The Hardest Skill In Leg Spin
- Thread starter bosie
- Start date
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
Yeah I think that's a universal observation throughout the world for wrist spinners. Although I have to say that my captain at Grays & Chadwell cc (Neil Samwell) who was a spinner himself was a very creative captain utilising spinners in a positive manner and taking risks. We'd use 3 leggies and 2 offies in a game on ocassions. I've been writing about this a bit in my main blog and I'm currently trying to re-write my leg spin blog and been discussing ways of dealing with this. Currently all my practice is focussed around bowling the first 12 balls in a way that's going to ensure you get to stay on. Normally it'll take me the best part of 2 overs to find my best release option/action and by then the captains thinking 'One more over and he's going to have to take 2 wickets in that over to buy himself a 4th over'. Yeah it's crap.
Yeah. I sometimes feel you get a grudging 1/2 point for a jaffa, and -10 for a bad ball. I have a nasty habit of bowling a loopy waist-high leg-side full toss early in a spell, which is usually this kiss of death. Sadly most captains are (a) batsmen, and (b) incredibly negative, and seem to live in perpetual dread of the Over That Gets Carted For Twenty.
It seems the thing to try and avoid is the 'my-grandma-let-alone-Geoffrey-Boycott's-mum-could've-hit-that-for-four' ball, even though captains don't seem to grasp the fact that there is no difference in the scorebook between a waist-high full toss getting smacked for four and a medium pacer just straying onto leg stump and getting clipped to the fine leg fence.
What really pisses me off is that a ball on a reasonable line and length from a slow-medium seamer is officially a Good Ball (TM). Doesn't matter it's a gentle pace with no swing and the batsmen are just teeing off and hitting through the line and these bowlers are getting carted. I've played in quite a number of matches where we've gone round the park and I haven't bowled, yet if ever there's a time to bowl an erratic spinner capable of a real jaffa, that's it. You're not under pressure, if you bowl a bad ball it hardly matters since everyone else is getting mashed anyway, and a half-decent ball with a bit of fizz on it has an excellent chance of going straight up in the air if someone is just swinging merrily away.
After being nagged for ages by a friend who was a regular, I played my first game for a friendlyish side up in London last year. I got thrown the ball and didn't have a great over (went for about 10, including a big loopy full toss for six) and got taken off. But later on I watched several of the frontline bowlers get carted for 16 - they weren't doing much wrong, they were just impotent against the batting side. The fact that the two or three balls that came out well in my over induced a snick past the keeper and a couple of false shots, was entirely lost on the skipper.
It seems the thing to try and avoid is the 'my-grandma-let-alone-Geoffrey-Boycott's-mum-could've-hit-that-for-four' ball, even though captains don't seem to grasp the fact that there is no difference in the scorebook between a waist-high full toss getting smacked for four and a medium pacer just straying onto leg stump and getting clipped to the fine leg fence.
What really pisses me off is that a ball on a reasonable line and length from a slow-medium seamer is officially a Good Ball (TM). Doesn't matter it's a gentle pace with no swing and the batsmen are just teeing off and hitting through the line and these bowlers are getting carted. I've played in quite a number of matches where we've gone round the park and I haven't bowled, yet if ever there's a time to bowl an erratic spinner capable of a real jaffa, that's it. You're not under pressure, if you bowl a bad ball it hardly matters since everyone else is getting mashed anyway, and a half-decent ball with a bit of fizz on it has an excellent chance of going straight up in the air if someone is just swinging merrily away.
After being nagged for ages by a friend who was a regular, I played my first game for a friendlyish side up in London last year. I got thrown the ball and didn't have a great over (went for about 10, including a big loopy full toss for six) and got taken off. But later on I watched several of the frontline bowlers get carted for 16 - they weren't doing much wrong, they were just impotent against the batting side. The fact that the two or three balls that came out well in my over induced a snick past the keeper and a couple of false shots, was entirely lost on the skipper.
someblokecalleddave
Well-Known Member
This threads got the potential for everyone piling in with stories like that! I had 3 good years at one team where spin was very much a part of what they did and encouraged albeit in the lower XI's and Sunday friendly teams. For most part the captains were spinners and it was a good place to learn.