Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)

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OK I'll kick off then...

There's a great video someone's posted on the links section (have a look here) where Shane Warne and Ian Healey discuss tactics and also what the keeper has to do to support his spinner. I was wondering if, and how, everyone on here went about developing that spinner/keeper relationship, whether you had any particular styles of practising with them and how receptive the keepers were to all this.
 
I have had a good couple of sessions earlier in the week where when I bowled with what felt like the most possible spin I could put on the ball. It felt great but by the end of the week I was bowling badly and it wasn't coming out of the hand right.
I had my last seesion just to try and get it coming out of the hand right and try and ingrain the feeling in my mind. Surprisingly it came back to me quite quickly. The thing I noticed which I hadnt really noticed before was that the good balls where it felt like big revs were where I really flicked the wrist but there was minimal involvement from the spinning finger. If I tried to get the spinning finger really involved the revs weren't the same and often the ball would get stuck in the fingers and get dragged down. Using the finger more seemed to inhibit the big flick of the wrist too.
The results with just the flick were pretty good and I think Im going to just concentrate on getting that right.
 
Spiderlounge said:
OK I'll kick off then...

There's a great video someone's posted on the links section (have a look here) where Shane Warne and Ian Healey discuss tactics and also what the keeper has to do to support his spinner. I was wondering if, and how, everyone on here went about developing that spinner/keeper relationship, whether you had any particular styles of practising with them and how receptive the keepers were to all this.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, with the exception of David Hinchcliffe (micoach) keepers it seems, don't share our obsessive nature and David Hinchcliffe is only a Wrist Spinner in a state of denial, so he's an anomally.
 
We play most (virtually all, seeing we're the fourth of four teams) of our games on an artificial wicket which is only a short walk from the nets, so I'm hoping once we start outdoor nets I can entice the keeper for some practise on the actual wicket away from everyone else. That said I don't really know (and I'm not sure anyone else does) who our keeper's going to be this season so that could either be a problem or an opportunity. From having essentially no-one at the start of last year there now seems to be at least two other part-time leggies in my section of the club now so maybe if one of them wants to keep every now and then and has a good work ethic in terms of practise that could be the way to do it. I'm also quite friendly with the 1st team keeper but I'm not sure my bowling would be worth him wasting his time on, although the club pro this year is a Slow Left Armer so maybe he would find it useful given the similarity in line.
 
Certainly, if you can persuade the keeper to join you that'd be a useful exercise. I think I've discussed this before with David Hinchcliffe on here and I'm sure there is a wicket keepers thread somewhere here, I'll have a look for it and see if we can entice a wicket keeper to offer their take on the matter?
 
From my main blog today...........http://mpafirsteleven.blogspot.com/2011/02/joe-and-ben-nets.html

"Joe, do you want to have a throw around outside before we go to nets just to loosen up, rather then turn up and bowl pies first off"? I asked about half hour before they were due at nets.
"Nah Dad, I usually bowl better straight off rather than do all that beforehand". He replied. Not wanting to push the issue I just thought, well...we'll see how that works out.

Half hour later, Finlay was first up batting in the nets, I think he's a fairly good batsman, with far better averages than both Joe and Ben and has been playing a bit longer than they have. Joe was first in the queue and he bowled from middle of the crease over the wicket. He flighted one in aiming it well outside Leg Stump, Finlay watched it in realising it was well wide of his stump, he left it, the ball pitched and turned in and hit middle and leg - OUT! A beautiful Leg Break, far better than I've ever bowled with a batsman in place and it was the first ball up! He then bowled a few more in pretty much the same way, but this time Finlay was on it and was trying to hit them but still in trouble having to block balls that would have gone onto hit the stumps, again pitching well outside leg. Beautiful bowling from Joe.
 
did his bowling get progressively worse as the session went on though? i found that in winter nets last year, i would turn up and my first half dozen deliveries would be absolute cherries. but id spend the rest of evening getting worse and worse and struggling to land a single delivery where i wanted it.

no idea why, but i think its got to be a mental issue.
 
Do any of you still get problems with your spinning finger getting torn to bits? It's not a problem I've had yet, but I was wondering whether perhaps the seams of cricket balls may have become less abrasive over the years.

Richie Benaud's method of dealing with the problem is as follows:
Materials required: Oily Calamine Lotion BP54, Borasic Acid powder
1. Sand off any dead/torn skin
2. Rub the lotion onto the wound
3. dab off any oil produced
4. Rub in the powder to form a waxy filling
 
Long post coming up, This is Mike Brearley on Legspinners in his book "The art of captaincy"

"... What the legspinner has to offer is not what it seems. Or seemed. For the species has all but become extinct, at least in England as anachronistic as the language used to describe it. There are many reasons for the decline, and I will return to them later. Now I will mentioned just one: the misuse of leg-spinners by captains temperamentally unsympathetic to them.

I can give three examples. Johnny Wardle was a most versatile cricketer. He was a highly competent orthodox spinner, a brilliant bowler of chinamen and googlies, and even an adequate swing bowler. In many, conditions his orthodox bowling was the best bet, it was more accurate, and he could defend one side of the wicket. On wet pitches in particular he could bowl sides out more cheaply than with the Chinamen, In other circumstances, though - and especially overseas- he could be a genuinely attacking bowler only with the Chinaman. In hte other style, he was reduced to defence, he might force good players to make an error, but was unlikely to get them out when they were defending. Now, Len Hutton, as captain of England had a deep respect for fast bowling, and an equally deep mistrust of leg-spin; the outcome was that he used Wardle as a stock bowler whose job was to allow the fast bowlers to rest. He wwas allowed to bowl Chinamen and googlies in the lat Test of the 1954-5 when the Ashes were safe, and took eight wickets in the match.
I think Hutton like many Yorkshiremen found leg-spin utterly enigmatic. Wardle once told me of an occasion when he was bowling orthodox spinners to Hutton on the nets at Headingley. Hutton, he said, kept dancing down the pitch and hitting him everywhere; not least way back over his head. Wardle became fed up with this, and switched to Chinamen. " don't want to sound immodest,' he went on,'but I have never made a great player look so much at sea.'

Leg spin bowling with its flourish and strut, its long-hops and its patches of brilliance, is anathema to the Yorkshire mentality. It is difficult to imagine Abdul Qadir being allowed to survive and flower in Yorkshire; and if the next small, flexible-kointed Qadir happens to be born in Bradford, his best chance would be to move south(if not also east) an an early age.

In my other exampls,the captains used their legspinners are stock bowlers than as potential match winners -I refer to Bill Lawry with Gleeson and Trevor Bailey with Robin Hobbs.In 1970-71, few if any English batsmen could read Gleeson, yet Lawry rarely used him to attack, rarely crowded the batsmen with fielders.

In the case of Bailey and Hobbs, there was far more excuse. Hobbs always claimed that his captain wanted him to bowl like a slow left-armer- pushing it through, capable of bowling defensively and for long spells. The result was that Hobbs lost his ability to spin the ball sharply, and became exactly what his captain wanted; he even drifted the ball in, like the left-armer. But this may, in fact, have been his best chance of building a career, and surviving in a form of county cricket which already included one-day matches. Possibly, too, Essex were never in his formative years powerful enough as a side to be able to afford a potential match-winner who was also quixotic and experimental.

Legspinners are in fact, of most value in a team that can score plenty of runs, and score them quickly. Middlesex's immediate postwar successes were based on a marellous batting lineup, adventurous captaincy and three leg-spinners. The leg-spinners are most effectve on dry pitches and in warm weather; in short, in relatively high-scoring matches. The climate, as well as the character of Yorkshire has militated against them.
But why have leg-spinners all but disappeared? Part of the answer lies in hte factors that have countered against spinbowlers in general and helped seamers: the use f fertiliser, the watering of outfields and the changes in ball manufacture.More specifically though leg spinners have suffered from a change in attitude. Crickets have beome less cavalier. It is no longerr thinkable that a wicket keeper should have 64 stumpings in a season, as Les Ames did in 1932.
Selectors, captains and cricketers in general have becoe more conscious of containment, and the leg-spinner especially in recent English conditions, has become a luxury. One-day cricket which calls for attacking batting and defensive bowling has hastened his demise, but it, too is a symptom as well as a cayse. His decline is hte saddest loss for cricket, and if Abdul Qadir's and more recently the young Indian Sivaramakrishnan's English victims contribute in any way to a revival of the art, then their successes should be cheered by Englishmen, however partisan. For all the skills of the game, theirs are the most subtle, charming and delightful. Leg-spinners are a pleasure to play agains,t and to have on your side. And they are a rewarding breed to captain.
 
Jim2109 said:
did his bowling get progressively worse as the session went on though? i found that in winter nets last year, i would turn up and my first half dozen deliveries would be absolute cherries. but id spend the rest of evening getting worse and worse and struggling to land a single delivery where i wanted it.

no idea why, but i think its got to be a mental issue.
Click to expand...

Yeah, once the batsmen had settled a bit and saw that he was turning it, they played for the spin, so he went straight and didn't spin it and varied the speed, but to no avail, he then lost focus and started to try too hard - just bowling faster and flatter. By the end of the session when I got to work with him, he was then knackered and had a sore shoulder. But the good news is he watched some Terry Jenner videos with me this afternoon and then went outside and was bowling with me, so the interest is there and I think intrinsicly he does want to be able to bowl Wrist Spin.
 
Good piece there by Brearly, thanks for typing it up Goldenarm. I've heard of an idea mooted by Terry Jenner that goes along these lines......... "The captain will give his seamers 40 runs to off 10 overs readily, but you'll see again and again a Wrist Spinner get hit for 20 off his first 2 overs and then be told to have a blow. What I want to see is the captain with a 'Bucket' of 40 runs and give them to the spinner and say, here's your 40 now get me some wickets or dry up the runs, yeah, he may go for 20 runs as he settles into his rthymn through the first two overs, but then watch... he'll then start to take wickets. I want captains with wrist spinners to give the leg-spinners a fair crack of the whip, 40 runs and then take em off".
 
I had a quick session on my own tonight just trying out a few things. One thing which really surprised me was I changed my grip a little so my spinning finger was just lightly on the ball without the chance to get much purchase. So i was basically just using my wrist to give it a big flick without any help from the spinning finger. Result : Massive turn and bounce and a bigger wrist snap. Does anyone else find this??
 
chippyben said:
I had a quick session on my own tonight just trying out a few things. One thing which really surprised me was I changed my grip a little so my spinning finger was just lightly on the ball without the chance to get much purchase. So i was basically just using my wrist to give it a big flick without any help from the spinning finger. Result : Massive turn and bounce and a bigger wrist snap. Does anyone else find this??
Click to expand...

Too complicated for me. I don't think my my fine motor skills are up to that level of awareness. It takes great concentration for me to be aware of what's doing what. I'd need a high speed camera to varify what it is I actually do.

Later....... Having said that I've been flicking the ball around indoors and found the same, but whether it would convert to outside I'm not sure. Thinking about it though this is probably more like the way I bowl, as the finger isn't being used to flick in such a obvious way and the balls rolling off the finger?
 
i played indoor on monday night against the 2nd best team in the league, who are an ECB premier league side and pretty much all of the players they fielded were 1st XI. they batted first and were scoring lots and lots of runs. i came onto bowl 3rd and knew i was going to get smashed. i just wanted a wicket. i bowled pretty well, possibly my best spell indoors, but the figures didnt exactly show it lol. second over i got a wicket. clean bowled a guy that used to be my dads boss, a fairly prized wicket for me and it was a nice one. not huge turn, but enough drift to have him scrambling his feet and then enough turn to beat the bat and he just played around it. thats where the fun ended!

first over went for 15, which isnt bad for me indoors, especially since they went at 15 an over for the innings!! (scoring 180 runs total in 12 overs). then second over went for 22, the problem was that in getting out that one batsmen the next guy in was their star player, fresh off a winter playing in Australia i think (id imagine hes bordering on county cricket). he pretty much hit me for 4 or 6 off of every ball he faced, apart from one ball that he had to defend for a dot, and about the 3rd ball he faced, having hit me for 10 runs off the first 2, he got dropped at mid-on!!! so basically i should have had the wicket of the best batsmen in the entire league. but instead i ended up going for 60 runs (yes, sixty!) off of 3 overs. but with true leg spinner optimism, i was still very happy since my figures were 3-0-1-60 (with the one being the all important statistic) against the best batting side im ever likely to face. and it should have been 2.

needless to say we got well beaten. by a LOT more than the 60 runs i was responsible for conceding. and if myself and the guy fielding at mid-on weren't so wet i reckon i could have had 4 wickets, because we pulled hands out of the way of at least 3 catches!! outdoors id have tried to take them, but indoors the ball gets hit so hard that unless you take it cleanly youre very likely to break fingers. ive got a huge bruise at the base of my palm from another one i tried to stop that wasnt hit anywhere near as hard.

cant wait for outdoors now. indoor cricket is a nightmare for a spinner, compared to what ive endured over the winter the outdoor season is going to feel like a piece of cake.
 
Fairly standard for indoor though isn't it Jim! Off 10 overs, even at our best we still went for 90 off them, It's a hard task to go for naff all runs!
 
someblokecalleddave said:
Too complicated for me. I don't think my my fine motor skills are up to that level of awareness. It takes great concentration for me to be aware of what's doing what. I'd need a high speed camera to varify what it is I actually do.

Later....... Having said that I've been flicking the ball around indoors and found the same, but whether it would convert to outside I'm not sure. Thinking about it though this is probably more like the way I bowl, as the finger isn't being used to flick in such a obvious way and the balls rolling off the finger?
Click to expand...

Maybe rolling it off the spinning finger but giving it a big flick with the wrist isnt such a bad thing. It has been working well the last couple of times Ive bowled, like I said before less involvement from the spinning finger seems to free up my wrist and I was getting as much turn and bounce as I have ever got when it was working. Its strange though not involving the spinning finger as much and seeing it turn so much.
 
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