Very Beginner Leg Spinner

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money360

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Very Beginner Leg Spinner

Hey all, I'm a new cricketer (well played in backyard for about 6 months, on and off) and the bowling style that I have chosen is Leg Spin. I didn't consciously choose it, however it was the way I subconsciously bowled. I am bowling on a very dodgy pathway, (15m long, 3m wide, ) made up of concrete and grass, so the bowl wont always bounce the way i want it too. I am just wondering though, what type of grip should I use. This is the grip I use at the moment

snapshot20091117.jpg

http://img259.imageshack.us/i/snapshot20091117.jpg
Top View (Not how I hold a ball)
http://img509.imageshack.us/i/snapshot200911171.jpg
snapshot200911171.jpg


Do I need to move my fingers further forward so my middle knuckles are on the seam? I use my thumb to spin the ball (which i have heard is bad), what can I do to get out of the habit?

Haha sorry for the question overload,
Thanks
 
Re: Very Beginner Leg Spinner

the pictures dont seem to work. once the pictures are working and i can see your grip il write a proper reply :)
 
Re: Very Beginner Leg Spinner

ok, i can see a few potential problems. however everyone has their own natural method, so what i say isnt necessarily what will work best for you, its just what works for me.

firstly, you look to hold the ball quite tightly? if so, try and relax your grip a bit. a tense grip doesnt help, even though it feels like it does. ive tested it with my slow motion camera and i get more revolutions on the ball with a relaxed grip that feels like it isnt working as well!!

secondly, remove your thumb from the ball whilst figuring out your grip. the thumb can be added on later. place your first and middle fingers as you are now. my fingers barely cross the seam, my first knuckles are over the seam pretty much, and i hold the ball away from my palm. everyone has their own way, but my grip is similar to yours. then my ring finger (the spinning finger!!) is parrallel to the seam. yours looks to be quite straight and sits across the seam, if you remove your thumb youll find that you dont have a particularly strong grip on the ball. if someone knocked your hand it would likely fall out. with your ring finger more bent and running down the seam you have a stronger grip, as well as more leverage on the ball, so you can spin it much harder. some people (with large hands) will have the ball deep in their hand and their ring finger actually on the seam. personally i have reasonably large hands, but am more comfortable with the ball out of my palm, and so my ring finger doesnt touch the seam at all. which means i dont get blisters or dry skin or any kind of soreness at all. and i find it easier to spin the ball this way. its a question of personal preference though.

thirdly, if you want to stop using your thumb, then adapting your grip should help straight away. but i learnt to spin the ball without my thumb on it at all. i saw a video that said you shouldnt use the thumb, so i didnt, i kept it well away!! then a year or so later i found out that the thumb can be used on the ball, but shouldnt spin it. so try spinning the ball without your thumb touching it. once you can do that then add it back on.

i actually defy the conventional method here. my thumb is a very important part of my spin, and i think its how i am able to generate high revs. i can still spin the ball without my thumb on it, but i spin it a lot more when i use my thumb as well. when youre learning try not to use the thumb, add it in later once youve got the basic technique figured out.

id say any problems you are having probably relate to your basic grip, e.g. using your thumb, which is happening because your ring finger is a little too straight in my opinion. just keep playing, and use tennis balls to begin with as they are smaller and softer and easier to work with. once you figure the grip out it will come more easily. just practice ALL the time. whenever youre not using your hands, you should have something round in them and be spinning it. im not exagerating there either, i spent HOURS spinning a cricket ball for 3 or so years before i ever actually bowled the cricket ball. in hindsight i wished id been less lazy and got out and bowled, because i was young enough to probably have a shot at getting somewhere in cricket then, maybe county, but probably not. now im probably too old, DOH!
 
Re: Very Beginner Leg Spinner

Have a look at the link below here - The Legspin blog link, there's an image of one of the ways that you can grip the ball. As Jim says and Shane Warne says - a loose - ish grip is the way to go.

Also look at the Terry Jenner and Shane Warne videos on you tube, on both of them the grip is discussed.
 
Re: Very Beginner Leg Spinner

Ok, so I have half taken your advice and placed my ring finger down along the seam, however I am keeping my thumb on there. The thumb for me is important as it helps me spin the ball (not as much as my ring finger any more), and control the ball.

Below is a link of me bowling in the backyard, the spin isn't great (because im bowling on concrete with patches of tar messing the ball up, and grass), however it does enough. YouTube - Bowling in Backyard

If the link doesn't work, try again in an hour.
 
Re: Very Beginner Leg Spinner

personally, even if the thumb helps, id still try to remove it when youre spinning the ball between your hands. youll add it back on eventually, but it improves the flexibility and strength of the other fingers if its not there. and ultimately youll spin the ball harder when you add it back on again. its your call though.

as for your video....

the grip looks more like a conventional grip now, similar to my own but i hold the ball further out of my palm, its a matter of preference.

the overall action doesnt look too bad, if i had to find areas that i would probably look to improve then id say mainly just the fluidity of it. its quite a stiff motion that revolves around your very straight arm. your bowling arm dictates what the rest of your body does. this is by no means a question of what is the right or wrong way, everyone has their own method, but by the textbook you probably want to relax a bit more, your arm doesnt have to be dead straight, especially not prior to the release, and your whole body can then be more relaxed and flexible.

think tall, you bend into the delivery quite a lot, if you try to stay as upright as possible then you may find that it helps you generate more spin, accuracy, consistency, etc. i certainly did, and still do when i find myself bending into the delivery to generate pace. pace is unimportant when youre just learning, you can add it later.

the other thing with those 2 points is that your trailing leg is fairly uncontrolled, you are off balance. if you had to freeze just before you release the ball, i expect you would fall forwards onto your trailing foot. ideally you want to be able to freeze your action at any point and still maintain perfect balance. it just makes things more consistent and accurate. but i think this relates to the 2 points ive mentioned above. also your front leg starts quite bent, try to keep it straight and braced as it will encourage more rotation.

all in all it doesnt look bad, youve got something decent to work on. i guessing your yard is shorter than an actual cricket wicket? hence why the ball generally lands so close to the stumps? if so then your length is probably ok, but ideally you want to land the ball about 3-6 yards from the stumps on a 22 yard wicket.
 
Re: Very Beginner Leg Spinner

I've just had a quick look at the vid and there's a bunch of stuff that you need to do, one of them I'd look at straight away is to wear a pair of shoes/trainers as you can't bowl wrist spin without rotating on the ball of your foot, there is so much transferal of energy through the rotating foot that it's an integral part of your bowling.

I'll probably comment more later. But I might transfer my comments to the wrist spin thread.
 
Re: Very Beginner Leg Spinner

someblokecalleddave;376307 said:
I've just had a quick look at the vid and there's a bunch of stuff that you need to do, one of them I'd look at straight away is to wear a pair of shoes/trainers as you can't bowl wrist spin without rotating on the ball of your foot, there is so much transferal of energy through the rotating foot that it's an integral part of your bowling.

I'll probably comment more later. But I might transfer my comments to the wrist spin thread.
Click to expand...

i hadnt noticed the bare feet lol. to add to that, you probably want to be on your toes more as you deliver, your front foot is very flat, more on the heel. its quite important to rotate on the ball of the foot as Dave has said.
 
Re: Very Beginner Leg Spinner

it looks like a good solid action to begin with, you will want to also not have your arm come from behind you as it will lose you alot of the power you can generate from it going in a straight line, though this may be caused by that you aren't rotating so much in the action.
 
Re: Very Beginner Leg Spinner

they looked alright, especially for a beginner, but you need to put them on a better length, so to give the ball a chance to spin before a batsman hits it.

The action is a bit weird, but if its comfortable, go with it
 
Re: Very Beginner Leg Spinner

Hey Guys,

Money360.... I'm a beginner leg spinner too, although a bit older (33) and a bit further along, I've been practicing a lot for about 4 months now.

So...... the advice I'm passing along is not from a great height of experience, but it is some of the stuff I found useful recently.

First........ you've lucked into some good advice here. I particularly recommend dave's blogs linked in his siggy. He has a whole series of them linked together, and they are easily the best resources on wrist spin I've found.

And the guys around here offer pretty good advice too. In my experience, if they have a suggestion... it's DEFINATELY worth giving it a try.

Second.... the big thing thats helped me personally is practice, practice and more practice. If you've got an area at home thats roughly the right size thats perfect. Take any chance you can to go out there and bowl for a while. But..... every time you do it..... set yourself a little target and concentrate on improving that. Don't just chuck it around. Pick a "mini-test" and do that.... try being as accurate as possible for 20min....... or big as spin as possible.... pick something to work on, and work on it for a bit. In my experience this brings rewards.

Third.... I'd second (2rd ? 4th ?) the comments on the feet. A Richie Benaud article I saw when I was first starting out said that you should bring your first foot down at or just ahead of the "stump line" and with it pointing horizontal to the wicket. The 2nd foot should come down pointing to slip. As the balls delivered you pivot on the ball of your foot and the trailing foot comes round to land in front of the front foot.

Your footprints would look like

|

\
_

If you were bowling "Up the page".

Just adopting that consistent foot placement is probably the one improvement that most advanced my accuracy. If your feet are in the right place, it helps put your body in the right place too. Get the feet right and I found I could "feel" the smoothest way to do the action from there.

I found it's easy to get to the point where you get a good ball a coupla times an over........ the difficult part (for me) is getting more than 3 or 4 good balls an over.

I think the first big leap any wrist spinner has to make, once he's getting good spin and a bit of love of the art....... is to get it accurate. And that is HARD (or at least I found it so) and you have to just keep plugging away taking improvements of a few percent each week and just piling them up.

I wish you good luck. We'll have to compare bowling stats next season between the two newibies !

Yours,

TGP
 
Re: Very Beginner Leg Spinner

My observation would be that your arm is getting close to going "past the vertical" as you bowl - nothing inherently wrong with that, but there's not many legspinners who make that work consistently - Mike Proctor did, and several leggies have bowled with a vertical arm (Benaud being the most notable example). I just wonder whether the high arm in your case is causing some of the jerkiness. It also is much harder to attain consistency, accuracy and big turn with a vertical or past the vertical arm. Consider this: Grimmetrt, Quadir and Warne all bowled slightly round-arm, with an outswing-like shape, as opposwed to your action, which to me looks inswing-ish.
 
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