Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)

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Darth Spin said:
That's the way to do it! I am working on a top spinner too to complete "the loop" from big leggie to wrong un.
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Same here. I can't quite bowl the googly but I can bowl the top spinner. If you can rip that topspinner hard the loop or drop you get is very effective against aggressive batters.
 
Cleanprophet said:
Same here. I can't quite bowl the googly but I can bowl the top spinner. If you can rip that topspinner hard the loop or drop you get is very effective against aggressive batters.
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Yeah I'm very pleased with my Top Spinner - very accurate as well. I reckon if you're a kid or someone learning wrist spinning it's the next ball you learn after your leg break, a relatively small change in your wrist position but such a dramatic difference - especially if you're someone who spins the ball hard and turns it big. Certainly gives the batsman something to think about.
 
I find it difficult bowling pure topspin. If I try to bowl what I think will result in topspin, it comes out as a topspun legbreak, maybe 25º - to get pure topspin I have to throw the shoulder over a bit as in the googly.
 
boogiespinner said:
I find it difficult bowling pure topspin. If I try to bowl what I think will result in topspin, it comes out as a topspun legbreak, maybe 25º - to get pure topspin I have to throw the shoulder over a bit as in the googly.
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Same thing for me. I reckon I might bowl the topspinner about 3 or 4 times out of 10. The rest have a little bit of sidespin on them. But that doesn't matter too much. The main thing is to get lots of topspin on the ball to get that dip and bounce. My natural ball is a pure legspinner with 50/50 sidespin/topspin, so getting it with 80%-90% topspin is good enough for me.
 
Cleanprophet said:
Same thing for me. I reckon I might bowl the topspinner about 3 or 4 times out of 10. The rest have a little bit of sidespin on them. But that doesn't matter too much. The main thing is to get lots of topspin on the ball to get that dip and bounce. My natural ball is a pure legspinner with 50/50 sidespin/topspin, so getting it with 80%-90% topspin is good enough for me.
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thanks for this Cleanprophet. I think I am too hard on myself - I'm looking to turn the thing square every time and when it hasn't happened I feel unempowered and not worthy of being given a twirl because of that.
 
I've got home early it's gloriously sunny and I've had a bowl and it's gone really well. I'm bowling three balls generally a leg break and top-spinner and a flipper and then reps of that sequence. I noticed today that just changing the wrist position with the flipper makes a massive difference and gives me another variation without any obvious change. It all looks very promising as the out-of the front of the hand flipper "Off-spinner" comes in to the RH bat like a wrong-un. I'm on the verge of trying it out in tomorrows game.
 
Bad news: someblokecalleddave was right. I've done something not good to my shoulder. Found out for sure when I threw full pace on Sunday. Ouch! Probably sprained it. :(

It's on the mend though. I've just bought a pain genie / scenar and hope that will help sort it. Been meaning to get one of those for ages. I'm not missing the season if I can help it. I've put myself down injured for tomorrow.

Good news: Had brick wall and just hand-to-hand practice yesterday. Time well spent. Think I had a breakthrough with topspinners as being discussed, through practising them as underarm vertical throws. I worked on the snap wrist rotation on release which I was lacking. I'm also now getting a few square legbreaks against the brick wall. Improved spin too. I'm experimenting with a change of thumb position, to having it lying along the seam. It seems to be opening things up. Don't know how it will translate to the whole pitch, but I think I'm improving.
 
Won't hand to hand and wall practice make it worse? Sounds like another one for Liz Ward to sort out.

I have practiced for four nights in a row, about 8 hours in total. My big leg break has now become my stock ball (funny how things work out, isn't it?), my smaller leg break, which was my old stock ball, is consequently bowled less now but will be the first variation I turn to and I have managed to get my wrong un going well again without compromising the leg break. Hopefully Sunday's game won't be cancelled.
 
someblokecalleddave said:
I've got home early it's gloriously sunny and I've had a bowl and it's gone really well. I'm bowling three balls generally a leg break and top-spinner and a flipper and then reps of that sequence. I noticed today that just changing the wrist position with the flipper makes a massive difference and gives me another variation without any obvious change. It all looks very promising as the out-of the front of the hand flipper "Off-spinner" comes in to the RH bat like a wrong-un. I'm on the verge of trying it out in tomorrows game.
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Sounds like you're in the zone, Dave. Let 'em have it with your best bowling and patented/pioneering rotating bowlers.
 
boogiespinner said:
Bad news: someblokecalleddave was right. I've done something not good to my shoulder. Found out for sure when I threw full pace on Sunday. Ouch! Probably sprained it. :(

It's on the mend though. I've just bought a pain genie / scenar and hope that will help sort it. Been meaning to get one of those for ages. I'm not missing the season if I can help it. I've put myself down injured for tomorrow.

Good news: Had brick wall and just hand-to-hand practice yesterday. Time well spent. Think I had a breakthrough with topspinners as being discussed, through practising them as underarm vertical throws. I worked on the snap wrist rotation on release which I was lacking. I'm also now getting a few square legbreaks against the brick wall. Improved spin too. I'm experimenting with a change of thumb position, to having it lying along the seam. It seems to be opening things up. Don't know how it will translate to the whole pitch, but I think I'm improving.
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It can be tricky to know the difference between your shoulder having had a good workout and your shoulder having been damaged. Experience helps with that. Once you've had a bit of a problem, you know when it's time to pull back and rest the shoulder. 4 or 5 days rest can sort something that, if you bowled on, would end up needing months of recovery. If in any doubt, rest it.

I've seen those pain relief devices. I'd be interested to see Liz's opinion on them. I tend to think that any effect may be psychological but what do I know?

The problem I've had with the topspinner/googly is 100% the same as you. I've not been getting that snap of the wrist at the point of release. However, I've had a big breakthrough this week. After having given up on trying to develop a googly, I was bowling in the nets with a bowler who is quite new to cricket. I've mentioned him before because when he tried to bowl the legspinner he just bowled a really good googly. Anyway, after watching him I decided to try it again and started to bowl the topspinner everytime. I went down to the nets for a second time yesterday evening. Just me and the keeper. I tried it again and it was coming out very nicely. I was making sure to really get through my action because you can tend to not do that when trying the topspinner/googly and that only makes it less likely you will snap that wrist and impart the spin you need. I'm still struggling to bowl the googly. I'd say about 1 or 2 out of 10 came back into the stumps. But, I'm happy with that. If I can bowl the topspinner on demand then I know I will be able to develop the googly very soon. To be honest, even if I don't, it doesn't matter too much as long as I have that topspinner coming out nicely. The keeper said the ball was hitting the gloves that much harder from the overspin.

Overall, I probably had my best net for months. I probably bowled for about 1h20mins straight and for the last 20mins-30mins was ripping the ball very, very hard. The keeper said the ball was hitting gloves very nicely. I just need to start a bowling spell with that same intensity and power.
 
Cleanprophet said:
It can be tricky to know the difference between your shoulder having had a good workout and your shoulder having been damaged. Experience helps with that. Once you've had a bit of a problem, you know when it's time to pull back and rest the shoulder. 4 or 5 days rest can sort something that, if you bowled on, would end up needing months of recovery. If in any doubt, rest it.

I've seen those pain relief devices. I'd be interested to see Liz's opinion on them. I tend to think that any effect may be psychological but what do I know?
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In agreement with Cp on everything.

As a soft tissue specialist, I would have to say first and foremost, you need to get this properly diagnosed. This is not usual behaviour for a sprain or strain. You will need to ask your GP to refer you for a scan.

Secondly, I see no benefit in disguising an issue. Pain is there for a reason... getting rid of the pain just gets rid of the pain... the reason (cause) will still be there.

Having said the above, the issue sounds mechanical so I would avoid any pace until there is no pain [naturally] and then post a video of your action so we can see what you may be doing. If you keep going without getting this sorted you could end up on the surgeon's table!
 
Darth Spin said:
Sounds like you're in the zone, Dave. Let 'em have it with your best bowling and patented/pioneering rotating bowlers.
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Bottled out of the radical bowling rotation, but I think it might have made a difference, the changing around of the bowlers brings wickets thinking about it anecdotally, I've not looked at the actual figures to see if it pans out like that. Other than that, I almost didn't get to bowl - I defer the on-field strategies to other senior players that have done this all their lives and I do the admin side. I have some input, but was thinking that it was going well so well I wasn't needed and there were two players that are seen to be much better bowlers than me although so far not based on their figures so far this year!! But in the last 12 overs my 'Strategic on-field vice captain' said 'You have a bowl' and from ball one it got off to a good start.

I've got a kid in my team who's never played cricket at school or anywhere, but his Dad played years ago and must have played cricket with him because he's come into the team and made a big impact already after only playing 3 games of cricket. Today he did something for me that rarely happens - he took catches... 3 in all, two off my bowling at Deep mid off, one including their best batsman who was well set. I bowled pretty well 5-1-10-2 which I'm well pleased with at this stage in the year. This brings my total to 18-2-71-5 a strike rate of 21.6. Unfortunately we lost again after some pretty good bowling, but their bowling was extremely good. Have a look at my blog later - I'm still writing it now.
 
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someblokecalleddave said:
Bottled out of the radical bowling rotation, but I think it might have made a difference, the changing around of the bowlers brings wickets thinking about it anecdotally, I've not looked at the actual figures to see if it pans out like that. Other than that, I almost didn't get to bowl - I defer the on-field strategies to other senior players that have done this all their lives and I do the admin side. I have some input, but was thinking that it was going well so well I wasn't needed and there were two players that are seen to be much better bowlers than me although so far not based on their figures so far this year!! But in the last 12 overs my 'Strategic on-field vice captain' said 'You have a bowl' and from ball one it got off to a good start.

I've got a kid in my team who's never played cricket at school or anywhere, but his Dad played years ago and must have played cricket with him because he's come into the team and made a big impact already after only playing 3 games of cricket. Today he did something for me that rarely happens - he took catches... 3 in all, two off my bowling at Deep mid off, one including their best batsman who was well set. I bowled pretty well 5-1-10-2 which I'm well pleased with at this stage in the year. This brings my total to 18-2-71-5 a strike rate of 21.6. Unfortunately we lost again after some pretty good bowling, but their bowling was extremely good. Have a look at my blog later - I'm still writing it now.
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Sounds like you're on fire, great figures and a superb start to the season. You'll bowl a team out for less than 100 carrying on like that! Congrats. You gonna give the rotation thing a whirl in the next game?

I had another game today, 35 overs. I drew a blank today for the first time in a while for the Sunday team, although I was really pleased with how I bowled and it was a lot of fun. I let a caught and bowled go right through me, it was travelling and I got fingers to it but it didn't stick. There were numerous other catching opportunities but they were all very difficult and sadly none were taken.

I bowled four wrong uns. Two pitched spot on, one took an inside edge and hit the pad otherwise I think it would have been out. One was a full toss which the batsman just reached with a lunge and paddled for a single. And the other one came out as a top spinner and traveled through to the keeper. I bowled one flipper, it was spooned to leg side very low but catchable, but was not taken. The leg breaks came out fine mostly, just two full ones down leg side. I went for one six and no fours in a five over spell.

I don't have my figures yet as I forgot to check. I probably went for about 25 or something. We won the game so that's two wins out of two.

I'm happy to have my wrong un back and reliable enough to bowl in matches after losing it temporarily when I increased my run up to 8 steps.

It was another lifeless pitch, I might add. It also had a slope from one end to the other, as did last week's pitch. I chose to bowl up the slope on both occasions, what would other people do? The reason I did that was because of the long boundary on the offside, which I always prefer to have, plus it was bowling into the wind to help with drift. Although I didn't notice much drift today. Is it best to bowl wrist spin uphill or downhill on a slopey track?
 
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Darth Spin said:
Sounds like you're on fire, great figures and a superb start to the season. You'll bowl a team out for less than 100 carrying on like that! Congrats. You gonna give the rotation thing a whirl in the next game?

I had another game today, 35 overs. I drew a blank today for the first time in a while for the Sunday team, although I was really pleased with how I bowled and it was a lot of fun. I let a caught and bowled go right through me, it was travelling and I got fingers to it but it didn't stick. There were numerous other catching opportunities but they were all very difficult and sadly none were taken.

I bowled four wrong uns. Two pitched spot on, one took an inside edge and hit the pad otherwise I think it would have been out. One was a full toss which the batsman just reached with a lunge and paddled for a single. And the other one came out as a top spinner and traveled through to the keeper. I bowled one flipper, it was spooned to leg side very low but catchable, but was not taken. The leg breaks came out fine mostly, just two full ones down leg side. I went for one six and no fours in a five over spell.

I don't have my figures yet as I forgot to check. I probably went for about 25 or something. We won the game so that's two wins out of two.

I'm happy to have my wrong un back and reliable enough to bowl in matches after losing it temporarily when I increased my run up to 8 steps.

It was another lifeless pitch, I might add. It also had a slope from one end to the other, as did last week's pitch. I chose to bowl up the slope on both occasions, what would other people do? The reason I did that was because of the long boundary on the offside, which I always prefer to have, plus it was bowling into the wind to help with drift. Although I didn't notice much drift today. Is it best to bowl wrist spin uphill or downhill on a slopey track?
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On the rotation thing, I'm not dismissing it, changing the bowler, having drinks breaks all upset the rhythm of batsman's game. I think the idea has some merit, but I think I need to see how the season develops to cement my position as captain. I think I need to get the respect of most of the team and develop a core of supportive players who want to be in my team. Because I've only been playing cricket for 6-7 years (never played it as a kid even) there's a lot of people at my club who I get the sense have no time for me and have no respect for me whatsoever, they think I'm a joke and I've got a feeling it really p*****s them off that I'm the captain of the team and that they'd much rather play for the 3rd XI. I'm not too fussed by the situation, but would rather that they play in the 3rds and have a better time there. I think if these types find their rightful place in the 3rd XI as the season gets underway and I'm left with the supportive types, new blokes and kids, I might feel confident enough to give it a go. But with the 'others' in the game - you know the sorts - played cricket since they were 4 years old blah blah, the idea would be met with derision and ridicule and if it didn't work I'd never here the last of it. That part I can live with, but it would be all the verbal on the field as I tried to implement it, I wouldn't cope with, so I reckon I need to choose the right time and moment.

Yeah things are going well so far, I think it's been all the fitness work I've been doing and it seems to be paying off. Another factor is that I'm bowling in a way that feels right to me. It's not orthodox at all and it looks awful - I video'd myself a few days ago and thought - man that looks ugly. But, it works - I'm accurate and I'm spinning the ball, I've never started a season like this ever, so fingers crossed it'll carry on or maybe improve as I get fitter?

No wrong un for me, I'm happy with the current variations, but it's good that you're getting together. Get your figures up and we'll compare.
 
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