Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)

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Thivagar said:
If everyone here thinks you are annoying and claim you have no self aware then they are probably right. You behave like a wild child. You don't even have the ability to assess yourself, that is how bad you are. You got issues.
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Lets put this into context. I've been here longer than any other currently active user apart from Dave. I constantly get messages saying "thanks SLA, your advice saved my season", "thanks SLA, I feel I really understand the mechanics now" and "thanks SLA, you really helped my bowling/batting".

I'm really glad to be able to help people, and I will keep posting here as long as I can.

Its just a shame that most of the other reasonably well-informed posters have gone, and the current crop are childish, argumentative idiots with all sorts of bizarre and misinformed opinions and no intention of either helping themselves or anyone else. I'm sure soon they will piss off and the forum will be vastly improved for their absence.
 
SLA, the context is this - we don't know what messages you may have received in private. You know the truth of those. Indeed, we don't actually who you are at all - well I don't. This is the internet and people can be anyone.

But what IS here for all to see is that you have a consistent history of getting into lengthy, heated exchanges with other posters and the common theme is that these exchanges tend to become filled with personalities, and appeals to authority, and quibbles about definitions.

I have been posting here for years now and I have seen no other pair of posters get involved in ANY heated disagreement in this otherwise quite genteel spinning forum. It's always you and someone else.

I would suggest that what's different about the 'current crop' of posters is that we are perhaps the first to collectively call you out on your bullying.
 
boogiespinner said:
SLA, the context is this - we don't know what messages you may have received in private. You know the truth of those. Indeed, we don't actually who you are at all - well I don't. This is the internet and people can be anyone.

But what IS here for all to see is that you have a consistent history of getting into lengthy, heated exchanges with other posters and the common theme is that these exchanges tend to become filled with personalities, and appeals to authority, and quibbles about definitions.

I have been posting here for years now and I have seen no other pair of posters get involved in ANY heated disagreement in this otherwise quite genteel spinning forum. It's always you and someone else.

I would suggest that what's different about the 'current crop' of posters is that we are perhaps the first to collectively call you out on your bullying.
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What private messages? Half of these are open communications, free to everyone to see in this very thread or on my profile.

I notice noone ever thanks for you for useful advice, because you're never given any.

The problems started when you joined. We had several happy peaceful year before your came along. You're a bully and a sociopath, and I've no idea why you are here, seeing as you aren't even interested in cricket.
 
Ravi Ashwin! Fastest ever to 300 wickets,. Fantastic bowler, should be an inspiration to all spinners here, yet many angry, arrogant, misled posters here would not consider him to be a true spin bowler because he doesn't fit their naive narrow definition of how a spin bowler should operate. Sad, really, that they're missing out appreciating such a clever, skillful bowler.
 
Finally got around to doing a quick video of myself practicing a target drill.

Side on shot here:
Front on shot here:

Until watching I was concerned that my action would be too front on and I was considering stopping practicing until I could get a lesson to sort out the basics. As an initial step it doesn't look too bad to my beginners eye. Can anyone see anything 'major'? I realise there are probably many enhancements but I'm happy to work through small changes but less happy to keep going with something fundamentally broken.

Notes. On my side on shot I'm cocking the wrist into the action. I'm not on the front on shot as I'm having problems with the release and its consistently wide on the leg side when I cock the wrist. As a consequence I suspect the action on the front on shot is more a leg cutter than a leg break but I'm aware of this (and have a theory I need to work through as to why the release is going poorly).
The target wicket point is about 4 inches to the left (batters view direction) of the faint yellow line on the front on shot.
Short run-up is because I always bowled seam with a short run-up. Its down to the space in my usual practice area being too short to fit a longer run up in. I'm used to getting my rhythm quickly now.

If its not fundamentally broken I'm going to carry on practicing whilst I wait for a lesson (anyone know any spin coaches in hampshire - UK?).

Finally, I'm not really as fat as I look in the video. Honestly its down to the camera angle (hangs head in shame and starts on lettuce diet)

Edit: Forgot to introduce myself. I only start playing for the first time a few years ago. Started as a fast bowler but was pretty spray it all over only to break my collar bone 2 years ago (double distal fracture). That totally upset my rhythm (shoulders at different height) so during convalescence I worked as a slow dobber to build shoulder strength and never moved on. I play limited overs (30 or 35) on municipal (uncovered, variable bounce) pitches so making the batsman swing hard to get the ball off the square was a working strategy for some of the older players and seemed worth copying. Last year I was getting found out a bit by the 'village blacksmith' style player as I seem to end up bowling in the death so I decided I needed a bit of movement (in the air and/or off the pitch) to help out. Hence learning spin.
 
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MagicDave said:
Finally got around to doing a quick video of myself practicing a target drill.

Side on shot here:
Front on shot here:

Until watching I was concerned that my action would be too front on and I was considering stopping practicing until I could get a lesson to sort out the basics. As an initial step it doesn't look too bad to my beginners eye. Can anyone see anything 'major'? I realise there are probably many enhancements but I'm happy to work through small changes but less happy to keep going with something fundamentally broken.

Notes. On my side on shot I'm cocking the wrist into the action. I'm not on the front on shot as I'm having problems with the release and its consistently wide on the leg side when I cock the wrist. As a consequence I suspect the action on the front on shot is more a leg cutter than a leg break but I'm aware of this (and have a theory I need to work through as to why the release is going poorly).
The target wicket point is about 4 inches to the left (batters view direction) of the faint yellow line on the front on shot.
Short run-up is because I always bowled seam with a short run-up. Its down to the space in my usual practice area being too short to fit a longer run up in. I'm used to getting my rhythm quickly now.

If its not fundamentally broken I'm going to carry on practicing whilst I wait for a lesson (anyone know any spin coaches in hampshire - UK?).

Finally, I'm not really as fat as I look in the video. Honestly its down to the camera angle (hangs head in shame and starts on lettuce diet)

Edit: Forgot to introduce myself. I only start playing for the first time a few years ago. Started as a fast bowler but was pretty spray it all over only to break my collar bone 2 years ago (double distal fracture). That totally upset my rhythm (shoulders at different height) so during convalescence I worked as a slow dobber to build shoulder strength and never moved on. I play limited overs (30 or 35) on municipal (uncovered, variable bounce) pitches so making the batsman swing hard to get the ball off the square was a working strategy for some of the older players and seemed worth copying. Last year I was getting found out a bit by the 'village blacksmith' style player as I seem to end up bowling in the death so I decided I needed a bit of movement (in the air and/or off the pitch) to help out. Hence learning spin.
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Looks ok, if a little jerky. What's it like at the other end? Good pace? Good action off the pitch? Consistent landing spot!
 
Thanks for the feedback. Jerky is a fair comment. I think my body doesn't always work in unison yet - sometimes it feels my shoulders lead the rotation and other times my hips lead.

That session wasn't accurate. 50% landing 12-18" wide of my target line on the legside (RHB). Maybe 20% very wide.A couple dragged offside and only a handful on target. It seems the wider the ball the more turn though.

The next session was very accurate. Was fully cocking the wrist and the release was coming out nicely. Maybe 2/3 landing on or close to the line and at decent length. Today's session was somewhere inbetween although I was concentrating on my footing (very slippery underfoot) so I'm not surprised it wasn't as good.

I feel like I'm getting towards the point I could bowl in the nets. Got a couple of months to tune the accuracy and then I'll see how it goes from there.
 
MagicDave said:
Thanks for the feedback. Jerky is a fair comment. I think my body doesn't always work in unison yet - sometimes it feels my shoulders lead the rotation and other times my hips lead.

That session wasn't accurate. 50% landing 12-18" wide of my target line on the legside (RHB). Maybe 20% very wide.A couple dragged offside and only a handful on target. It seems the wider the ball the more turn though.

The next session was very accurate. Was fully cocking the wrist and the release was coming out nicely. Maybe 2/3 landing on or close to the line and at decent length. Today's session was somewhere inbetween although I was concentrating on my footing (very slippery underfoot) so I'm not surprised it wasn't as good.

I feel like I'm getting towards the point I could bowl in the nets. Got a couple of months to tune the accuracy and then I'll see how it goes from there.
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have you experimented with getting a little more side-on? Your back foot lands in a side-on position, so it might be worth experimenting with trying to align your upper body so that you look at the target to the left of your front arm. You may find that this helps with both accuracy and wrist position.
 
I have experimented with side on (or more correctly - what I 'thought' was side on). It was terrible to the point I was ready to stop bowling ( I persevered for around 3 sessions ). Proper balls spraying ALL over the place. I always think of myself as a front on bowler so actually filming from the side has been enlightening to see how much more side on than I think I am.

The back foot change is something that has come with practice over the last couple of months. When bowling seam both feet remain pointing forwards - although its now starting to feel natural to have the back foot sideways. I struggled with seam alignment when I started and could only get top spin. I needed to move my back foot round to allow my arm to follow a better path and give my wrist freedom of alignment.

Good point about looking to the left of the front arm! I'll give it a go. I'm slowly reading through the 200 pages of this thread so I'm fully aware of the 3 steps forward 2 steps back nature of progression.

My sights are still fairly low at present. Aiming to be good enough to not waste peoples net time so that the team have someone who can give them a little practice against leg spin so its not black magic the first time an opposition team pass the ball over.
 
MagicDave said:
I have experimented with side on (or more correctly - what I 'thought' was side on). It was terrible to the point I was ready to stop bowling ( I persevered for around 3 sessions ). Proper balls spraying ALL over the place. I always think of myself as a front on bowler so actually filming from the side has been enlightening to see how much more side on than I think I am.

The back foot change is something that has come with practice over the last couple of months. When bowling seam both feet remain pointing forwards - although its now starting to feel natural to have the back foot sideways. I struggled with seam alignment when I started and could only get top spin. I needed to move my back foot round to allow my arm to follow a better path and give my wrist freedom of alignment.

Good point about looking to the left of the front arm! I'll give it a go. I'm slowly reading through the 200 pages of this thread so I'm fully aware of the 3 steps forward 2 steps back nature of progression.

My sights are still fairly low at present. Aiming to be good enough to not waste peoples net time so that the team have someone who can give them a little practice against leg spin so its not black magic the first time an opposition team pass the ball over.
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I think you need to decide whether to stick with your existing front-on action, or convert to an orthodox side-on action, because at the moment your action is mixed - which isn't recommended.

Most spin bowlers use a side-on action, whereby their back foot lands side-on, and their upper body also aligns sideways so that they are looking at the target behind their front arm. A big part of generating spin comes from a hard pivot through the crease, and you can't really pivot fully without getting into a completely side-on position at back foot landing. This is especially true for leg spinners. If you want to be an orthodox leggie in the tradition of Warne/Mushtaq/Kumble/Grimmett/O'Reilly etc, you really need to get into a side-on position.

However, its often advisable to work with what you've got, rather than trying to be something you are not. Plenty of amateur spinners are successful with a front-on action, although its more likely that you will be a leg-cutter bowler, than a genuine leg-break bowler. However this can be just as effective, especially on uncovered amateur pitches.
 
Thanks for the tip off. I don't think I would have noticed the mixed action on my own. Just to double check my understanding, a mixed action is where the shoulders and hips aren't in alignment during the bowling action?

Ideally I would like to spin rather than cut as I can see flight and dip being as useful as turn off the pitch against the type of batter I play with/against - but I'll take what I can achieve. I'm never going to be playing at a high level but it would be nice to be considered tricky to play against.
 
The first thing I noticed (and you mentioned it straight out) was your front hip as you hit the crease. As you say, it is quite front on (probably a consequence of bowling seam previously). Ideally, you would be much more side on as that front foot lands, with the right hip behind you a bit more. This will then help your whole body orientation (hips, chest and shoulders) be more side and generate more energy in the rotation. The hip to shoulder seperation would benefit too and just generate a lot more energy in the action. That's the second thing that I noticed, that there could be a bit more energy/power in the action. But that will largely be down to the front on action. With a more front on action you need more energy in the run up and gather. With a nice powerful rotation, you can generate good revs without lots of foot speed.
 
Thanks for the feedback. A slot has come free at one of the local coaching venues so I have booked myself in at the weekend. I might be wrong but I feel the basic action to be part of the foundations so I want to try and short cut the learning process to make sure I'm practicing the right fundamentals.

You never know - I might get things clicking before the first game in May but I'm not putting myself under pressure. I have enough keeping and batting skills to keep my place in the team without needing to bowl.
 
MagicDave said:
Thanks for the feedback. A slot has come free at one of the local coaching venues so I have booked myself in at the weekend. I might be wrong but I feel the basic action to be part of the foundations so I want to try and short cut the learning process to make sure I'm practicing the right fundamentals.
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It's vital to have the basics in place because it takes a lot of repetition and if you are repeating an action with flaws in it, then you are doing a lot of work that will not only be wasteful but may also be doing more harm than good. If you can work with a coach, then that is ideal. Otherwise, the best you can do is video your bowling and then watch it back afterwards - which isn't ideal because you may have bowled 150+ balls before you can check back (unless you record and watch it back there and then).
 
MagicDave said:
Also. Not sure if people have read this blog article.

http://www.pitchvision.com/spinner-tips

Interesting bit about front arm weights for training weak arms.
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Experts,
In this article I got one one best advice for my weak front arm issue. It advices to keep some object which will help to overcome weak front arm. It seems to be giving me good result but just wanted to confirm with you guys one thing.

It has to be reasonably heavy ball or can be any light object like a wooden bail? I tried using another cricket ball in front arm. Please to provide your experience if any. Will post some videos later about problem/improvement as I progress.... Thanks in advance.
 
I'm not an expert, however I would have thought the progression might be from heavier to lighter. Start with a heavy ball and gradually work to not needing anything at all. After all, you probably aren't going to be allowed to carry a spare ball to help you bowl in a game.
 
Tagged along to my first net of the year - and first ever bowling spin. Went about as well as might be expected for an indoor net (took a while to find my rhythm, balls flying everywhere as the batter looks to slog).

Was the first time I have ever seen a spin carpet. We 'bagsied' the spare lane next to us after the spin lessons for the youngsters finished. On the track was a felt sheet with a load of dimples on the surface. The best way I can describe it is a bit like those clear plastic carpet protectors - but made of a hard-wearing felt material. It certainly made a big difference to the surface. Balls could really turn on that - although the bounce was still pretty high in comparison the wickets I have played on.

Plenty to work on but if I can get into the rhythm I had at the end of the session, from the start of a session, I'll be happy to take that into a game. I still have 4 months before the first fixtures so hopefully still time to refine things and be ready.
 
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