Leg spin- follow through/body rotation

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Sparksy88

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Leg spin- follow through/body rotation

Hi

Have been working hard to get a full follow through and body rotation over a braced front leg and it has been going well.

Have been looking at a few leggies follow throughs and wanted some opinions.
For example, Adil Rachid dosnt drive the leg 'up' and over but more forward and through.
In warns follow through the leg come through, with the foot somtimes swinging out to the side, is this because he is rotating his hips that the leg swings out slightly?
So im slightly confused, where an offspinner drives the knee up and over, this does not suit the leg spinner?
 
Re: Leg spin- follow through/body rotation

I'm not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but if warne swing his out and round, it's probably a good template for your own approach. I know that I tend to go through phases were I bowl kind of like Graeme Cremer with that leg going up and through rather than up and round like Warne and it never turns as much. I find that if I forget to swing the leg out and round like Warne and then remember I'm not doing it and do it -I get an instant improvement. Try it - try and bowl with the leg more up and through and see how it goes and then do it the Warne way and see if it creates an improvement? Trial and error is the name of the game. My son who's 8 has suddenly started to bowl good leg breaks and this has coincided with his leg going up and round like Warne.
 
Re: Leg spin- follow through/body rotation

TBH, it depends on the rest of your action; what happens before this point.
 
Re: Leg spin- follow through/body rotation

I'm not by any means an expert, but from all the videos I've watched and from my own experience it seems the back leg is all about counterbalancing out the torso as the body pivots round. It looks like the rounder the arm relative to the shoulder, the greater the bend in the torso to get close to vertical and improve accuracy. McGill seems to have a higher arm than Warne so seems to need the leg kick less, and Warne himself seems less round-arm earlier in his career with less leg-kick. Does that seem a plausible theory?
 
Re: Leg spin- follow through/body rotation

the leg alone makes little difference. if you just tag a flailing leg onto your action then it is unlikely to make a difference. the corresponding difference in the rest of your action might though. the leg being a counter balance for the torso and arm probably makes sense when you look at it, im not sure if that really is the case. but the leg rotation should occur as a product of the rest of your body rotating, and should do so in sync with your upper body. how it rotates will be determined by the rest of your action, everyone has their own way. Warne and MacGill could both turn the ball huge, and both had very different actions, so there is more than one way to achieve the same end result.

aim to get up onto the toes of your front foot at the start of the rotation, then rotate about the toes, and the back leg follow through will most probably be determined by your upper body motion.
 
Re: Leg spin- follow through/body rotation

Spiderlounge;407488 said:
I'm not by any means an expert, but from all the videos I've watched and from my own experience it seems the back leg is all about counterbalancing out the torso as the body pivots round. It looks like the rounder the arm relative to the shoulder, the greater the bend in the torso to get close to vertical and improve accuracy. McGill seems to have a higher arm than Warne so seems to need the leg kick less, and Warne himself seems less round-arm earlier in his career with less leg-kick. Does that seem a plausible theory?
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I agree guys, the different leg motions come from the different actions. Not talking large differences of course. I agree with Spiderlounge about the height of the arm, when i experiment with a slightly higher arm the leg does seem to follow through more like an off spinner (boo!), where as playing around with a rounder arm for me produces more of a 'swivel' with the leg following through wider and round like Warnie (*in no way am i comparing my self to Warne haha).
 
Re: Leg spin- follow through/body rotation

Yeah this is all making sense to me. McGill straighter arm less leg swing round, Warne lower arm more swing-round.
 
Re: Leg spin- follow through/body rotation

As a wheelchair user myself, this is irrelevant to me - HOWEVER, I am reminded of Philpott's advice about the bowling arm - naturally high is OK as long as you are aware of how high it is to prevent it from going past the vertical. Generally, the closer to vertical the arm goes, the better the bowlers spatial awareness of where it is needs to be. The rounder arm bowlers tend to be less critical in this respect. For that reason, I tend to favour a slightly lower arm action (not necessarily Grimmett-like, but not like Benaud) unless the higher arm can be controlled well. Also, it is often easier to bowl the topspinner from a slightly lower arm position. I mention this because soparksdy sounds like he has a straighter back leg action, which perhaaps, as dave suggests, is indicitive of a higher arm.
 
Re: Leg spin- follow through/body rotation

someblokecalleddave;408579 said:
When you bowl Chris do you sit sideway and rotate your trunk as you deliver the ball?
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Well, I've never bowled legspin from my wheelchair - but I have messed about with seam up. I park somewhere between about 30-45 degrees from side-on towards front-on with my front (left) arm leaning on the wheelchair armrest. I then take the bowling arm through a standard bowling arc and pivot myself in my seat as I deliver the ball using my left arm as a pivot. It's nothing like the way an able-bodied bowler would bowl, and there's no way I could get the same drive on the ball, but I'm only really experimenting to play in the odd back garden knockaround. I haven't got the size or strength to bowl 22 yards - dunno how far my limit would be, though I supect it would be further seam-up than spinning.

With leg spin, I'm at the underarm stage of Philpott's progression, although I reckon I could get the ball to turn overarm, the accuracy wouldn't be there. I'm naturally quite round arm, but that is, I think, due to the way my disability affects my joints - they're rather slack and I'm careful about not over-extending my shoulders lest I damage them. For that reason, I find a Warne arm action more comfortable than a high, Benaud position. I've often wondered what I'd be like if I was able-bodied, not in a bitter or gloomy way, more in an intrigued sense. Would I have ended-up bowling seam-up (my dad's quite tall, so there's a chance I'd have had a pace-bowlers' build rather than a typical spinners'). I suspect I'd have gravitated more to bowling than batsmanship, and I'd like to think that I'd have at least attempted proper wrist spin bowling.:cool:
 
Re: Leg spin- follow through/body rotation

Ahhh..... so you're a seam up bowler, but your gravitating towards the lure of spin bowling? It sounds to me as though if you were to make the leap to cross-seam spin bowling you'd probably do okay, it sounds as though you're readily admitting that that speed isn't going to be your strong point, but guile and turn combined with slow bowling and the use of different flight sounds as though it could suit your situation?
 
Re: Leg spin- follow through/body rotation

someblokecalleddave;408644 said:
Ahhh..... so you're a seam up bowler, but your gravitating towards the lure of spin bowling? It sounds to me as though if you were to make the leap to cross-seam spin bowling you'd probably do okay, it sounds as though you're readily admitting that that speed isn't going to be your strong point, but guile and turn combined with slow bowling and the use of different flight sounds as though it could suit your situation?
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Well, I think the word "bowler" suggests something rather grander than is the case - I'm really just experimenting. I spent years trying to bowl leg spiin from my wheelchir with a soft sponge ball (yes, really) with no idea of what I was doing, but I found that I could bowl straight!:D It's only been this last two years that I've perfected my grip and wrist action to spin the ball across and towards my body - next step is to practice underarm, then roundarm etc., as per Philpott. My loose joints and comparative weakness mean that my flipper action generates little spin, but I can get lots of revs using the big flick and I have (I think) a useful wrong-un. I tend towards overspin, so that might be useful.
 
Re: Leg spin- follow through/body rotation

Have you tried bowling with the Karate Chop emphasis that I write about ocassionally? Use the 2 up 2 down grip, make sure the 3rd fingers on the seam, but then as you bring your arm over instead of having it feel like you're bowling out of the front of the hand have the wrist twisted around a bit more so that it feels like your hands coming over in the karate chop position instead, then try and feel for it coming off that 3rd finger, it's the answer for a lot of people including myself.
 
Re: Leg spin- follow through/body rotation

someblokecalleddave;408653 said:
Have you tried bowling with the Karate Chop emphasis that I write about ocassionally? Use the 2 up 2 down grip, make sure the 3rd fingers on the seam, but then as you bring your arm over instead of having it feel like you're bowling out of the front of the hand have the wrist twisted around a bit more so that it feels like your hands coming over in the karate chop position instead, then try and feel for it coming off that 3rd finger, it's the answer for a lot of people including myself.
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Ihaven't, but, if I find a problem with getting pure sidespin when I do go overam, I'll be sure to give it a try.
 
Re: Leg spin- follow through/body rotation

someblokecalleddave;409141 said:
Here's another upload from me on this subject - I'm asking for comments re my feet position and whether the stride is wide enough YouTube - Leg spin bowling action from side in slow motion.wmv
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Well, from a purely theoretical basis, I'd say there's nowt wrong with your release. I don't know whether the back foot should land parallel with the crease or whether it can land at an angle and then twist, so I'm not going to comment on that! As far as your stride length is concerned, I suspect (having looked at plenty of photos of people like Warne and Quadir, that it's maybe a touch short, but I think that going too long might impede you getting over you front foot and completing the pivot, which you're doing very well at the moment.

My only other comment is that I'm a touch concerned by your leading arm - is it tucking in beside your ribs? From that angle, it looks as though you're throwing it out a touch early.
 
Re: Leg spin- follow through/body rotation

chrisbell;409186 said:
Well, from a purely theoretical basis, I'd say there's nowt wrong with your release. I don't know whether the back foot should land parallel with the crease or whether it can land at an angle and then twist, so I'm not going to comment on that! As far as your stride length is concerned, I suspect (having looked at plenty of photos of people like Warne and Quadir, that it's maybe a touch short, but I think that going too long might impede you getting over you front foot and completing the pivot, which you're doing very well at the moment.

My only other comment is that I'm a touch concerned by your leading arm - is it tucking in beside your ribs? From that angle, it looks as though you're throwing it out a touch early.
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Yeah the leading arm I noticed was slightly odd, is the point you're making, the fact that I don't reach out early enough? This is one of the things I noticed using this image of Warne.

Warne+Stride.jpg


He has a very pronounced & straight arm pointing the way almost parallel to the wicket before his 'Pivot' foot has even hit the ground. I'll have to look again at the Warne footage - but it's points in his action that I'm looking at. There's several things going on at this point in the action I'm looking at and I'm not sure what impact they have on the result when the ball hits the deck.

(1). The back foot in the shot above; It's almost sideways - square to the crease line. How important is that?

(2). The big stride - how important is that, I'm guessing that it has some bearing on the rotation?

(3). The outstretched leading arm in relation to the timing where the pivot lands.

(4). The straight back at this point too.

I missed a trick yesterday in that I should have shot the footage from the other angle as I wanted to see where the 'Ball hand' was at this point.

To some extent as Tony M has warned above I shouldn't be too hung up on these points in comparing my action to Warnes because each individual has their own way. On top of that without looking - I'm sure if you were to analyse Warnes deliveries there would probably be subtle differences between his slight variations of the Leg Break and bigger differences in 'The Variations'?

What I'm trying to do is establish if I'm doing anything fundamentally wrong whilst I'm working with this new action. I'd rather iron all the problems out now rather than spend the winter working with this new method unaware that there is something still basically wrong.
 
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