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bear in mind that Warney is bowling on a professional wicket there. it looks rock hard, so the pace off the pitch looks really fast (the same as the bounce looks really big), but its more a case of the ball not slowing up as much as it would on a club wicket. of course he is quick even off no run-up, thats probably as fast as I bowl at full effort (going by the pace in flight), but my deliveries don't go past the bat anywhere near as fast as they would on that strip!! which is probably the single biggest drawback to club spin bowling. batsmen always have time to play it, no matter how hard you spin it or how good you are. the margin for error in terms of length is about 6", so you have to be deadly accurate every ball unless the batsmen are rubbish. how I wish I played ECB premier league cricket or higher, I'd get hit for more runs off the loose balls, but I'd take a lot more wickets off the good ones!!
 
I think speed is a bit of a misnomer, if you're deadly accurate it's not so bad to bowl slowly, Clarrie Grimmet would have been barely pushing them past 40-45 in my estimation - and also by reports from players of the time. It's also true that he didnt bowl a single wide in his entire test career! I can only imagine the increased pace on the ball is due to the introduction of limited overs cricket and as usual it's preventing our true test batsmen and bowlers from developing properly. Leg spinners should be trying to take wickets, not be worried about being taken off for leaking a few runs in a limited overs match!
 
Pace does make a huge difference. Again, I will reference to the fact that professional wickets are of a significantly higher standard than club wickets, so the pace through the air is less significant as the pace off the wicket is higher. So it can mask pace.

I have generally been most successful when bowling on artificial wickets, even when I haven't bowled especially well, and it is hard to overlook it as a coincidence. The same often applies in nets, I can bowl identically to in the middle at batsmen, and they will struggle a lot more on the harder, faster "wicket" than on a soft club track. I turn the ball equally as big (sometimes bigger) on such wickets as well.

Certainly leggies shouldn't get hung up on pace though. Line and length, and more importantly spin (incorporating drift and turn), are the most significant and important factors in being a good bowler. But there comes a point where you can get the ball to drift big, turn bigger, land it on a good line and length consistently, but still have average club batsmen play you comfortably, and at that stage there really is only one further step to take, and it is to increase the pace. Which is something I worked on pre-season, but haven't been able to dedicate any time to since. I really need to work hard over the winter this year, I was too lazy last year, and played too much indoor cricket when I should have been practicing in nets.
 
parbs1980 said:
I think speed is a bit of a misnomer, if you're deadly accurate it's not so bad to bowl slowly, Clarrie Grimmet would have been barely pushing them past 40-45 in my estimation - and also by reports from players of the time. It's also true that he didnt bowl a single wide in his entire test career! I can only imagine the increased pace on the ball is due to the introduction of limited overs cricket and as usual it's preventing our true test batsmen and bowlers from developing properly. Leg spinners should be trying to take wickets, not be worried about being taken off for leaking a few runs in a limited overs match!
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Amol Rajan in his 'Twirlymen' book has a very interesting take on spin and pace and comes up with some good research on the subject. He says that bowling spin at medium pace speeds 65mph and faster is a lost art but was the forte of several of the greats back in the day, it makes interesting reading.
 
Sounds like a good read dave, i guess kumble or afridi are good examples of this, maybe they had guys bowling those fast offspinners like collingwood was doing for england. I'd wager it was even more effective on the old 'sticky dogs' and such back then - there seems to be a focus on getting loop and beating the batsman in flight with our modern rolled pitches
 
parbs1980 said:
Sounds like a good read dave, i guess kumble or afridi are good examples of this, maybe they had guys bowling those fast offspinners like collingwood was doing for england. I'd wager it was even more effective on the old 'sticky dogs' and such back then - there seems to be a focus on getting loop and beating the batsman in flight with our modern rolled pitches
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No, he reckons Alfridi and Kumble are way off the mark albeit the closest around in recent years. I think you're right though when you talk in terms of Collingwood, I think he gets a mention, but where as Collingwood bowled them as infrequent variations, these blokes were genuine spinners and specialised in bowling spin at high speed.
 
Probably sydney barnes with his in-dipping fast legbreaks! Apparently he got them to dip and race off the pitch, with inwards drift - this pretty much implies he had a method of producing overspun legbreaks at a medium pace with a 'twist of the finger' as he described it, imagine facing that! By the way Dave i posted a comment on one of your youtube videos
 
parbs1980 said:
Probably sydney barnes with his in-dipping fast legbreaks! Apparently he got them to dip and race off the pitch, with inwards drift - this pretty much implies he had a method of producing overspun legbreaks at a medium pace with a 'twist of the finger' as he described it, imagine facing that! By the way Dave i posted a comment on one of your youtube videos
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I'll have a look. My older son who's a seam up bowler has a variation where he twists his fingers and makes the ball come in to the batsman to very good effect sometimes kind of fast finger-spin. Sydney Barnes rings a bell, it could be him.
 
parbs1980 said:
Probably sydney barnes with his in-dipping fast legbreaks! Apparently he got them to dip and race off the pitch, with inwards drift - this pretty much implies he had a method of producing overspun legbreaks at a medium pace with a 'twist of the finger' as he described it, imagine facing that! By the way Dave i posted a comment on one of your youtube videos
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Wrong Leg Parbs. The leg with the issue is the right leg and it's caused by the impact of landing on it out of the bound. The leg I rotate around is fine. But you're right I do over-rotate and it caused problems last year.
 
I'm up-loading some new vids - this one here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8bsppE8dGU features my current bowling in it's two forms viewed from directly over-head which I've never seen done anywhere else. Whether my action is good enough to use as an illustration as to how to bowl legspin I suppose is up to you blokes to pass judgement on, I'd be especially interested in Liz Wards views.

Here's another http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9jy7FOGOXs comments would be good as to whether things are looking okay/good or bad?
 
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