Wrist Spin Bowling (part Five)

Top Contributors
shahidpak said:
105 kms is fast lol how do you do it ???
Click to expand...
I simply bowl a leg spinner from a longer (medium pacemans) run up. As long as you maintain your pivot as well as controlling the wrist and finger through the faster rotation, it comes out the same as a leggie off the shorter run up, only quicker and with a little less spin.
 
Last edited:
someblokecalleddave said:
Yeah in old money that's 62.5 Mph, which if you're bowling leg breaks that is fast!
Click to expand...

I bowled a few quick legbreaks today. We didn't end up playing in North Wales (played somewhere in Manchester), but we had a good game. We only posted 155 batting first. I played a nice pull shot for 4 and then played back to a ball that clip the top of my pads and removed the bails. Very disappointed about that. Still, we just about defended it. They were down to the last pair of batters and needed 7 off the over. We ran them out and won the game. Very enjoyable when you get a close game like that.

I took a couple of wickets (clean bowled and a stumping) and missed out on a couple of others due to a dropped catch and dodgy umpiring. Overall, I was happy with that way I bowled. I got it through at a decent pace and, as I say, I bowled a few legbreaks around 60mph-65mph. I reckon I probably bowled about 50% of them on a perfect line and length. The other 50% were still decent deliveries apart from one or two that were quick enough for the batters to miss out on scoring. The ones that I landed were just far too good for the batters. They turned a good amount even at a quick pace. I'll be looking to bowl a few more of them next week.
 
I bowled two overs today... at the end of the innings (I would have bowled a third but the last wicket fell). First one took a wicket, bowled around the legs. It was the genuine thing pitching outside leg and turning enough to hit leg but it wasn't a huge one and really the batsman was at fault. I didn't really get a big leg break going, which was a shame because last time out I produced two huge ones.

I did land a really nice googly though, pitching well outside off, batsman left it well alone perhaps thinking it would turn out for the wide, instead it leapt into his crotch. Alas far too much so I couldn't appeal for LBW.

2-0-9-1
 
boogiespinner said:
I did land a really nice googly though, pitching well outside off, batsman left it well alone perhaps thinking it would turn out for the wide, instead it leapt into his crotch. Alas far too much so I couldn't appeal for LBW.

2-0-9-1
Click to expand...

That's not a bad return on only 2 overs. It normally takes a couple of overs to really get into it.

I tried to bowl a few googlys yesterday as well but couldn't get it quite right. They came out as useful topspinners, but I just didn't rotate the wrist enough to get it to turn into the batter. I'm some way off being able to pitch one outside off and turn it into the batter! I have bowled a few in the nets that have done that. Not in a match yet.
 
Cleanprophet said:
That's not a bad return on only 2 overs. It normally takes a couple of overs to really get into it.

I tried to bowl a few googlys yesterday as well but couldn't get it quite right. They came out as useful topspinners, but I just didn't rotate the wrist enough to get it to turn into the batter. I'm some way off being able to pitch one outside off and turn it into the batter! I have bowled a few in the nets that have done that. Not in a match yet.
Click to expand...
I honestly don't know too much about the googly. When it comes out right it does all feel very natural, and unforced. I don't even think about trying to spin it! It just happens.

Whereas with the leg break I am always wondering about wrist position, this or that and there's a very conscious effort to apply the spin. Maybe I have a deep-seated googly syndrome dating back to my childhood!

My figures flattered a little, the batsmen played some nice sweeps out to the square leg boundary which were luckily all fielded.
 
Last edited:
boogiespinner said:
I honestly don't know too much about the googly. When it comes out right it does all feel very natural, and unforced. I don't even think about trying to spin it! It just happens.

Whereas with the leg break I am always wondering about wrist position, this or that and there's a very conscious effort to apply the spin. Maybe I have a deep-seated googly syndrome dating back to my childhood!

My figures flattered a little, the batsmen played some nice sweeps out to the square leg boundary which were luckily all fielded.
Click to expand...

I can't remember which book it was that I read it in now, but someone in one of my books made a really good case for the Googly bowling action (wrist, arm and shoulder) being far more natural than a leg break. The argument tied in with the fact the Leg Break was one of the most difficult things to do in cricket and that everything about it wasn't intuitive, whereas the Googly is a far more intuitive action if you've not gone through the process of training yourself to bowl leg breaks. The argument was that having forced your body to bowl leg-breaks, to then have to get your head, arms, shoulders, wrist etc to bowl the Googly becomes problematic. A case was made for the Googly in that if this was your starting point in wrist spinning, to learn it from the outset would be so much easier than learning the Leg Break - because it is a far more 'Natural' and intuitive. It's easier to bowl at pace too! The only thing is if you take the route of Googly first and then the Leg Break - wanting to sustain your prowess with the Googly, the Leg Break is going to be even harder to learn and excel at.

With regards your Googly syndrome, I can only say that I used to bowl good fast Googlies and couldn't bowl a leg break at all. It took me 3 + years to rectify it. I can bowl Leg Breaks better now than I've ever been able to, but I cannot bowl a Googly at all. Even my efforts at the top-spinner (Unless I change to a far more top of the hand fingery kind of approach) come out as small leg breaks.
 
someblokecalleddave said:
I can't remember which book it was that I read it in now, but someone in one of my books made a really good case for the Googly bowling action (wrist, arm and shoulder) being far more natural than a leg break. The argument tied in with the fact the Leg Break was one of the most difficult things to do in cricket and that everything about it wasn't intuitive, whereas the Googly is a far more intuitive action if you've not gone through the process of training yourself to bowl leg breaks. The argument was that having forced your body to bowl leg-breaks, to then have to get your head, arms, shoulders, wrist etc to bowl the Googly becomes problematic. A case was made for the Googly in that if this was your starting point in wrist spinning, to learn it from the outset would be so much easier than learning the Leg Break - because it is a far more 'Natural' and intuitive. It's easier to bowl at pace too! The only thing is if you take the route of Googly first and then the Leg Break - wanting to sustain your prowess with the Googly, the Leg Break is going to be even harder to learn and excel at.

With regards your Googly syndrome, I can only say that I used to bowl good fast Googlies and couldn't bowl a leg break at all. It took me 3 + years to rectify it. I can bowl Leg Breaks better now than I've ever been able to, but I cannot bowl a Googly at all. Even my efforts at the top-spinner (Unless I change to a far more top of the hand fingery kind of approach) come out as small leg breaks.
Click to expand...
That's interesting. Maybe it's particularly difficult to have both going at the same time. Certainly few bowlers have ever managed to have a big googly and big leg break together. I believe it should be possible!

I've just realised that my shoulder is fine for bowling because previously the googly was troubling. It's fine now. I do have a problem still with hard overhand throws but that's it.

I find it difficult to bowl the googly at pace. But I can definitely get some revs on it. For me, it's always been the quest to turn the ball both ways. Having a batsman not know what on earth just happened and the umpire saying 'a googly!' as if sighting a rare and exotic bird... I love this.
 
boogiespinner said:
That's interesting. Maybe it's particularly difficult to have both going at the same time. Certainly few bowlers have ever managed to have a big googly and big leg break together. I believe it should be possible!

I've just realised that my shoulder is fine for bowling because previously the googly was troubling. It's fine now. I do have a problem still with hard overhand throws but that's it.

I find it difficult to bowl the googly at pace. But I can definitely get some revs on it. For me, it's always been the quest to turn the ball both ways. Having a batsman not know what on earth just happened and the umpire saying 'a googly!' as if sighting a rare and exotic bird... I love this.
Click to expand...
Definitely if you can bowl the Googly it causes real problems, in the period where I was bowling Googlies well, I bowled it with Flippers and top spinners so I used to have them as my main deliveries and then the Googly as the killer move. In my best season, which was during that phase I played three games where I had three really good 4-fers, never had anything like it since.
 
someblokecalleddave said:
Definitely if you can bowl the Googly it causes real problems, in the period where I was bowling Googlies well, I bowled it with Flippers and top spinners so I used to have them as my main deliveries and then the Googly as the killer move. In my best season, which was during that phase I played three games where I had three really good 4-fers, never had anything like it since.
Click to expand...

I think it was Grimmett who said the googly was a natural action. I mentioned that to a batter at our club who's played at a high level and he said he couldn't believe that. He also said that the googly is very easy to pick for almost all legspinners and he would make a point of trying to go after the googly when a bowler first bowled it in a spell.

That said, I do tend to think that everything you said in your last post is spot on about the googly being more natural and easy to bowl for those who have never tried to bowl a legspinner but then those bowlers really struggle to bowl the legspinner. I remember a player, who had never bowled a legspinner or even tried, decided to give it a go after watching me bowl them. He ran up and, almost from the word go, was bowling a very passable googly. He was trying to bowl the legspinner and yet was getting his hand in the completely wrong position. Also, we had a young left-arm wrist spinner who really struggles to bowl with any sidespin. His hand always finds itself into position to bowl topspinners and even googlys. Those two players seem to back up that a googly is a natural delivery. I was trying to get the left-arm spinner to get his hand coming over the ball and impart sidespin, but he just couldn't do it.

For me, I find bowling the legspinner very easy. That wasn't always the case but for some time now I have found it easy to bowl it and even bowl the sidespinner. The slider I've been talking about would be almost unthinkable for a googly bowler because it is pretty much a sidespinner and the complete opposite of the googly's hand position.

Equally, the googly is a delivery I have struggled to bowl for a long, long time. I'd given up on bowling it several times and actually only gave it one last try after watching that bowler I mentioned above bowl his googly. Previously, after watching footage of me trying to bowl it, I just couldn't stop that hand pulling into the legspinning release. In the end, I had to almost clear my mind and just picture myself bowling the googly and I got there. Before, at best, I would bowl 3 or 4 topspinners and 6 or 7 legspinners out of 10 attempts at the googly. Then it became 3 or 4 googlys and 6 to 7 topspinners out of 10 attempts. I'm probably still around there at the moment. I've filmed myself bowling a googly that has turned quite a bit. I had to really, really, really focus hard and getting that hand around as much as I could and when I did that I bowled a decent googly..

I don't really want to bowl a big turning googly because they can turn too much and they are easier to pick. I would really only see the googly as a delivery to show the batter early on to get into his head.

I tried to bowl it as fast as I could a few weeks ago. I couldn't do it, but I did bowl some very quick topspinners that really did kick and bounce (on the footage of it I recorded, it looked a bit like Samuel Badree's action). There was a legspinner in Australia in the very early 90's around the time of Shane Warne's emergence who, by all accounts, bowled a vicious topspinner that really did spit and bounce at batters. He bowled against the touring South Africans and took them apart in the 2nd innings, but he ended up with a finger injury that eventually ended his time as a legspinner not long after. He switched to offspin before fading out of the game. I'd love to see a bowler bowl a big spinning topspinner at 60mph+. It would come onto the batter at 70mph+.
 
Cleanprophet said:
There was a legspinner in Australia in the very early 90's around the time of Shane Warne's emergence who, by all accounts, bowled a vicious topspinner that really did spit and bounce at batters. He bowled against the touring South Africans and took them apart in the 2nd innings, but he ended up with a finger injury that eventually ended his time as a legspinner not long after. He switched to offspin before fading out of the game.
Click to expand...

Craig Howard, played as a leggie for Victoria. Re-invented himself as an offspinner, played 1st XI for Ringwood (a step below state cricket).

Here's a cricinfo article
 
The only difference between a leg break and a googly is the amount of wrist extension immediately prior to the release. Everything else is identical.
 
someblokecalleddave said:
Yeah in old money that's 62.5 Mph, which if you're bowling leg breaks that is fast!
Click to expand...
Im saying this because, we dont have a speed gun but my brother (17) and my friend (15) (wannabe fast bowlers) both play in the senior team with me but we think they bowl at about 100-110 kph maybe its because they didnt have proprer coaching?
 
Some googs are harder to pick than others. Some bowlers will bowl an obvious one to get you comfortable that you can pick it, then have a more subtle version up the sleeve.

also: hi Chino, welcome aboard!
 
Spin Lizard said:
Some googs are harder to pick than others. Some bowlers will bowl an obvious one to get you comfortable that you can pick it, then have a more subtle version up the sleeve.

also: hi Chino, welcome aboard!
Click to expand...

Yes, welcome to the forum Chino.

It's been mentioned on here before about there being two ways of bowling the googly and there have been legspinners down the years that have bowled two different types of googly (Abdul Qadir probably the most well known of these spinners). In Abdul Qadir's case, he had one googly that was very difficult to pick. In fact, the only batter who could pick it was Ian Chappell and he only picked it because he noticed that Qadir's body language completely changed at the start of his run up (if I remember rightly, Chappell said that Qadir would almost smile to himself as he started his run up). It was never picked in the action and he took plenty of wickets with that delivery.

Effectively, the standard googly comes out of the hand of the hand so the batter can clearly see the back of the hand. At a decent club level, a batter will pick it. At professional level, all top and middle order batters will pick it. Some people can bowl a googly with their wrist position not so far around and it looks more like a topspinner. The problem is, once you start "picking" it then you have to get it right or you end up doing the bowler's work for him.

As for Craig Howard, I'm sure he was probably bowling on a nice hard pitch, but he must still have been ripping some very good topspinners to get them to bounce like that. I could well believe it is possible on a very firm pitch, providing the ball has lots of revs on it and is bowled at a lively pace. I'd love to see a bowler bowl a ball like that.
 
The thing is, the concentration required for picking a spinner reduces the thinking time for picking the line and length and making an optimal decision as to what shot to play. So even if a legspinner has a pickable googly, it still demands more of the batsman in dealing with it and leads to an increased probability of a mistake being made.


As a stand alone variation, a big googly following a series of big leg breaks is obviously easy to pick. But there is almost a subset of legbreak bowlers who bowl mainly topspinners with a scrambled seam, but with just 3-6 inches of turn either way, mixed up apparently at random. These bowlers are really hard to face. Mushtaq Ahmed bowled a bit like this. They tend to bowl with a high arm and often bowl slightly off the wrong foot. They rarely get much drift or significant turn but still get plenty of wickets. Any coach who gets hold of them and tries to change them into Warne-clones is missing the point.
 
I have had one batsman pick my googly in the nets. I'm not aware of anyone picking it on the field - that might have something to do with it being something of a rarity for it to pitch properly.

Once I can pitch these things consistently, if they do pick them no matter. It's still a big spinning delivery to deal with. Also, that'll be perfect to set up Grimmett's "wrong wrong 'un". That'll learn them!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top