Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)

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Saradhy Krishnan said:
@macca for the square seaming legbreak that i have been researching on is it necessary to have backspin+sidespin on the ball ?
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I reckon tending to topspin+sidespin is more useful, more often. Then the one with backspin as the rare variation.

The trouble with backspin is the spin is usually bigger but always slower and a batsman can play you off the pitch if you are a slow legspinner overusing backspin.
 
@ But what is the perfect release for the BIG spinning legbreak (sqare seam) I have practiced it a lot but not so clicking. What so be the release and wrist position and I have tried to ball a slider,but that turned into a humongous legbreak. So should I
release the big legbreak with a bit of backspin
 
Saradhy Krishnan said:
@ But what is the perfect release for the BIG spinning legbreak (sqare seam) I have practiced it a lot but not so clicking. What so be the release and wrist position and I have tried to ball a slider,but that turned into a humongous legbreak. So should I
release the big legbreak with a bit of backspin
Click to expand...

If by 'Slider' you mean the Orthodox Back-spinner that's a frequent feature (Big Leg Break), the OBS is probably one of the most difficult deliveries and one that Warne couln't bowl that well, so he resorted to a range of 'Mickey Mouse' back-spinning variations opting to disguise the fact that he wasn't that good at the OBS by calling them a whole series of different names - Slider, Zooter etc. Terry Jenner is the only person I've ever seen who's been able to bowl a good OBS and the best I've seen him do that is on a difficult to get hold of ECB video that's not readily available. The big Leg break spun at 90 degrees and done really well can be bowled with the axis of the spin angled giving the ball the chance to land on the smooth surface and not turn despite the 90 degree rotation of the seam. There's also speculation that the angled axis produces an increased chance of the ball drifting better.
 
Saradhy Krishnan said:
@ But what is the perfect release for the BIG spinning legbreak (sqare seam) I have practiced it a lot but not so clicking. What so be the release and wrist position and I have tried to ball a slider,but that turned into a humongous legbreak. So should I
release the big legbreak with a bit of backspin
Click to expand...

Slider gone wrong and big legbreak can be same thing.

If you want the BIG one than probably a bit of backspin, especially on a good surface, will help but the perfect release would be perfectly square in theory but if you can get it roughly square consistently then you are doing well.

You need someone at the other end or even 16 yards away and have them check the seam in flight.

The big test is when you try it out on a batsman. If you give up too much topspin in the quest for a big legbreak with full on sidespin you might end up easy pickings for batsmen. Like bobby simpson used to say "it's not always the width of spin but the speed of the spin that gets the batsman out".

Keep the backspin for variation and make sure your stock legbreak has topspin is the go.
 
I bowl with a lot of topspin on my deliveries, no doubt because of my high action. The thing I observed from last season is I had four catches caught in the slips and they all carried nicely and were sitters. I put this down to the the topspin. They bounced turned enough to catch the edge and kept rising to the slips for easy catches(relatively) because of the extra bounce. There werent any low ground level catches. Another plus for the topspinning leg break.
 
chippyben said:
I bowl with a lot of topspin on my deliveries, no doubt because of my high action. The thing I observed from last season is I had four catches caught in the slips and they all carried nicely and were sitters. I put this down to the the topspin. They bounced turned enough to catch the edge and kept rising to the slips for easy catches(relatively) because of the extra bounce. There werent any low ground level catches. Another plus for the topspinning leg break.
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If the wickets got a bit of bounce in it the Small Leg Break with loads of top-Spin is a Beaut!
 
I had an interesting day on Monday, asked to bowl on a soaking wet green pitch with a ball like a bar of soap. I was initially reluctant to take the ball - I figured I wouldn't get any turn and we'd be better off leaving the seamers on.

Anyway, I found that although I couldn't turn the ball even an inch, I could still trouble the batsman by spinning the ball hard enough to generate good drift in from outside offstump and mixing up my flight and pace. I seemed to be able to get the ball to skid on whenever I pushed it through and others to stop in the pitch a little when I held them back.
So I brought my extra cover across to midwicket to try and encourage the batsman to play "with the spin" (what spin?) into the offside, and ended up beating the inside edge 3 times in 4 overs, to finish with 3-10, with 2 bowled and 1 lbw. Even though they could see it wasn't spinning, they couldn't help themselves just playing for the turn a little bit.

So it kinda taught me a lesson that you don't need a spinning pitch to be an effective spin bowler.
 
chippyben said:
I bowl with a lot of topspin on my deliveries, no doubt because of my high action. The thing I observed from last season is I had four catches caught in the slips and they all carried nicely and were sitters. I put this down to the the topspin. They bounced turned enough to catch the edge and kept rising to the slips for easy catches(relatively) because of the extra bounce. There werent any low ground level catches. Another plus for the topspinning leg break.
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It's also by far the hardest delivery to drive safely along the ground - if you can bowl topspinners with just a hint of legspin on a driving length, you can get catch after catch in the covers and gully. For our leggy at my club we often go as far as basically taking out mid on and mid off just to try and encourage the batsmen to drive at the ball.
 
@ macca can you give me tips on how to ball a slider I decided that I want to mix my deliveries up. I seriously want to practice on my slider, can you help me. When I try it always ends up as an full toss but not a long hop I want to ball it perfectly.Is there any difference between the slider and the Zooter ?
 
SLA said:
I had an interesting day on Monday, asked to bowl on a soaking wet green pitch with a ball like a bar of soap. I was initially reluctant to take the ball - I figured I wouldn't get any turn and we'd be better off leaving the seamers on.

Anyway, I found that although I couldn't turn the ball even an inch, I could still trouble the batsman by spinning the ball hard enough to generate good drift in from outside offstump and mixing up my flight and pace. I seemed to be able to get the ball to skid on whenever I pushed it through and others to stop in the pitch a little when I held them back.
So I brought my extra cover across to midwicket to try and encourage the batsman to play "with the spin" (what spin?) into the offside, and ended up beating the inside edge 3 times in 4 overs, to finish with 3-10, with 2 bowled and 1 lbw. Even though they could see it wasn't spinning, they couldn't help themselves just playing for the turn a little bit.

So it kinda taught me a lesson that you don't need a spinning pitch to be an effective spin bowler.
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Brilliant!
And I understand the dilemma facing those batsmen: We know it won't spin, but we have trained our instincts to such an extent that if the bowler rolls his fingers in one direction, we expect the ball to spin in that direction, It is very very difficult to get rid or put that instinct aside even momentarily.
Btw, finger spinners and sticky wickets have had a long history - just ask Laker and the aussies about it.
 
Saradhy Krishnan said:
@ macca can you give me tips on how to ball a slider I decided that I want to mix my deliveries up. I seriously want to practice on my slider, can you help me. When I try it always ends up as an full toss but not a long hop I want to ball it perfectly.Is there any difference between the slider and the Zooter ?
Click to expand...

Ha!Ha! Try and find a definition of those two! It'll be interesting to hear what you come up with Macca!:D
 
SLA I find wet balls drift more than dry ones. So if you can grip it I guess it should be an advantage. In effect you become a slow swing bowler. I wonder if Brian Wilkins metions the wet balls on swing and drift in his book.
 
Saradhy Krishnan said:
@ macca can you give me tips on how to ball a slider I decided that I want to mix my deliveries up. I seriously want to practice on my slider, can you help me. When I try it always ends up as an full toss but not a long hop I want to ball it perfectly.Is there any difference between the slider and the Zooter ?
Click to expand...

Warne mastered the backspinner, then came up with his own ways of delivering it a bit different, usually less backspin then say benauds 'slider'. zooter supposed to come out with little spin as possible.

A young bowler doesn't have to worry about backspinners much. Learn what they are muck around especially in the off season or maybe if you are not sidespinning enough some backspinners can help maybe, but like Warnie learnt the slider last of all his deliveries even his flipper. He was on the verge of test selection before someone showed him how to bowl the slider like benaud used to bowl. Mainly warne was victorian and the nsw leggies had their own secrets. Simpson from nsw showed warne how to bowl the backspinner.

One of the best "sliders" to try is one that warne used late in his career and that is just try and bowl a ball that looks like a legbreak but at the last second you trail your fingers down the seam like a seam bowler and try and bowl a straight one.
 
SLA said:
I had an interesting day on Monday, asked to bowl on a soaking wet green pitch with a ball like a bar of soap. I was initially reluctant to take the ball - I figured I wouldn't get any turn and we'd be better off leaving the seamers on.

Anyway, I found that although I couldn't turn the ball even an inch, I could still trouble the batsman by spinning the ball hard enough to generate good drift in from outside offstump and mixing up my flight and pace. I seemed to be able to get the ball to skid on whenever I pushed it through and others to stop in the pitch a little when I held them back.
So I brought my extra cover across to midwicket to try and encourage the batsman to play "with the spin" (what spin?) into the offside, and ended up beating the inside edge 3 times in 4 overs, to finish with 3-10, with 2 bowled and 1 lbw. Even though they could see it wasn't spinning, they couldn't help themselves just playing for the turn a little bit.

So it kinda taught me a lesson that you don't need a spinning pitch to be an effective spin bowler.
Click to expand...

Now that is clever bowling.
 
macca said:
Warne mastered the backspinner, then came up with his own ways of delivering it a bit different, usually less backspin then say benauds 'slider'. zooter supposed to come out with little spin as possible.

A young bowler doesn't have to worry about backspinners much. Learn what they are muck around especially in the off season or maybe if you are not sidespinning enough some backspinners can help maybe, but like Warnie learnt the slider last of all his deliveries even his flipper. He was on the verge of test selection before someone showed him how to bowl the slider like benaud used to bowl. Mainly warne was victorian and the nsw leggies had their own secrets. Simpson from nsw showed warne how to bowl the backspinner.

One of the best "sliders" to try is one that warne used late in his career and that is just try and bowl a ball that looks like a legbreak but at the last second you trail your fingers down the seam like a seam bowler and try and bowl a straight one.
Click to expand...

I'm fully behind Macca on both counts here - The Zooter as described by one of Warnes early coaches is the one pushed out of the front of the hand with no spin it at all or hardly any. The Slider is the ball that looks like a Leg Break, but you roll the fingers down the back of it. None of which have anything to do with the Orthodox Back-spinner, which I might add is an incredibly difficult ball to bowl.
 
macca said:
Dunno if SLA was on a sticky because a true sticky has the sun come out and the ball turn sideways.
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I had a true sticky at the weekend... but didn't get a bowl! Would have had it hoofing around all over the place but couldn't guarantee landing it right, and we were only defending 36* :eek: We had nets this evening and my bowling was probably the best it's ever been, so I'm ready now.

Have to give a mention to one of the great spinner-on-a-sticky performances, when Headley Verity took 14 wickets in a day in the 1934 Lord's Ashes Test. I always remember this because I watched the Poirot TV series as a boy and Poirot explains to Hasting why Verity was always going to be the match-winner given the overnight rain and his control and range of variations. Always makes me chuckle!

*No, there isn't a digit missing. Thirty-six.
 
Spiderlounge said:
I had a true sticky at the weekend... but didn't get a bowl! Would have had it hoofing around all over the place but couldn't guarantee landing it right, and we were only defending 36* :eek: We had nets this evening and my bowling was probably the best it's ever been, so I'm ready now.

Have to give a mention to one of the great spinner-on-a-sticky performances, when Headley Verity took 14 wickets in a day in the 1934 Lord's Ashes Test. I always remember this because I watched the Poirot TV series as a boy and Poirot explains to Hasting why Verity was always going to be the match-winner given the overnight rain and his control and range of variations. Always makes me chuckle!

*No, there isn't a digit missing. Thirty-six.
Click to expand...

Hedley Verity, what an absolute legend. He ruled on a sticky wicket. He is my favourite England player of all time.
 
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