs though is another matter.
 
I am just thinking... if an offie bowls to your middle and turns away from you... it surely should be played differently than when the offie is bowled towards your off stump and turning out to the invisible 4th stump?
 
klarissa said:
I am just thinking... if an offie bowls to your middle and turns away from you... it surely should be played differently than when the offie is bowled towards your off stump and turning out to the invisible 4th stump?
Click to expand...

are you left handed I presume?
 
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