Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)

Went out for practice with my friend.

IM FACING THE BIGGEST CRISIS IN MY LEGSPIN.

We play on a synthetic football field that has a lot of spin and bounce. So its good for bowling legspin? Not for me....

My friend and i have been playing together for 6 years he has played my legspin for 6 years which got better with time...

He has learnt to play me now, the thing that he has learnt is NEVER COME ON THE FRONT FOOT!
When i bowling on the football field every delivery of mine (leg break, top spinner, googly) has the same amont of bounce when i pitch it on a good length, it just bounces over the stumps. The maximum difference in bounce that two deliveries will have is 5 cm ( 2 inches).

So my friend stays on the back foot and plays with a horizontal bat over the wickets. The worst shot he will play is (when i bowl a topspinner or googly) an attempted cut shot which hits on top of his bat) and because the max difference of bounce is 5 cm he can adjust 5 cm quickly (+ hes got a wide enough bat).
When i pitch a bit Fuller he defends or lofts it over my head.
So i tried to bowl a 45 ° OBS but it doesnt have a big enough difference in bounce to get him out.

The worst thing is that he is a fast bowled but he has started bowling leg spin ( i use the same strategy as him) but because i have the reflex of coming forward he sometimes gets me out. But when i do play with his strategy without coming forward he starts bowling faster so he loses spin. I bowl at about 30 mph thats slow (50kph i think) what should i do its irritating me because i often bowl a good length or maybe it is because of the football field???? WHAT CAN I DO ?
 
Went out for practice with my friend.

IM FACING THE BIGGEST CRISIS IN MY LEGSPIN.

We play on a synthetic football field that has a lot of spin and bounce. So its good for bowling legspin? Not for me....

My friend and i have been playing together for 6 years he has played my legspin for 6 years which got better with time...

He has learnt to play me now, the thing that he has learnt is NEVER COME ON THE FRONT FOOT!
When i bowling on the football field every delivery of mine (leg break, top spinner, googly) have the same amont of bounce when i pitch it on a good length, it just bounces over the stumps. The maximum difference in bounce that two deliveries will have is 5 cm ( 2 inches).

So my friend stays on the back foot and plats with a horizontal bat over the wickets. The worst shot he will play is (when i bowl a topspinner or googly) an attempted cut shot which hits on top of his bat) and because the max difference of bounce is 5 cm he can adjust 5 cm quickly (+ hes got a wide enough bat).
When i pitch a bit Fuller he defends or lofts it over my head.
So i tried to bowl a 45 ° OBS but it doesnt have a big enough difference in bounce to get him out.

The worst thing is that he is a fast bowled but he has started bowling leg spin ( i use the samedi strategy as him) but because i have the reflex of coming forward he sometimes gets me out. But when i do play with his strategy without coming forward he starts bowling faster so he loses spin. I bowl at about 30 mph thats slow (50kph i think) what should i do its irritating me because i often bowl a good length or maybe it is because of the football field???? WHAT CAN I DO ?
Sorry for the grammar errors my phones auto correct
 
Went out for practice with my friend.

IM FACING THE BIGGEST CRISIS IN MY LEGSPIN.

We play on a synthetic football field that has a lot of spin and bounce. So its good for bowling legspin? Not for me....

My friend and i have been playing together for 6 years he has played my legspin for 6 years which got better with time...

He has learnt to play me now, the thing that he has learnt is NEVER COME ON THE FRONT FOOT!
When i bowling on the football field every delivery of mine (leg break, top spinner, googly) has the same amont of bounce when i pitch it on a good length, it just bounces over the stumps. The maximum difference in bounce that two deliveries will have is 5 cm ( 2 inches).

So my friend stays on the back foot and plays with a horizontal bat over the wickets. The worst shot he will play is (when i bowl a topspinner or googly) an attempted cut shot which hits on top of his bat) and because the max difference of bounce is 5 cm he can adjust 5 cm quickly (+ hes got a wide enough bat).
When i pitch a bit Fuller he defends or lofts it over my head.
So i tried to bowl a 45 ° OBS but it doesnt have a big enough difference in bounce to get him out.

The worst thing is that he is a fast bowled but he has started bowling leg spin ( i use the same strategy as him) but because i have the reflex of coming forward he sometimes gets me out. But when i do play with his strategy without coming forward he starts bowling faster so he loses spin. I bowl at about 30 mph thats slow (50kph i think) what should i do its irritating me because i often bowl a good length or maybe it is because of the football field???? WHAT CAN I DO ?

There's a few issues there. The first and most important one is the pace you bowl at. The slower you bowl, the more you have to pitch it up. If you bowl too slowly, a batter can easily use his feet and turn it into a full toss. 30mph is very slow and that is probably one reason for that bounce. The pitch you are bowling on is probably playing a part in that too.

A lot of these all-weather pitches bounce much more than grass pitches, so they are a bit of a pain to bowl on. In a match, you simply set your field according to how the pitch is playing and how you are using it. If it is quite bouncey, then you can utilise that by getting fielders square of the wicket for the backfoot pull/cut. If it is very bouncey, you can use that to your advantage and look for edges to point, cover point, gully etc. In the nets, you don't have fielders so it can be frustrating if the ball keeps bouncing over the stumps, but you just remind yourself that most grass pitches will not bounce so much.

Another thing you can do is work on a quicker, flatter ball. It can simply be a legspinner that is bowled into the pitch rather than up out of the hand and bowled quicker. If a batter is expecting every ball to bounce over the stumps and he is on the backfoot everytime, then he is a prime LBW candidate.
 
There's a few issues there. The first and most important one is the pace you bowl at. The slower you bowl, the more you have to pitch it up. If you bowl too slowly, a batter can easily use his feet and turn it into a full toss. 30mph is very slow and that is probably one reason for that bounce. The pitch you are bowling on is probably playing a part in that too.

A lot of these all-weather pitches bounce much more than grass pitches, so they are a bit of a pain to bowl on. In a match, you simply set your field according to how the pitch is playing and how you are using it. If it is quite bouncey, then you can utilise that by getting fielders square of the wicket for the backfoot pull/cut. If it is very bouncey, you can use that to your advantage and look for edges to point, cover point, gully etc. In the nets, you don't have fielders so it can be frustrating if the ball keeps bouncing over the stumps, but you just remind yourself that most grass pitches will not bounce so much.

Another thing you can do is work on a quicker, flatter ball. It can simply be a legspinner that is bowled into the pitch rather than up out of the hand and bowled quicker. If a batter is expecting every ball to bounce over the stumps and he is on the backfoot everytime, then he is a prime LBW candidate.
or a flipper / slider.

Maybe better to work on increasing pace of your stock ball though.

And relax, this is no crisis, it's an opportunity to develop further.
So should i increase my overall speed? I was considering that but im afraid i lose revs and turn? What speed do you bowl? Is there something i can do to bowl faster with out losing revs?
 
Went out for practice with my friend.

IM FACING THE BIGGEST CRISIS IN MY LEGSPIN.

We play on a synthetic football field that has a lot of spin and bounce. So its good for bowling legspin? Not for me....

My friend and i have been playing together for 6 years he has played my legspin for 6 years which got better with time...

He has learnt to play me now, the thing that he has learnt is NEVER COME ON THE FRONT FOOT!
When i bowling on the football field every delivery of mine (leg break, top spinner, googly) has the same amont of bounce when i pitch it on a good length, it just bounces over the stumps. The maximum difference in bounce that two deliveries will have is 5 cm ( 2 inches).

So my friend stays on the back foot and plays with a horizontal bat over the wickets. The worst shot he will play is (when i bowl a topspinner or googly) an attempted cut shot which hits on top of his bat) and because the max difference of bounce is 5 cm he can adjust 5 cm quickly (+ hes got a wide enough bat).
When i pitch a bit Fuller he defends or lofts it over my head.
So i tried to bowl a 45 ° OBS but it doesnt have a big enough difference in bounce to get him out.

The worst thing is that he is a fast bowled but he has started bowling leg spin ( i use the same strategy as him) but because i have the reflex of coming forward he sometimes gets me out. But when i do play with his strategy without coming forward he starts bowling faster so he loses spin. I bowl at about 30 mph thats slow (50kph i think) what should i do its irritating me because i often bowl a good length or maybe it is because of the football field???? WHAT CAN I DO ?

Maybe it isnt that bad. Your sparring partner might be getting caught off most of those horizontal shots? I am presuming there are no fieldsmen during these sessions? Anyway you must be bowling a trifle too short for the circumstances?
 
The slower you bowl, the smaller your margin for error in length. At 60mph you have 2 yards to work with, at 50mph you probably have about a yard, at 40mph about a foot.

At 30mph I would say there is no such thing as a good length. No matter what ball you bowl, a good batsman could hit it anywhere he wants. Its simply too slow to be effective.

If you're young this isn't really an issue as you likely won't be bowling at good batsmen, and by the time you do, your pace will have improved as you grow.

I remember watching Warne live when I was younger, even though he only bowled at ~50mph, in real life you could see he actually bowled quite a bit quicker and flatter than your run-of-the-mill amateur spinner. Even his "loopier" leg break he still really fizzed down hard.
 
Yes im 14 but i play in the senior team because we only have a senior team but icant play the cup (good batsmen) because im too young ... Should i start working about bowling faster ( getting to about 40 mph) and how should i do it to not sacrifice revs?? Drills?
 
Yes im 14 but i play in the senior team because we only have a senior team but icant play the cup (good batsmen) because im too young ... Should i start working about bowling faster ( getting to about 40 mph) and how should i do it to not sacrifice revs?? Drills?

There's no logical reason why bowling faster should reduce revs, if anything a more vigorous body action and a quicker arm should improve revs at the same time as improving velocity.
 
If I were you, I would just bowl the ball very full, on and around off-stump and slowly bring the ball wider. If you think about it, as you widen the ball, it gets further away from the batsman so it ends up acting as if you're bowling it shorter, hopefully the batsman won't pick up on this and will try and drive you on the up through cover - trying to drive a legspinner on the up on a very bouncy pitch is difficult to say the least. Also, if its taken that batsman 6 years to figure you out, then it's unlikely that someone that you're playing against will be able to do it in a single match.

On another note, I managed to get down to the nets the other day and took some video of my bowling (on a very bouncy astro-turf wicket):
 
There's no logical reason why bowling faster should reduce revs, if anything a more vigorous body action and a quicker arm should improve revs at the same time as improving velocity.
Well maybe i didnt use correct words it would reduce the TURN iget
 
Well maybe i didnt use correct words it would reduce the TURN iget
If you bowl faster with the same spin, yes the angle at which it deviates may be straighter, but with correct length the bowling has become harder not easier to play.

I think it's best to think of 'turn' as a velocity change, e.g. a leg break may 'turn' 3mph to the offside. If this is the measure then the answer to your question is no.
 
Last edited:
I hope I don't have to bat against loopy.
speechless-smiley-020.gif
 
Yes im 14 but i play in the senior team because we only have a senior team but icant play the cup (good batsmen) because im too young ... Should i start working about bowling faster ( getting to about 40 mph) and how should i do it to not sacrifice revs?? Drills?

Hey shahidpak do you grunt aloud as you release the ball? I mean are you putting in a big effort and not just lobbing it up there?
 
Hey shahidpak do you grunt aloud as you release the ball? I mean are you putting in a big effort and not just lobbing it up there?
I used to. But i tried to stop because some teammates were calling me "sharapova" but sometimes i do. I usually lob it but i think jour going to say that i have to pût a lot of effort in bowling to get more speed and revs??
 
I remember watching Warne live when I was younger, even though he only bowled at ~50mph, in real life you could see he actually bowled quite a bit quicker and flatter than your run-of-the-mill amateur spinner. Even his "loopier" leg break he still really fizzed down hard.

Obviously, the objective of a spin bowler is to deceive the batter. Even a quicker ball only beats the batter because of what came before, not because of the pace on the ball. However, there is a certain speed you need to be bowling at and you will see it in Test cricket. The slowest you will see a ball bowled is about 45mph. You will see some bowled 60mph+, but really the range is somewhere between 45mph and 55mph and that has to be bowled a lot flatter than many people realise. If the ball spins up out of the hand, which is should do for most deliveries, it will only spin up out of the hand by a few inches before starting it's dip into the pitch.

As SLA rightly says, it is surprising the first time you see a pro spinner bowling the ball, especially a legspinner. I've only see a legspinner from a distance, but I've seen a finger spinner bowling in the nets. I remember someone telling me about when they first saw Praveen Tambe in the nets and just how quickly he bowled the ball compared to the club legspinners he had seen before.

Legspin is the hardest skill to master in cricket because you have to fizz the ball (probably my favourite word for legspin, "fizz") and it is very, very difficult to do that accurately. You will generally find two types of legspinner in club cricket:

1) Slow (40mph-45mph) and loopy or

2) Quick (55mph+), flat and with very few revs

Both types are quite easy for a good batter to play against, unless the bowler has very good control of line and length (even then, it won't cause a good batter any problems other than maybe being tricky to score off).

There's no logical reason why bowling faster should reduce revs, if anything a more vigorous body action and a quicker arm should improve revs at the same time as improving velocity.

Absolutely. Providing the bowler keeps his technique, it will only help generate more revs. The problem might be if the bowler loses his action a little bit and doesn't rip his fingers over the ball as much. Essentially, the aim should be to bowl as quickly as you can whilst still ripping the ball hard. Bill O'Reilly, by all accounts, would bowl very quick and flat (probably 60mph as standard) but he was still giving the ball a good rip.
 
If you bowl faster with the same spin, yes the angle at which it deviates may be straighter, but with correct length the bowling has become harder not easier to play.

I think it's best to think of 'turn' as a velocity change, e.g. a leg break may 'turn' 3mph to the offside. If this is the measure then the answer to your question is no.

Very true. It's always a balance. The quicker it is bowled, the less time the batter has to react but the less turn you will get. You will find that most non-pro batters will struggle to hit a ball that turns too much anyway. They will either use their feet and get to the pitch of the ball or they will likely play and miss. You don't want the ball to turn a huge amount. Just enough for an edge. If you bowl it quicker you will probably get more drift and dip too as the ball will meet more resistance through the air. Plus, it's more like to carry to the slips too.

I used to. But i tried to stop because some teammates were calling me "sharapova" but sometimes i do. I usually lob it but i think jour going to say that i have to pût a lot of effort in bowling to get more speed and revs??

:D

I've heard that comment out in the field a few times too. I wouldn't worry about that. Most bowlers will grunt a little if they really rip it hard. To be honest, I couldn't stop doing it if I tried.
 
Well i guess i will try to bowl slightly faster ...
(And sorry for some weird words that i write in my posts its because of m'y french auto correct on mobile when i write an english word it changes to a french word like
your = jour)
And btw who is "poms" ???
 
Back
Top