Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

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Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

macca;393109 said:
Probably just trying to flog his new underpants range and that poker turn out he's wrapped up in. If he did have a forum on his website he might answer some questions from time to time?
My young bloke follows him on twitter or whatever it is and keeps up with what he's up to, that's how he found out about the website.
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Unfortunately you're probably right and yeah I'll be giving Twatter or whatever its called a miss as well.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

its literally impossible to have control over drift, if you spin the ball then it will be there. so basically if you adjust your revs to adjust the amount of turn (which in itself is tough) youll also affect the drift. the seam angle can alter it substantially, but youre also affecting the turn with that, as well as dip/carry.

its best to simply ignore drift as a factor. there is NEVER a negative drawback to a ball drifting. even if it drifts a foot in flight and lands way outside leg stump, theres no way the batsman is in control when that ball turns back in! drift is very difficult to play against, and simple human inconsistency means it is never the same twice.

basically, if the ball is drifting then let it drift, and just bowl based on projected line, length and turn. drift is just a bonus. if the ball isnt drifting then youre probably just not watching the ball carefully enough, because if its turning then its almost certainly drifting as well.

spiderlounges blog article is about as comprehensive so far as physics goes as any article ive ever seen on the matter. i would take the advice of cricket players with a pinch of salt. they are cricket players not physicists, and there is more mis-information about bowling techniques and the physics behind them from former players than there is correct explanations. Dominic Cork was chatting this morning about how swing bowling is about cutting your wrist around behind the ball to get it to swing. which might work if you held onto the ball through its entire flight lol. it might feel like that to him, but it is entirely about presenting an upright seam at the right angle, nothing more and nothing less. professional cricket players generally know nothing about physics and shouldnt comment on the subject at all. it just breeds confusion.

a 90 degree seam leg break will drift because it has to move downwards at some point. if it simply travelled forwards then it theory it wouldnt. the only deliveries that shouldnt drift are those with 100% overspin or backspin. but they dip or carry substantially instead. anything with an angled seam will drift.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

someblokecalleddave;392842 said:
That's not my experience at all - my older son swings the ball a lot bowling seam up and he can't be bowling much more than about 45mph. Similarly a couple of my mates who bowled relatively slow seam up - 50-55mph (older blokes) used to swing the ball quite dramatically too? Same too with my flippers - they're around 45 - 47mph and they swing massively when the conditions are right?

The point that Jim makes with regards the fact that I may be drifting the ball is true. I bowled against one of our batsman last year and when we stopped he said - 'You get good drift with your balls Dave', but on that occasion I was bowling seam up flippers and assumed that it would have been swing rather than drift. Later in the month after a series of questions and comments on here regarding drift I started to look for drift in my bowling and did notice it, what with the fact that I completely focus on the area that I'm bowling to it may have been that I simpy have never watched the ball go through the air. The upshot of observing the ball in the air was that I couldn't get the drift on a consistent basis, so it wasn't that much help anyway that I had noticed it.
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Gday Dave,
Mate I find I get a little drift most of the time but I have no control over it and some days its there and some days its not. As Im only new to the art it hasn't been my main priority and I have just seen it as a bonus so far. I have been mainly practising my hard spun leg break, i.e spinning 90 degrees to the direction of travel and whilst they turn the same amount I have noticed that most only drift a little, if at all but occasionally one really goes. So maybe your on to something with the ball angled forward or backward but I reckon the type of ball and its condition and the weather conditions are just as much to do with it. I find my ordinary leggie is the biggest drifter though and I put that down to the extra pace and the more revs I feel I put on it. I'll have to look at Woolmers book, Ive been reading Philpotts at the moment and Ive just secured a copy of Grimmetts Getting Wickets so I look forward to perusing that when it arrives.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

chippyben;393187 said:
Gday Dave,
Mate I find I get a little drift most of the time but I have no control over it and some days its there and some days its not. As Im only new to the art it hasn't been my main priority and I have just seen it as a bonus so far. I have been mainly practising my hard spun leg break, i.e spinning 90 degrees to the direction of travel and whilst they turn the same amount I have noticed that most only drift a little, if at all but occasionally one really goes. So maybe your on to something with the ball angled forward or backward but I reckon the type of ball and its condition and the weather conditions are just as much to do with it. I find my ordinary leggie is the biggest drifter though and I put that down to the extra pace and the more revs I feel I put on it. I'll have to look at Woolmers book, Ive been reading Philpotts at the moment and Ive just secured a copy of Grimmetts Getting Wickets so I look forward to perusing that when it arrives.
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Chippy

See if you can get hold of a copy of Tricking the Batsman as well (Grimmett). Yeah have a look at Woolmers explanation and the pages preceding it as well, see what you make of it. It think the whole thing is made more difficult to explain and imagine because of the comlexities of simply explaining the way the ball is spinning in relation to it's direction of flight. I'm going to have to do a load of drawings I reckon for my blog. That diagram - when you see it in the Woolmer book is very good except that there's depiction of the ball mid - flight and there's no indication of the angle of the axis of spin at that point which is a bit baffling (Or is it I'm just a bit dim)? It's all a bit complex and a bit wooly at the same time.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

Jim2109;393126 said:
its literally impossible to have control over drift, if you spin the ball then it will be there. so basically if you adjust your revs to adjust the amount of turn (which in itself is tough) youll also affect the drift. the seam angle can alter it substantially, but youre also affecting the turn with that, as well as dip/carry.

its best to simply ignore drift as a factor. there is NEVER a negative drawback to a ball drifting. even if it drifts a foot in flight and lands way outside leg stump, theres no way the batsman is in control when that ball turns back in! drift is very difficult to play against, and simple human inconsistency means it is never the same twice.

basically, if the ball is drifting then let it drift, and just bowl based on projected line, length and turn. drift is just a bonus. if the ball isnt drifting then youre probably just not watching the ball carefully enough, because if its turning then its almost certainly drifting as well.

spiderlounges blog article is about as comprehensive so far as physics goes as any article ive ever seen on the matter. i would take the advice of cricket players with a pinch of salt. they are cricket players not physicists, and there is more mis-information about bowling techniques and the physics behind them from former players than there is correct explanations. Dominic Cork was chatting this morning about how swing bowling is about cutting your wrist around behind the ball to get it to swing. which might work if you held onto the ball through its entire flight lol. it might feel like that to him, but it is entirely about presenting an upright seam at the right angle, nothing more and nothing less. professional cricket players generally know nothing about physics and shouldnt comment on the subject at all. it just breeds confusion.

a 90 degree seam leg break will drift because it has to move downwards at some point. if it simply travelled forwards then it theory it wouldnt. the only deliveries that shouldnt drift are those with 100% overspin or backspin. but they dip or carry substantially instead. anything with an angled seam will drift.
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Jim, I kind of like this as it means I can stop straining my brain and just summise with what you've said - if you get it then be happy, if you don't get drift well - keep trying to spin it harder. That said my mate Wizard who does spin the ball ridiculously and gets massive turn - I've never seen him drift it? I'm going to have to look again at the Woolmer explanation and just try and get my head around the info there because I'm pretty certain he's saying the vertical axis 90 degree ball doesn't drift?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

pace plays a major part as well. if you bowl faster then you exaggerate the effects of spin on the flight of the ball. hence why some leggies can bowl at 50mph, and others at 30mph, and still both bowl with the same flight and land on the same length (due to dip).

in theory seam rotation should have little effect (e.g. scrambled or clean), but in practice i think it does. also the flatter the trajectory the more the ball appears to do. the ball needs to spend the maximum time falling in order to get the maximum drift. so if you loop it up (which normally means slower as well) then it wont drift much. if you bowl it fast and flat then it will do more.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

No sooner has the outdoor comp ended and they are playing some warm up games for indoor in the u/13,s.

My son turns it massive indoors compared to outdoors but it comes off slow. What would be a fast overspinning legbreak of 6 inches outdoors becomes a big but slightly slowish legbreak of over two foot indoors. Still it gets loads of wickets.

If he bowls his 2 overs he always gets at least three wickets every time. Last week he got 4.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

I don't know if this will fit, but after a week or so looking at Drift trying to get my head round it - here's my inconclusive conclusion. If it doesn't all fit on here - the whole thing will be in rough draft form on my main blog at www.wristspinbowling.com and eventually in the legspin blog listed at the bottom of this piece.

Drift

This is a magical complex aero-dynamic feature of wrist spinning, where the ball is released spinning from the hand on what initially looks like a trajectory heading for your off-stump (RH bat) and then as it approaches it veers to the batsmans left suddenly heading towards the Leg Stump at such a late stage in its flight heading for his blind spot only to then hit the pitch and do what all good Leg Breaks should do – break towards the Off-Stump.

Drift was probably first described back in 1930 in Clarrie Grimmetts wrist spin bible ‘Getting Wickets’. He refers to it as ‘Swerve’………..

Grimmet on Drift

The ball or sphere which is perfectly round, and has no seam, swerves because it is affected by the pressure of the atmosphere. This is dependent on the way that the ball is spinning. Take, for instance, a ball spinning in a horizontal plane from right to left. That is, if you were to put a chalk mark round a sphere, similar to the seam on a cricket ball it would be spinning round at right angles to the line of flight, parallel with the ground. The ball would then be traveling much faster on the right side than on the left, because it is spinning forward. On the left side, the ball is spinning back, and, consequently, not going so fast as on the other side. Hence, the different sides of the ball are differentially affected by the air pressure.

It is therefore, easy to see that the ball must tend to travel or swerve to the side on which there is the most resistance. In this case, the most resistance is on the left because the ball has a spinning motion backwards, and is traveling forward. Consequently, it swerves to the left; and, if the spin is reversed, it will swerve to the right. Similarly, top and backspin operate the same way in their respective directions.

A cricket ball introduces something different again by reason of the fact that it has a seam raised above the main surface of the ball. Through the fact that the seam is in such contrast to the smooth, shiny surface – this varying as the ball becomes worn – it necessarily follows it offers more resistance to the atmosphere than the shiny part. Consequently, it swerves according to the way in which the seam is spinning.

Bowl a ball spinning over towards the slips as for the leg break, the seam being gripped so that it touches the first two fingers and thumb. The seam would be then pointing in the direction of the slips, and, with the atmosphere striking it in this position it would act as a rudder, steering the ball towards the slips – an out-swerve. Now grip the ball with the seam exactly opposite, spin it the same way, and it will swerve towards fine leg – an in-swinger.

It is possible, however, for the seam to spin in such a way that, in the prevailing conditions it does not act as a rudder, and the ball swerves simply because it is traveling faster in one place than in the other, as for instance, the ball spinning on a horizontal plane.

In the case of a ball bowled as for a leg break, a previously described, with the seam spinning like a hoop towards the slips, the top part of the ball is traveling faster than the lower part, and causes the ball to drop quickly. Hence the curving, deceptive flight of a ball from a slow bowler.

In baseball, they use for practice purposes a ball with the seam raised about an eighth of an inch, the idea being to enable learners to get the impression of swerve more easily by means of the contrast between the raised seam and the ball itself. This suggestion could be applied to cricket. Bowlers anxious to solve the mysteries of swerve could have a cricket ball made to order with the seam so raised, and would thus more clearly be able to note the effect of swerve.

Much useful experience can be gained by noting, particularly with the raised seam ball, the effect of the wind. Young bowlers should also watch carefully to see how the swerve varies according to the way they grip the ball.

In swerve bowling, like other branches of the art, it must be the bowler’s object so to regulate his swerve that the ball will hit the wicket. A new ball swerves much more than the old one, and it is vitally important that this advantage should not be wasted.

It is always advisable for a slow bowler to work against the breeze, which causes the ball to dip and swerve, together with other peculiarities of flight impossible to obtain while bowling with the wind.

Philpott on Drift……..

Philpott points us to looking at Tennis and baseball for clues as to the way that a ball spins and we as Wrist Spinners need to be aware of the potential for applying drift to our game.

“For the left handed server (Tennis), it is easier to slice down the left side of the ball, creating ‘Leg-Spin’. The serve now drifts from left to right. It drifts ‘in’. The ball always drifts the opposite way to the eventual ‘Turn’ after bouncing’. Peter Philpott; The Art of Wrist Spin Bowling; 2006; Crowood Press Ltd, Wiltshire.(Page 31).

And that’s it, apart from a diagram that illustrates a ball that is spinning with its seam 90 degrees to the direction of flight. There’s no mention of whether the seam is fully upright or slanted backwards or forwards. The illustration suggests that the ball is delivered with the rotation 90 degrees and perfectly up-right. But then you could argue that Philpotts book is aimed like Grimmetts at young boys and is written in a manner that is accessible to kids in the 1990’s. Whereas Grimmetts is far more complex and assumes that the kids have far less to distract them and therefore will take the time to read it over and over again until it sinks in.

Woolmer on Drift

Woolmer, on the other hand attempts to take a very in depth look at Drift in his book. Page 301 through to 307 he writes several thousands of words illustrated with some good diagrams explaining the Magnus affect. If you want to explanations of the magnus affect youtube is particularly good if you search around links to Baseball as there are video clips of wind tunnel and water experiments showing the affects of turbulence around balls. YouTube - The Physics of Baseball - Flight of the Ball


Having tackled the subject of the Magnus effect he then moves on to the ball of the Century from Warne to Mike Gatting YouTube - Shane Warne - unbelieavable...
There’s a couple of interesting points that Woolmer makes that are in opposition to many people’s explanations and theories and the key one contradicts Philpotts diagram of the ball with the perfectly presented up-right seam spinning at 90 degrees to its flight path. Woolmer concludes that a ball presented in this manner will not drift. He then goes on to explain in great detail Warnes Ball of the century which has a great deal of drift, but as he gets into it and starts to explain the theory he then notes “In order for the delivery to drift towards leg, the wake of the ball must be disturbed upwards towards the off-side. How this happens is not yet well described in scientific literature. Thus, some speculation is warranted – and illustrated in Figure 5.23”. Which is the diagram used to explain the ball of the century.

The key revelation within the text is the speculation that in order that the ball does drift in the manner illustrated in the video link, it was probably tilted slightly backwards from vertical (When seen from above). For me personally, its just this line from everything I’ve read that I feel is new and definitely worth looking into. Additionally another resource that is available to everyone on the internet and is exceptionally comprehensive is fellow bigcricket forum contributor ‘Spiderlounge’s blog that looks at the subject - Pencil Cricket: Wrist-spin and the Magnus effect
I can follow what he’s saying up to a point but then I get a bit lost but within his explanation I’ve noticed too that he looks at the possibility that big drift occurs when the seam moves off the perfectly upright (Viewed from above) position and slants one way or the other.

I find the difficulty with all of the explanations is the visualising of the written explanation with the reality and sometimes the written explanation and the combination of the illustrations still leaves me confused, Having looked at this now for several days and numerous explanations in books and on videos dealing with the physics of a spinning ball I’ve come to a inconclusive conclusion.

Some of the information relating to spinning balls is easy to grasp and the magnus force when it relates to some types of balls makes sense. But, with regards to wrist spinning and the fact that it in itself is a relatively unexplored and unexplained with very few people prepared to put their hand up and say that they are experts in the field either as protagonists or researchers (the researchers would need to work with the protagonists) it seems that the fact that it is such a dark art amongst all of the cricket specialities that information is scant. The fact that not many people bowl wrist spin apart from Danish Kaneria and 2 others (His words not mine) the scope to explore the physics using players is limited. Then add the fact that we spin the ball around a horizontal axis with the seam 90 degrees to the direction of flight and it all starts to get a bit messy and exceptionally complex. So much so that when you read the few books that there are, that, deal with the subject of Wrist spin in any depth (see bibliography). You then see even the experts in the field with the help of physics and cricket experts come to a similar inconclusive conclusion.

On the Bigcricket Forum as I discussed this with the others we all more or less came to the same conclusion……..

• It is a very complex theory to understand and apply to your actual bowling.
• If you spin the ball hard with your Leg Breaks you will produce drift and if you notice it or someone else notices it keep it in mind and try and work with it.
• Don’t get hung up on it though, because similar to seamers who can swing the ball some days and not other days – it may be the same kind of thing with drift.

Woolmer winds down his section on Wrist Spinning holding Warne up as an amazing bowler with an exceptional degree of technical mastery and that the Ball of the century was probably a ball in a million. He finishes the chapter though quite fittingly as I have at the start of this section on Drift transcribing Grimmetts original work from 1930’s and saying it was Grimmett who literally wrote the book on spin.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

Yes it is all very confusing and very hard to explain in words. I guess its one of those things where suggestions can help but ultimately its up to your own personal observations to work out what works.
I went down to training tonight and bowled terribly. I have been going down the nets nearly everyday lately and have been making great improvements with accuracy, length and getting good turn and then when it comes to bowling at someone it all disappears. So bloody frustrating. Oh well nothing for it but to just keep at it. I still would have got more wickets than bowling pace although Im pretty sure the captain would have taken me off long before I had a chance to get them.Ha
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

chippyben;393799 said:
Yes it is all very confusing and very hard to explain in words. I guess its one of those things where suggestions can help but ultimately its up to your own personal observations to work out what works.
I went down to training tonight and bowled terribly. I have been going down the nets nearly everyday lately and have been making great improvements with accuracy, length and getting good turn and then when it comes to bowling at someone it all disappears. So bloody frustrating. Oh well nothing for it but to just keep at it. I still would have got more wickets than bowling pace although Im pretty sure the captain would have taken me off long before I had a chance to get them.Ha
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Yeah - I wouldn't take a great deal of notice of what happens in the nets. From my recent net sessions the thing that I've been looking at primarily is whether the batsman has a weak spot and I've found that all of them without exception have. Watch what the other bowlers are doing and see how the batsman deals with the ball either side of him. Generally I've found that almost without exception that a ball bowled (RH) round the wicket wide on the crease into the leg stump area causes RH bats real problems, you need to get it on a good length though. Just explore these things rather than maybe look to hit the stumps. You'll get hit still, but the strokes that they'll play in the nets are not the strokes that they'll play out on the pitch. Rest assured if you're getting your length and line right and turning the ball - you'll take wickets no problem.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

someblokecalleddave;393884 said:
Yeah - I wouldn't take a great deal of notice of what happens in the nets. From my recent net sessions the thing that I've been looking at primarily is whether the batsman has a weak spot and I've found that all of them without exception have. Watch what the other bowlers are doing and see how the batsman deals with the ball either side of him. Generally I've found that almost without exception that a ball bowled (RH) round the wicket wide on the crease into the leg stump area causes RH bats real problems, you need to get it on a good length though. Just explore these things rather than maybe look to hit the stumps. You'll get hit still, but the strokes that they'll play in the nets are not the strokes that they'll play out on the pitch. Rest assured if you're getting your length and line right and turning the ball - you'll take wickets no problem.
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in contrast, i find that most of the good batsmen at my club take me apart if i bowl leg side too much, irrespective of length.

but every batsman does have a weakness. some have a sound technique such that their weakness isnt necessarily a delivery that has them all at sea, but rather one that forces them to block rather than play a shot. certainly there are 2 batsmen i bowl at who exhibit this, and both of them are normally super aggressive (one of them hits 6's for fun off every other delivery to the quicks!!). so in getting them to block you have effectively defeated them, eventually they will get bored and try to play a risky shot and thats how you get them out.

other players have more serious weaknesses, to the point that you can bowl the same delivery 10 times in a row, and 8 of them will have them out! more cautious players tend to be very weak to my leg side deliveries, but length is critical as even a foot too short and they will pull you to square leg. however this is incredibly easy to set a field for, and thus you can plug away all day long down the leg side without being negative, but at the same time making it very hard for them to score runs!! these are the easiest batsmen to bowl at for a leggie that gets consistent turn and bounce (and drift makes it even better!).
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

Just re-wrote a lot of the 'Drift' stuff in my leg break blog and found some more interesting links, one of which is a paper written by someone at Loughborough Uni in conjunction with the ECB. The only thing is it's 30 quid and only 60 pages long. There's a taster section, but it's pretty superficial as far as we're concerned.

I'll add images soon as well and I'm going to have to start to look again at buying that slo-mo camera and then we'll be getting into some serious analysis I reckon?

Spin bowling-Legbreak
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

I went to the MCG today to watch a bit of the Sheffield Shield final between Victoria and Queensland. Queensland have a young (20 years) leg-spinner by the name of Cameron Boyce and he picked up 2 wickets today, he is a little bit slower through the air then most state spinners I have seen. He bowls the odd bad ball but spun the ball pretty far on the flat MCG wicket in which Chris Simpson was getting virtually no spin. He has an interesting action and probably could get more out of his front arm, but he looks good.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

water_boy;394068 said:
I went to the MCG today to watch a bit of the Sheffield Shield final between Victoria and Queensland. Queensland have a young (20 years) leg-spinner by the name of Cameron Boyce and he picked up 2 wickets today, he is a little bit slower through the air then most state spinners I have seen. He bowls the odd bad ball but spun the ball pretty far on the flat MCG wicket in which Chris Simpson was getting virtually no spin. He has an interesting action and probably could get more out of his front arm, but he looks good.
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One we'll have to keep an eye on. How's he compare with the other Bloke Steve Smith?
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

water_boy;394068 said:
I went to the MCG today to watch a bit of the Sheffield Shield final between Victoria and Queensland. Queensland have a young (20 years) leg-spinner by the name of Cameron Boyce and he picked up 2 wickets today, he is a little bit slower through the air then most state spinners I have seen. He bowls the odd bad ball but spun the ball pretty far on the flat MCG wicket in which Chris Simpson was getting virtually no spin. He has an interesting action and probably could get more out of his front arm, but he looks good.
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Boyce must be pretty good to get a go for Qld at his age. I saw him on the highlights of the shield final and was amazed at the turn he was getting on that MCG track. I haven't seen spin like that since macgill retired.
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

someblokecalleddave;394112 said:
One we'll have to keep an eye on. How's he compare with the other Bloke Steve Smith?
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Just by watching from side-on he is slower then Steve Smith and gives the ball more air, he spins it a little more then Smith but is probably a bit more inaccurate. One difference is that where Smith's bad ball is usually a half-tracker when Boyce bowled a bad ball it was usually a big full toss. Smith looks like he has more change up balls. Smith is overall a better player because he is a gun batsmen and good fielder and is probably slightly ahead of Boyce in bowling but I have only seen a bit of him. It is just good to see someone like Boyce who was not afraid to really toss it up and get wickets, compared to Simpson who just darted them through and was virtually useless
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

I guess they put him in as a bit of a gamble hoping he'd get a bag full for Qld being the away team in a shield final. Good to see they equate leg spin with wickets!
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

Zimbabwe has become my 2nd favourite cricket team replacing Sri-Lanka. The recent series in against the Windies was pretty amazing if you like watching spinners in action, but the star of the whole thing was Ray Price with his agression and top notch bowling. Looking around the internet I found this article about him which is funny and sums the bloke up from what I've seen of him cricket with balls The hustling Ray Price - join sehwagology
 
Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Three)

Just had an email from Terry (Jenner that'll be) he's doing some training days down in my neck of the woods and it's coincided with the Easter Break. I'd initially asked who it was for etc and his answer was a bit vague, but from the little info I got back it sounded like it was anyone as long as you've got 100 pounds to spend on an 8 hour session. So I've said - Yeah count me in and I'm just waiting to hear back from him now to see if I've got a place?
 
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