Left Arm Chinaman

Top Contributors
Abhi Tiger Kalia

Abhi Tiger Kalia

New Member
Hi guys,
i have just found this site, and it is an absolute beauty. I've picked up a lot of tips already so thank you all :) I'm hoping someone can help me with a few of my queries. I will be posting a video very soon.
I can't seem to spin my stock ball alot. My googly spins alot more. and, i was also wondering, what is the correct line for me to bowl my stock delivery if I'm left arm over the wicket.
any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
 
Abhi Tiger Kalia said:
Hi guys,
i have just found this site, and it is an absolute beauty. I've picked up a lot of tips already so thank you all :) I'm hoping someone can help me with a few of my queries. I will be posting a video very soon.
I can't seem to spin my stock ball alot. My googly spins alot more. and, i was also wondering, what is the correct line for me to bowl my stock delivery if I'm left arm over the wicket.
any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
Click to expand...

Welcome. We will discuss the right lines for left arm wrist spin I am sure, and they vary according to the batsmen but similar to right arm orthodox in a lot of ways, but i am more concerned with not being able to spin your stock ball.

You reckon you have not enough sidespin on it but maybe it has a lot of topsin on it ? Like perhaps you are in fact spinning it enough but just not sidespin?

Anyway hope you get lots of feedback when you post your vids.
 
Abhi Tiger Kalia said:
Hi guys,
i have just found this site, and it is an absolute beauty. I've picked up a lot of tips already so thank you all :) I'm hoping someone can help me with a few of my queries. I will be posting a video very soon.
I can't seem to spin my stock ball alot. My googly spins alot more. and, i was also wondering, what is the correct line for me to bowl my stock delivery if I'm left arm over the wicket.
any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
Click to expand...

I'm sure sbcdave will be along shortly to talk to you about googly syndrome!

In terms of line, assuming you sort your stock ball out then it really depends what you want to do with it. You have two options:

Pitch the ball just outside offstump, trying to spin the ball back between the gate with a 4-5 field to try and encourage the batsman to play against the spin. Only use your topspinner and googly as surprise variations intended to draw the batsman into the straight drive and take the edge. This is the "safe" option and will be easier to set a field for.

Or, you could be more ambitious and bowl a line of middle and off, and mix up topspinners, chinamen and googlies at random. The batsman won't know which line to play down from one ball to the next, and all of your deliveries could crash into the stumps at any point. If you get this right you could be virtually unplayable for the amateur batsman, but if you lose your length and don't get your field just right, you could go for a few runs.
 
Abhi Tiger Kalia said:
Hi guys,
i have just found this site, and it is an absolute beauty. I've picked up a lot of tips already so thank you all :) I'm hoping someone can help me with a few of my queries. I will be posting a video very soon.
I can't seem to spin my stock ball alot. My googly spins alot more. and, i was also wondering, what is the correct line for me to bowl my stock delivery if I'm left arm over the wicket.
any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you
Click to expand...

I'm not sure if that's such a problem for a Chinaman bowler (Your Googly being better than your stock ball). I'm assuming the majority of the batsmen you bowl to are RH and therefore your Googly is pitching on middle and off and going away from the edge of the bat? Your smaller stock ball sounds fine if it turns a bit, if it was turning a lot you'd have to pitch wide of off stump and that'd be a dead give away? It sounds as though you'd do well to get a good solid Top-Spinner as suggested above as it would give you the element of surprise and make your bowling more varied. SLA's suggestion here sounds spot on........

"Or, you could be more ambitious and bowl a line of middle and off, and mix up topspinners, chinamen and googlies at random. The batsman won't know which line to play down from one ball to the next, and all of your deliveries could crash into the stumps at any point. If you get this right you could be virtually unplayable for the amateur batsman, but if you lose your length and don't get your field just right, you could go for a few runs".

Abhi glad you like the forum, good to hear your comments and hope you stick around and get involved as well.
 
Yeah the line to bowl for the leftarm unorthodox is a bit more problematic. In a way you only have a half width pitch to try and centre when bowling a stock chinaman to right handers a bit like how a right handed legspinner operates against a left handed batsmen. You got a lot more leeway against lefthanders.

You have to spend a lot of time practising bowling an off and outside off stump line.

I reckon bounce is the chinamans best weapon as well as variations like a wrongun.

the old Bishen Bedi maxim "line is optional, length is mandatory" comes into play aginst lefthanders for you. You gotta bigger target area against these guys.
 
You guys are absolute legends. Thank you for your help. Dave, I have found that the wider i pitch outside off, the more the ball spins..but the closer i get to the off and middle line...the ball straightens just slightly...maybe it is me bowling with a straighter arm rather than round arm?
And macca, you are spot on, everyone rekons i get good bounce hence, i think i may be putting alot more topspin than sidespin.

So to summarize your views, I should practice bowling a stump width outside off and on off...for the RHB.
In regards to field placements i usually have, slip, gully, point, cover, mid off, long on, midwicket, deep cow corner, and short fine leg (45degrees). any changes?

You guys, honestly don't know how excited I'm being able to talk spin with fellow enthusiasts...this is just as exciting as getting a bowl on the weekend!!!
 
Abhi Tiger Kalia said:
You guys are absolute legends. Thank you for your help. Dave, I have found that the wider i pitch outside off, the more the ball spins..but the closer i get to the off and middle line...the ball straightens just slightly...maybe it is me bowling with a straighter arm rather than round arm?
And macca, you are spot on, everyone rekons i get good bounce hence, i think i may be putting alot more topspin than sidespin.

So to summarize your views, I should practice bowling a stump width outside off and on off...for the RHB.
In regards to field placements i usually have, slip, gully, point, cover, mid off, long on, midwicket, deep cow corner, and short fine leg (45degrees). any changes?

You guys, honestly don't know how excited I'm being able to talk spin with fellow enthusiasts...this is just as exciting as getting a bowl on the weekend!!!
Click to expand...

Nice one, it's good to have new blokes coming in and adding to the mix, for the most part we're all learners here trying to figure stuff out and make sense of it, so it kind of works out like a little support network. With your field settings - having a look at the field settings thread. I think the most useful part of it is the more recent stuff, where some of the blokes with more experience chipped in and tweaked a few of the fields I put up and improved them a lot. If I had photoshop, I'd draw up a visual of your field for you and post it in the field setting thread for comment. Still waiting for Photoshop, so can't do it in the short term. So if you're playing at the weekend that suggests you're in the Southern Hemisphere - where are you then? Anyway - good luck in the game lets hope you get some wickets and let us know how you got on?
 
This has some good left arm stuff from Hogg that was posted recently.

Cant wait to see Hoggie in the BBL. Of course it shows how you should get more lbws than right armers. You can see the different lines he bowls and how he keeps it in a smaller target for righthanders and has more room to vary his line with success against lefthanded bats.

Old mate who coaches leftarm wristspin tells me chinaman bowlers need to work on aquiring their variations early on. You need that wrongun, topspinner on demand and ideally some sort of backspinner or slider or just a shorter faster straighter ball that keeps low.

Remember if legspin is an enigma than left arm wrist spin is a conundrum wrapped in an enigma.
 
macca said:
This has some good left arm stuff from Hogg that was posted recently.

Cant wait to see Hoggie in the BBL. Of course it shows how you should get more lbws than right armers. You can see the different lines he bowls and how he keeps it in a smaller target for righthanders and has more room to vary his line with success against lefthanded bats.

Old mate who coaches leftarm wristspin tells me chinaman bowlers need to work on aquiring their variations early on. You need that wrongun, topspinner on demand and ideally some sort of backspinner or slider or just a shorter faster straighter ball that keeps low.

Remember if legspin is an enigma than left arm wrist spin is a conundrum wrapped in an enigma.
Click to expand...


Good vid Macca! I like Hogg, I love his exhuberance and his celebrations, what happened to him with playing with the national team, did he specialise with the one day format and did he retire or just fall out of favour? Is the BBL the same thing Warne's come out of retirement to play in as well?
 
I dunno why he retired when he did. But it will be good to see how he goes in the BBL along with Warne.
 
Had a look Macca, nothing doing for us Pommies - can't access the videos, had a look around youtube nothing on there either just interviews with the players no match highlights or anything.
 
I think the bbl might be on fox sports...i love hoggy. a very underrrated bowler. Hoggy, bowls alot faster than warnie i think. macca, i love your comment about left arm wrist spin being a conundrum wrapped in an enigma.

Played on turf for the first time in my life. got picked as a batsmen. LOL. Opened the batting and made 41. hopefully they give me a bowl next week, as im looking forward to the amount of turn i can get with my stock ball.
By the way, have you guys seen simon katich bowl? that guy can really bowl well.
Old mate who coaches leftarm wristspin tells me chinaman bowlers need to work on aquiring their variations early on. You need that wrongun, topspinner on demand and ideally some sort of backspinner or slider or just a shorter faster straighter ball that keeps low.
Click to expand...
I've got the toppy and wrongun, no backspinner or slider. with my quicker delivery, i just send one down like a pace bowler but with my spin action.
I think i just need to learn to land on the spot and work on my turn.
Also, if you guys can help that would be great, whenever i try to give the ball more air, it usually ends up a low full toss...i cant figure out what i'm doing wrong.
 
macca said:
This has some good left arm stuff from Hogg that was posted recently.

Cant wait to see Hoggie in the BBL. Of course it shows how you should get more lbws than right armers. You can see the different lines he bowls and how he keeps it in a smaller target for righthanders and has more room to vary his line with success against lefthanded bats.

Old mate who coaches leftarm wristspin tells me chinaman bowlers need to work on aquiring their variations early on. You need that wrongun, topspinner on demand and ideally some sort of backspinner or slider or just a shorter faster straighter ball that keeps low.

Remember if legspin is an enigma than left arm wrist spin is a conundrum wrapped in an enigma.
Click to expand...

by thw way, macca, does your old mate happen to live in melbourne by any chance??? i could use all the help i can get haha
 
Abhi Tiger Kalia said:
I think the bbl might be on fox sports...i love hoggy. a very underrrated bowler. Hoggy, bowls alot faster than warnie i think. macca, i love your comment about left arm wrist spin being a conundrum wrapped in an enigma.

Played on turf for the first time in my life. got picked as a batsmen. LOL. Opened the batting and made 41. hopefully they give me a bowl next week, as im looking forward to the amount of turn i can get with my stock ball.
By the way, have you guys seen simon katich bowl? that guy can really bowl well.

I've got the toppy and wrongun, no backspinner or slider. with my quicker delivery, i just send one down like a pace bowler but with my spin action.
I think i just need to learn to land on the spot and work on my turn.
Also, if you guys can help that would be great, whenever i try to give the ball more air, it usually ends up a low full toss...i cant figure out what i'm doing wrong.
Click to expand...

The key with the full toss situation is more top-spin - the more top spin you give it the more it will dip, the top spin combined with more pace should see the ball dip and land short of the batsman. Just watch Warne vids and you'll see he's clocking 50 mph and tossing the ball up, but then it lands short of the batsman - dip from top-spin is the 'Magic'.
 
Abhi Tiger Kalia said:
I've got the toppy and wrongun, no backspinner or slider. with my quicker delivery, i just send one down like a pace bowler but with my spin action.
Click to expand...

That's great, you already have enough variations required of the chinaman type bowler. Thats 4 different suites right there.

Old mate is about 500ks from Melbourne.
 
macca said:
That's great, you already have enough variations required of the chinaman type bowler. Thats 4 different suites right there.

Old mate is about 500ks from Melbourne.
Click to expand...
Macca, ill be more than happy to travel the distance if you think it may be beneficial. And thanks dave, ill try hitting the nets tomorrow and hopefully get that dip. Dip = flight + more revs? Hope that is correct! And from watching hogg, do you feel he bowls a lot quicker through the air? he only just tossed his last ball in the video..the wrongun to Freddie
 
Abhi Tiger Kalia said:
I think the bbl might be on fox sports...i love hoggy. a very underrrated bowler. Hoggy, bowls alot faster than warnie i think. macca, i love your comment about left arm wrist spin being a conundrum wrapped in an enigma.

Played on turf for the first time in my life. got picked as a batsmen. LOL. Opened the batting and made 41. hopefully they give me a bowl next week, as im looking forward to the amount of turn i can get with my stock ball.
By the way, have you guys seen simon katich bowl? that guy can really bowl well.

I've got the toppy and wrongun, no backspinner or slider. with my quicker delivery, i just send one down like a pace bowler but with my spin action.
I think i just need to learn to land on the spot and work on my turn.
Also, if you guys can help that would be great, whenever i try to give the ball more air, it usually ends up a low full toss...i cant figure out what i'm doing wrong.
Click to expand...

I don't think you really need a slider.

The two most dangerous deliveries are those that dip, bounce, and move away from the batsman as these produce miss-hits and nicks, and those that skid on towards the batsman as these produce bowled and lbws.

As the majority of batsman at amateur level are right handed, The slider is a great ball for a right handed legspinner as they need it to get lbw and bowled wickets against right handers. But for a chinaman, that slider won't be particularly effective against a right handed batsman. Adding in that topspinner or googly are much more vital.

Therefore I think its a better bet for chinamen to focus on topspin, and mix in spinning the ball both ways. If you mix up the pace, you will find that you get a bit of variation in the bounce as well.
 
Abhi Tiger Kalia said:
Played on turf for the first time in my life. got picked as a batsmen. LOL. Opened the batting and made 41. hopefully they give me a bowl next week, as im looking forward to the amount of turn i can get with my stock ball.
Click to expand...

Done much practise on turf?

Dont know how long you been bowling on concrete and synthetic but you can take heart from the fact that usually the chinaman goes ok moving on to turf. If and a big if , he has done an apprenticeship on the hard concrete surface.

Like SLA was saying you only need to bowl offbreak legbreak and topspin mix. Plus you got that effort ball you described to use as well. Wouldn't muck around with anything new to the winter.

Really interested in how you go with it on the turf if you get a bowl.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top