The Carrom Ball

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Boris

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The Carrom Ball

I had a net session today and decided to give this a go for the first time. I think I have changed things slightly from a traditional Carrom ball (as to suit myself), but I never knew how effective it is.

What's more is that I could land this ball just as easily as an off break. I was always given the idea that this is one of the hardest balls to bowl in cricket, when today in the nets I was getting them to spin about the width of the stumps, the were accurate and what's more they beat the batsmen almost every time I landed it correctly.

Occasionally one would spear off to the side, but a little more practice will cure that. It is much more effective than a Doosra (especially as it is damn near impossible), and is difficult to pick, but not as difficult as I'd like.

Has anyone else tried a Carrom ball before? If so how do you find it?

Also I can explain a Carrom ball for those to try if you don't know it. It's well worthwhile.
 
Re: The Carrom Ball

Boris,

I have been trying as well (I am left-arm-orthodox).. please explain how you got it working easier.. i end up putting them short
 
Re: The Carrom Ball

Just noticed - not sure if Carrom is spelt with one 'R' or two...

I have found you have to have a high release point. I often bowl at around 30 degrees from the vertical axis, whereas my Carrom ball is pretty much completely vertical. So reach for the sky at the point of delivery. But you bowl from a low level don't you, quite round arm? In that case you would have to make sure your wrist allows your hand to be pointing upwards to the sky.

The grip:
1. Put your fingernail of the second finger on the seam so it runs up and down the nail.
2. Put your thumb on the seam on the underside of the ball.This should bend your second finger right around so it is in a tight 'claw'
3. Twist the ball on a diagonal so that the seam is pointing toward second slip, it should then just touch the tip of your first finger.
4. Third finger can sit on the side of the ball to stabilise it and help impart spin, but not necessary.
5. Fourth finger not used at all.

The trick is being able to flick the ball out as fast as possible with the second finger but pushing out that claw so that it is straight. At the same time it is very important that you bring the thumb back towards the palm. I think this is your problem, the thumb. If you don't pull it back in the ball will sort of float out with no power since it is only one finger pushing it out that does all the spin. If you do it too fast however you can drag the ball down and turn it into a wobbling top spinner that lands halfway down the pitch. Use the first and third fingers to stabilise the seam to keep it running straight towards second slip. Use them also to push the ball out and keep it spinning.

This ball has very little flight. Don't flight it up and loop it, trying to get drift and dip or whatever. It won't happen and you will end up with a ball that floats at a low speed for a nice and easy boundary hit. You have to push the ball, I think of it like a shot-put. Put as much effort into it as you can and make sure you bowl it fast, because all of the complex finger movements will slow it down. This ball will skid and spin away from the right hander for a RH bowler, so yours would spin like a conventional RHs off break, so pitch it just outside off stump to a RHB.

The follow through won't be much, remember to pivot, but don't worry that much about bringing your arm through fast and around like you normally would. The follow through is in the wrist and elbow however. Twist the wrist as far as you can to the leg side to a RH batsman, and have your elbow follow. This should further extend any spin.

The main thing though is to put a lot of effort into it. I don't find it that hard, but maybe that's just me, I find a lot of easier balls harder.
 
Re: The Carrom Ball

someblokecalleddave;401790 said:
It's not the Carrom Ball it's the Iverson Gleeson technique from the 1950's?

YouTube - Ajantha Mendis: Mystery Uncovered

YouTube - Iverson Gleeson method
Click to expand...

No, definitely not the Iverson Gleeson technique. In the first video you have there it is Mendis's 'doosra', although it is actually the Carrom ball, his doosra is different.

I hold it a little differently to him though, with my third finger on the ball as well and the seam running straight down the knuckle, he flicks the outside of the ball instead. Also he points the seam at about cover, whereas I point it at second/third slip. Just preferences there.
 
Re: The Carrom Ball

it is pretty much just the Iverson-Gleeson method. its absolutely nothing new, but as with many of the great spin deliveries, they get relegated to obscurity for a few decades, a smart bowler reinvents them, and before you know it theyre taking dozens of wickets with them.

Mendis has a conventional off-break (that barely spins). he then also has a sort of conventional leg break (that also barely spins). he has a 3-finger leg break grip for his googly (which essentially leaves the hand as a conventional googly, and is always scrambled). his "doosra" is actually just an Iverson-Gleeson leg break, rather than a Murali doosra (he may also have a conventional doosra though). his Carrom ball is then similar to the Iverson-Gleeson, except he jams his middle finger behind the ball and flicks it out with mostly backspin. hence it goes mostly straight, stays low, and gets him LBW's. although sometimes it also has a fair amount of leg spin on it. its not quite the Iverson-Gleeson method, because his middle finger is behind the ball not alongside it. but it comes out with a similar result.

im not sure that Shane Warne didnt also use a slider where he simply jammed his middle finger in behind the ball to generate small amounts of backspin and sometimes legspin. its really not a new or special delivery, Mendis has just given it a special name (much like Warnes "Zooter") and because hes from the same country as Murali, everyone has gone mental about it.

its no different to Steve Smith being hailed as the next Shane Warne. when one great of the game nears retirement (or retires), everyone hypes up their potential replacement. in this case it is simply Murali getting old, and Mendis looking like an unconventional spinner to replace him. in reality i think Mendis has had a good start, but batsman have already figured out that he doesnt spin the ball, so they can just play him on line and length. hes still a very consistent bowler though, so that doesnt make him easy to score runs off, and his pressure will still get wickets. but you wont see the likes of Graeme Smith getting bamboozled and clean bowled by his doosra quite so often. hes nowhere near the same league as Murali in terms of spin bowling. hes more like Paul Harris, the kind of bowler that bores batsmen out. you cant really call a bowler a genuine spinner when they play on perfect spin wickets pretty much every game, but turn the ball less than Graeme Swann at Lords. with their biggest turning delivery!
 
Re: The Carrom Ball

it also really doesnt help when half the videos on YouTube that are supposed to be the Carrom ball, actually arent! one compilation has a load of googlies in it as well, and theres an animated one that doesnt show anything at all, and spins the wrong way.
 
Re: The Carrom Ball

when i bowl the "other" one, i sort of push it out with my thumb, first and middle fingers. it's not overly difficult to pick, as you can tell it's different, but you can't work out what it's doing because a lot of the time the seam is scrambled. also, on jim's point, pragyan ojha now also bowls a carrom ball but spins the ball quite a lot as a left arm orthodox. the same goes for suraj randiv of sri lanka.
 
Re: The Carrom Ball

slighht deviation, what is a carrom ball?
Yesterday our wicket keeper was convinced I was bowling them, when I thought I was bowling just a typical leg spin action.
 
Re: The Carrom Ball

SteveyD;402174 said:
slighht deviation, what is a carrom ball?
Yesterday our wicket keeper was convinced I was bowling them, when I thought I was bowling just a typical leg spin action.
Click to expand...

in that case you almost certainly werent bowling them. its a sort of Iverson-Gleeson leg break/slider delivery. you hold the ball like a leg break, but instead of the ring finger gripping the side of the ball, bend your middle finger down so that it jams in behind the ball. you then straighten the middle finger and this imparts backspin and/or sidespin on the ball depending on how you execute it.

Mendis doesnt generate big revs with any of his deliveries, and the Carrom ball is a fairly slow spinner. he almost always scrambles the seam, and sometimes it will turn like a leg break, but lots of the time it just stays low and straight like a slider. because Mendis has so many variations and lands the ball so consistently, it often gets him LBW just because its stayed low and turned slightly in the opposite direction to what the batsman was expecting.

theres no way your wicket keeper would pick a Carrom ball that you bowled by accident. its impossible to bowl one by accident since its the fingers that determine the difference between a carrom ball, and just a regular leg break. they all essentially turn the same way. i reckon your wicket keeper was just trying to look clever, ive been congratulated on my googlies before in the same way. ive never bowled one in my life, but if it goes straight, or hits a divot on the pitch and turns back in then they suddenly think i meant to do it lol. of course i take the credit, but only to mess with the batsman. fielders always shout out "show him your googly" when im bowling just to try and do the same thing. it would take a very weak batsman to fall for it though.
 
Re: The Carrom Ball

Sorry, been away for a bit.

So you are saying that I have been calling this variation by the wrong name?

Whatever it is, it is very effective.
 
Re: The Carrom Ball

Boris;403272 said:
Sorry, been away for a bit.

So you are saying that I have been calling this variation by the wrong name?

Whatever it is, it is very effective.
Click to expand...

Possibly - Mendis's Carrom ball to me at least looks identical to the Iverson-Gleeson method/grip? It may be that there are subtle differences?
 
Re: The Carrom Ball

I've always though the Carrom ball much more a finger spinner's ball, at least my variation of it is. To a wrist spinner I don't think it would be much use, very easy to pick, doesn't have much flight and doesn't have much turn. With a wrist spinner's increased arsenal in comparison it would be a little pointless to use.

The Iverson-Gleeson method is much different to the way I bowl it (as the I-G method is much, much too obvious out of the hand), but slightly closer to Mendis's, although still quite different. I'm not even sure it really qualifies as a Carrom ball, I might have fallen into the trap, as said earlier, of naming every second ball as it.

The way I do it is not by having the 2nd (middle finger) running perpendicular to the seam, but however actually doubling that finger over and having the fingernail more on the seam.

I tried to get a picture of it, but I can tell you it's hard to control a camera one handed and manage to get a picture at the right angle to best express it. Hopefully this will suffice:

Carrom.jpg


As you can sort of see, the middle finger is doubled over and by flicking it out so that it is straight the ball can spin along the seam, and since the first finger is still in contact with the ball it guides it which way you want it to spin.

Along with this goes the third finger. Now this is the tricky part, controlling the ball to allow it to spin. As you could imagine, if you are flicking the ball out with one finger only like this, it has a tendency to slide to either side of the ball. That's where the third finger comes in, and along with the first finger they both sort of 'hold' the ball in position, waiting for the middle finger to impart the spin.

Now comes the even trickier part. I've done this in a few net sessions now and bowled it over and over trying to get it right. You could also imagine this wouldn't impart much spin, which is true. But to impart nearly double the amount you can flick down the first finger, and flick up on the third finger. By pushing up and down on each side of the ball in an anti-clockwise direction you can impart spin kind of like you normally would. Couple this with the finger flicking as well (and the tricky part of timing it all exactly right) and you can get some decent spin, and it also spins along the seam. Just try doing this yourself and see if you can get what I mean.

I've gotten it to the point now where it spins about 3/4 of my off break, which, especially for a doosra alternative, is quite a long way.

What I also like about this ball is that if the batsman can pick it you can reverse the action and turn it into another sort of off break by just turning the seam to point to leg slip instead. Remember that the middle finger buts up against the middle bump in between the seam.

Whichever way it spins you can use it effectively as a variation ball. I haven't had the chance to play much unlimited overs cricket, almost all of it has been 40-50 over one day cricket, so I like to vary my bowling quite a bit and it has come along to be quite flat and at times not enough flight. These sort of variations have become crucial to my bowling, because as you could imagine an attacking off spinner with an attacking wide line of off stump like I can can be easily hammered around the ground by bowling the same thing over and over in a one day match. Variations such as this are the key to my bowling, us offies aren't as patient as leg spinners when it comes to using variation balls purely for that surprise element.
 
Re: The Carrom Ball

Hi all.

I used to bowl off breaks, and did so for about 5 years up to the middle of this season. I have always wanted to bowl leggies, but found them difficult to control. The result being something resembling a grenade!

However, while in the nets 5 weeks ago, I decided to experiment.
What I came up with, (as I knew nothing about it at the time), was a leg-spin grip where spin is imparted by the index finger, and not the third finger.

This "flick" induced leg-spin, and I found I could pitch them on a reasonable length!
Plucking up courage, (that and being skipper), I gave it a try in that weeks match. the result was as follows: 12-0-73-1. Not very good really, untill I tell you we were beaten quite badly, with the other side racking up 339-5 from 45 overs. Not only was it my first game bowling "leggies", but I was also the only bowler who conceeded under the run rate.

The next week, I returned figures of 12-1-43-0, bowling a better line and length, but flighting the ball somewhat more, and being less of a threat.

The week after I bowled 9.5-0-35-3, and had really got into more of giving the ball a wrist flick as well as with the fingers. The flight having better control aswell.

Last week was much better, 12-3-18-3 were my figures, with 2 wickets coming in 2 balls!

My grip is the Iverson/Gleeson method, but rather than just straightening the fingers, I also turn the wrist as would a othadox leggie.
I have tried to use the standard leg-spin grip, but just cant get the control.

I think I am gonna stick with the I/G grip, as I don't think it will limit my potential to bowl vaiations, as I already have a few top spinners coming out (by accident sometimes!), but am concentrating on mastering the stock ball/legbreak.

I know it's still in progress, but the moral is the never give up!
 
Re: The Carrom Ball

captaining your own team is a leg spinners dream!!

if youre flicking the wrist then you might find that a more conventional leg break grip, but using the middle finger to impart the spin rather than the ring finger will work equally well. you can impart more revs that way than the Iverson Gleeson method, but still not as much as with the conventional leg spin grip.

go with whatever works though, especially when its taking wickets!
 
Re: The Carrom Ball

I get quite alot of turn and bounce with this grip already. Sometimes it turns too much!!
The main problem with a coventional grip is the seam position, as most of the time they come out as top spinners.
I'm not saying I can't bowl leg breaks with it, just that it is very difficult!
 
Re: The Carrom Ball

charlieguile;404183 said:
I get quite alot of turn and bounce with this grip already. Sometimes it turns too much!!
The main problem with a coventional grip is the seam position, as most of the time they come out as top spinners.
I'm not saying I can't bowl leg breaks with it, just that it is very difficult!
Click to expand...

Sounds to me like you should persevere with it and try the conventional wrist spin grip as well, you might find that you can sense 'The force' and move away from the Dark side forever.
 
Re: The Carrom Ball

I am very comfortable bowling with this grip in matches, and variation of turn and bounce is quite easy to control.
I can even put out the odd intentional "toppy", which I'm not bothered too much about, as it is pretty much a leggie anyway.

One of the future benefits of my current grip is that it is not too different from the flipper grip, and I have already been testing this release around the house.

My only issue at the moment is getting more pace without sacrificing flight, as even when I pitch it nicely, some batsmen can just rock back and hit through the off side.
I have been focusing on getting more of an explosive action and follow through, which has returned results, shown in my progressive match figures.

Perhaps it's a matter of giving my mind and body time to adjust to the legspin frame of thought.
 
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