Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

This is the first time I've heard of this bloke Barnes, I might have to look him up. Did he write anything or did anyone write about him?

I did a search for the blogs listed below using google this morning to see how popular they are because they don't seem to be getting many hits. I couldn't find them at all and I think I searched 20 google pages. Within 4 hours of putting the links on my postings and on my main blog the Leg Break blog is already made it into the top 15 websites!!!!

 

[Jim2109]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

Jim - have a look at this - you're teaching the world!!! Wrist Spin Bowling - Flipper (slow motion) Video - WittySparks

how did the videos end up there, i only ever posted them on youtube? im guessing its some kind of blog site, if so does that mean someone is using them in a blog somewhere?

I have recently video-taped my bowling from side on and found that my front knee bends in the delivery instead of being braced. If I fix it and start bowling with a braced straight knee, what kind of benefits will I get?

hard to say how it will affect you specifically, but personally i found that bracing the front leg instantly improved every aspect of my bowling - a stronger follow through generated more pace and spin, plus it added much improved accuracy, consistency and a little more bounce (i was never lacking bounce to begin with though).

...............

a few comments on your problems/questions...

with regards bowling in 2 different places, try to be completely consistent at both, else just practice at one. if you have to change your technique to bowl in a smaller space in your garden then it isnt going to help you in the long run, it will probably hinder development. you need to have an identical action in every regard to build consistency.

run/walk up - i started out with a 2 step approach, literally one step, delivery stride, and then almost no follow through. you dont need a run up to generate energy in the action, the run up will add pace later but isnt necessary to begin with. you should be putting maximum effort into the delivery and follow through regardless of the run up, so just focus on doing that for now. add the run up later, adding it early hindered my progress, i ditched it for about a month iirc and added it back on during a match of all places because i was bowling rubbish and wanted to try something different. and it just came naturally and ive used it ever since.

being slow doesnt matter at club level. the most economical bowler at my club is a small-turning offie who bowls perfect line and length at about 25mph lol. dont try to add pace artificially, pace should come as a result of a high effort delivery and follow through and will come naturally with time and technique.

wide and full on the leg side is a pretty bad combination of problems in a match situation. but dont worry about it just yet. youve got forever until the season starts, just keep going the way you are. if the wides are coming through a flaw in the technique then correct that specific flaw, dont adjust your game just yet to compensate. il disagree with what Dave said, purely based on my own experiences, and say keep spinning it hard, analyse your technique, not you actual deliveries, and look to correct the technique. if you simply try to bowl somewhere else, you wont correct the problem, youll just find a way around it. once the technique gets better youll find accuracy and consistency follow it, at least i did.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

Yeah I'd agree with Greasy to some extent with the ideal scenario, but I know that I perfected my line accuracy with the Top-Spinner in a very small area, so it may not be that tragic in the longer run?

I thought my don't try and spin it comment would be contentious.

With regards the videos - yeah they get nabbed and used all over the place, I noticed that mine are there as well, but it's the internet so I reckon it's a good thing. The thing I do is put a link with your video so that it comes back to my Blogs and then they are always in the top most seen websites on this subject and I try and encourage people to come on here and discuss this stuff so that I learn from a wide source of people.

 

[TheGreasyPole]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

OK,

Thanks for the advice guys...... some responses.......

Dave - Paraphrasing - Keep on outside off, because you'll get an offside field.

Fair Enough, thats just the kind of "actual experience based" advice I wanted. If it's "fix it, because you won't be able to compensate for it" then thats something I'll have to fix !!!!

I'll just keep plugging away on that accuracy.

Dave - But it does sound like you've got a handful issues all going on at once and maybe the answer is to simplify everything and strip your bowling right down to basics?

Lol, if only I had so much going on that I could strip it down to basics !! This isn't a result of me overcomplicating anything.... I'm still very green...... and so I'm still working hard to get proper accuracy for the first time. It's not as if I "used to be accurate" but "lost it"..... I'm still very much just on the verge of "getting it" for the first time. Again, I think it's just a case of plugging away and extending those periods in which I consider myself "accurate enough" from 10-15 minute "good periods" to being something I can do for "the whole of a practice session minus a five minute warm up".

1. Take a break from bowling so intensively. Don't do it for a week maybe and then see what the outcome is thereafter?

Well, I was figuring the weather would enforce that on me at some point in any case. I still have no real "wet day practice area".... and what with our current run of nice autumn days I am bowling every day it is dry enough, because I'm thinking that sooner or later this winter the rain is going to give me plenty of chances to rest up or force me to take a week off.

The last thing I want to do is squander a week of "dry days" only to find the week after is lost due to heavy rain as well. I figure that over the winter as a whole I'll probably lose 1/2 to 2/3rds of the possible days in any case, my practice schedule has only been so full on because, so far, the weather has been so kind. I'm loathe to squander a good day...... when the wet days enforce a lay-off I'll be interested to see if this break does provide me a burst of improvement (I sure hope it does !).

2. Maybe shorten you're bowling length in your garden by a few yards to give yourself a better run up - but then always aim to hit the base of the stumps to compensate for the shortened length?

and

with regards bowling in 2 different places, try to be completely consistent at both, else just practice at one. if you have to change your technique to bowl in a smaller space in your garden then it isnt going to help you in the long run, it will probably hinder development. you need to have an identical action in every regard to build consistency.

Maybe my garden practice area needs to be fleshed out. I have an area which allows me to bowl the "right" length for a real pitch. To do so I have to come off a short run up, and if I do so my "tabletop" target area 80cm(w)x200cm(l) which usually ends 150cm in front of the crease is right up against the back wall. I.e. as it stands, I am bowling over the correct length, but only if I "cut off" a yard or two of run-up at one end....... and all areas of the pitch "beyond" the finish line of my tabletop at the other.

So, I'm still bowling over the correct length.... even if I don't get to appreciate fully how much I'm getting it to spin, because a "good" length is just 1 yard from the wall (rather than the 3.5 yards or so it would be from the stumps and 2.5-3 yards from the crease) and my "full but not full toss" length is pretty much the base of the wall.

As such it's useful for my accuracy practice, if not for gauging how much spin I'm getting.

And, as I noted, the shorter runup has (if anything) increased my accuracy such that I am now taking this shorter run up over the park as well.

Seeing the emphasis on accuracy above, I think I'll stick with this shorter run for now in both places (for consistency) and perhaps only seek to extend it once I have the accuracy I want down pat off of the "2-3 step walk in" run-up.

3. This is where I'm going to commit an unholy sin on this thread. Don't spin it. Hold the ball in the correct manner across the seam 2 up 2 down and just aim to get the ball on the right line and length. You might find that it still turns off the crease if you've got your wrist facing forwards?

Well I have a version of this with my top spinner. I find I can be much more accurate, and without the "full-toss a foot outside leg" problem with the top spinner. It seems to be just a question of improving my leg spinner slightly via some method to get this to hold the right line in the way my toppers do. I think that with the "good periods" I'm getting (and don't get too excited by that, it just means I am hitting that big old tabletop) increased practice will hopefully extend those into longer and longer periods of more accurate bowling. I just need to get more accuracvy into the leg spinners.... but I want it in there WITH the flick.

In fact, I find (if anything) the more I try to rip it the more accurate it gets !!! (Although I suspect that this is because I stop concentrating on my action and start concentrating on the rip, and this allows my action to be more natural).

Jim - Slow is OK, walk-in run-up, "the most economical bowler at my club is a small-turning offie who bowls perfect line and length at about 25mph lol."

Cooooool. I'm happier and more accurate at the slower speeds now. I was just worrying over it, I didn't want to be in a position of (if I improved my accuracy) turning up, hitting the spot, and still getting mullered because it was too slow. From your comments...... I'd say the speed was a "secondary" improvement. Accuracy first, then speed second. I was worried that the lack of speed would make any accuracy improvements "worthless" at a slow speed, and I think I'm beating 25 mph !

wide and full on the leg side is a pretty bad combination of problems in a match situation. but dont worry about it just yet. youve got forever until the season starts, just keep going the way you are. if the wides are coming through a flaw in the technique then correct that specific flaw, dont adjust your game just yet to compensate

Yeah, from previous comments I'd figured out that "wide of leg" and "short as hell" are the two big areas to avoid, you guys constantly talk about these as the "areas big runs come from". Luckily, I only suffer one of those problems

I'm thinking I might concentrate on bringing my arm over more vertical. This should at least have the effect of forcing any early releases to be "on the stumps" full tosses rather than legside ones. I suspect that in order to do this I'd need to be more side-on than I am now.

This is the problem I am having with most things...... I work out what the "problem" is...... but often I cannot fix it on it's own... and it's only after tracking back a couple more steps that I realise "Well my problem is A.... but A is being caused by B.... and B is being caused by this part of my earlier action, C". So... when it was my "arm speed" going way up and causing innaccuracy I knew that was the problem almost from the start. But it took me a while to realise "I'm doing that because I'm speeding up my whole action" and then "I'm speeding up my whole action as I'm speeding up my run in". I couldn't just solve A on it's own, doing so pushed my whole "rhythm" out of whack and led to me literally "stalling" my arm to slow it down (which was just as bad accuracy wise). It required a track back to B then C and a fix at C...... and the rest fell back into place.

I'm thinking there might be something similar here with the outside leg full tosses along the lines of "your arm isn't coming over straight, so early releases go down leg"....(perhaps) "I need to be more side on to get it straight"......(perhaps....) "A higher front arm and leading foot pointing to slips more" may be the actual tweak I make to provide B which then improves A.

For the record..... and because I know it's hard to get a good read on how much of a problem anything is without "accuracy stats" I'd say that in one of my "good period" periods I would say the following.... I hit "in line with the stumps, on a good length" about 30% of the time. I hit my tabletop (i.e. on a reasonable-ish line and length) about a further 50% of the time...... and of the 20% "bad balls" about 10% are those leg stump full tosses, with the other 10% split in various ways (drag downs short and wide on off, short balls in line, full tosses outside off).

I think it's just a case of "keep on keeping on".... I am gradually seeing less and less "cock up balls" and I am also gradually seeing more and more "tabletop hitters" hitting the right part of the tabletop (inline with the stumps on a good length) as my natural flow through my action improves.

I'm just hoping by continued concentration on this over the winter those figures radically improve to the point where I can hit the tabletop at least 10 times out of 12 (preferably 11)...... and inline+good length a good 40-50% of the time......... and what are "good periods" or "flashes of feeling like a real bowler" now become my "overall accuracy".

Apologies for the length of the post again.

Yours,

TGP

 

[Jim2109]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

with regards arm angle, going more vertical has advantages and disadvantages in my experience. it is the "standard fix" i think in the eyes of all coaches, and i personally think they are all wrong! it relates to the age old addage of "your arm should brush your ear on the way through" that just about every kid gets taught when learning to bowl. and its something that a great many ex-players and experts label as complete nonsense.

ive been practicing before and had first team players practice in an adjacent net telling me i need to get my arm more vertical so i stop releasing early. so i tried it, to be polite, afterall it might have helped. it improves consistency of line, but it hinders EVERYTHING else unless its your natural action. Dave has a naturally high arm which is why i think he is very accurate, but if your natural action is with a rounder arm, e.g. Shane Warne, or Clarrie Grimmett to take it to the extreme, then moving it vertical will do more harm than good IMO. its another of those adjustments to get around a problem, rather than fixing the actual cause.

the cause is a lack of rhythm to your action. practice makes perfect. count your steps in a rhythmic way as you approach, try to do everything the same every time. also i found that the follow through was vitally important to accuracy. get side on, take a strong delivery stride (mine could be stronger), rotate naturally (dont force it or youll rotate too early or too late and your release point will suffer) and follow through strongly. its important where your arms start and finish, and that your whole action is as straight as possible, e.g. avoid stepping across the stumps, etc, all the energy wants to go forwards. weight transfer onto the back foot prior to delivery and then transferring it through onto the front foot during delivery is also important.

basically, to simplify that - your action needs to flow smoothly from start to finish in a perfectly timed fashion. the only way that will happen is through plenty of consistent practice and adjusting the technical flaws along the way. raising your arm higher may help, so give it a try, but if it hinders your spin then id avoid it because youll struggle to get it back further down the line.

 

[gundalf7]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

yeah rhythm is a big thing in leg spin as the timings in the action need to be consistent to produce consistent results.

On another note i've finally managed to get my action going perfectly again it all clicked at nets last thursday after a month of trying to get it going and the accuracy and rhythm and everything has come back. The speed seems to be back very near what it was and my control of flight seems to have come back and for some reason i seem to have actually gained a bit of turn. Last nights nets at uni I think i bowled as well as i ever have, only side effect seems to be i've lost my googly again but i'm sure with a bit of practice it will come back. I've got a uni indoor competition at the weekend which should be interesting, though i won't hold out too much hope for the team doing so well as we haven't had any indoor practices yet this year and bowling with an indoor ball is completely different.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

TGP I used to take a pad with a grid drawn on it and mark all my wides, good balls, hitting the stumps and short balls and monitor my progress. I know it's a bit anal but I sort of worked for me. I'll be interested to hear how you get on after a weather enforced break?

I think everyone goes through crap phases and stages of disillusion and then suddenly you'll do something slightly different and eureka you'll have found a key component that was missing and it'll come good. With the amount of practice you are doing it will come together.

 

[macca]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

This young legspinner from nsw steve smith is going to be a superstar i reckon. He will get his start in the aussie one day side soon because he is a top batsman and fieldsman but i hope he spends most of his time working on his bowling but at twenty years he already has all the tricks including a fantastic flipper. I saw him on tv again yesterday and thought how good is he going to be in ten years time?

Big week of cricket this week for my son, they play all day friday in a knockout comp amongst the local schools then club cricket the next day. He bowled half a dozen overs today with cross breeze from the off-side on his home pitch out in the middle. That is a good breeze for him it wobbles the ball and gives the drift a real push, to the batsman it can be mesmerising.

 

[TheGreasyPole]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

TGP I used to take a pad with a grid drawn on it and mark all my wides, good balls, hitting the stumps and short balls and monitor my progress. I know it's a bit anal but I sort of worked for me. I'll be interested to hear how you get on after a weather enforced break?

Yeah, I used to do that too (recording them on a mobile phone as Gd/Bd/Wd back when I was just having a bit of fun, before my more serious take on it lately.

It's funny you mention it as I had a good idea today about this which I failed to follow up on...... will probably do it at my next practice.

With my "tabletop" marked out with a twig poking up through the grass at each corner I get a good sense of exactly where each ball pitches, with 4 reference points a known distance from the crease/leg stump line it's relatively easy.

I thought I might take pad and pen.... and sort of mark my own "pitch map" over 5-10 overs. Every ball, when the location is fresh in my mind I could just "dot" it on.

Obviously, it won't be hawkeye accurate.... but I figure that after filling it up with 60 dots of "roughly where my last ball landed" I'd have a reasonably accurate representation of where it's landing and much better figures on exactly what my "accuracy" figures are. It also strikes me as being a good encouragement. If I do it once a week and I see my pitch maps getting tighter as a result of continued practice that would be awesome and would really keep the concentration levels up.

It'd also be useful here...... in that it might also flag up problems I hadn't noticed before (lets say I get a cluster short and wide).... and it would allow you guys to get a better feel for where I am landing it when giving advice (especially on the "is he accurate enough yet" front).

It would be impossible without the markers I put down for my "tabletop" but with those 4 reference points at known distances I reckon it would be reasonably accurate, within maybe 6 inches "inside" the area and 12 inches outside...... and would only take as long to do as keeping a tally of g/b/w.

I'll report back if it was a success (maybe with a scanned in copy of my homemade hawkeye pitchmap).

I'm actually (and rather nerdily and sadly) looking forward to trying it out.

Yours,

TGP

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

Similarly I don't know if you ever look at my main blog Wrist Spin Bowling but over the last few months I've identified a paddock almost directly outside my house which I realised did have the potential for practicing bowling in. Having used it through the summer and even tried to bat on it, the wear and tear we put it through meant that by the end of that dry summer we were left with a patch of earth at each end. This meant I could actually see how uneven the surface was and start to fill in the dents and work on levelling it for next summer over the winter. Anyway having levelled it I then seeded it and through Oct with the first rain the new grass began to grow with dense and fine grass. One day with nothing better to do I bowled on it realising that it might cause some damage. It did - every single ball because of the weakness of the new grass sprouts was recorded as the ball scuffed up the grass and left a mark, leaving me with a lovely pitch map with all the balls concentrated in one small area where I pitch the ball. Thinking about it further I thought just for an experiment I could the same thing with an old white sheet on damp grass next summer. The ball would leave an impact mark on the sheet. Whether I'll do it or not remains to be seen but it was an idea.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

Good luck to your son Macca hope he takes a bag full of wickets, let us know how he gets on. Your Stevie Smith blokes a bit obscure on the internet still, if you do a search on him there's not a lot of info. Do you reckon they'll consider him for the next Ashes?

 

[macca]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

Similarly I don't know if you ever look at my main blog Wrist Spin Bowling but over the last few months I've identified a paddock almost directly outside my house which I realised did have the potential for practicing bowling in. Having used it through the summer and even tried to bat on it, the wear and tear we put it through meant that by the end of that dry summer we were left with a patch of earth at each end. This meant I could actually see how uneven the surface was and start to fill in the dents and work on levelling it for next summer over the winter. Anyway having levelled it I then seeded it and through Oct with the first rain the new grass began to grow with dense and fine grass. One day with nothing better to do I bowled on it realising that it might cause some damage. It did - every single ball because of the weakness of the new grass sprouts was recorded as the ball scuffed up the grass and left a mark, leaving me with a lovely pitch map with all the balls concentrated in one small area where I pitch the ball. Thinking about it further I thought just for an experiment I could the same thing with an old white sheet on damp grass next summer. The ball would leave an impact mark on the sheet. Whether I'll do it or not remains to be seen but it was an idea.

Grimmett would paint a rectangle on concrete for his bowling contests he held when he coached schoolkids. He was a signwriter and always had some brushes and for this he used old fashioned calcamine milk based paint. You can tell if it has been hit by a cricket ball and also it leaves a mark on the ball to settle any arguements as to who hit the target first or most often. It washes off easily with water.It was one way he tried to instill accuracy in his students. They usually slowed down in an attempt to hit the box and win the prize and that was what he normally wanted in the kids.

 

[macca]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

Good luck to your son Macca hope he takes a bag full of wickets, let us know how he gets on. Your Stevie Smith blokes a bit obscure on the internet still, if you do a search on him there's not a lot of info. Do you reckon they'll consider him for the next Ashes?

He is still a bit too young maybe but i reckon he will play a fair few onedayers before his test debut. He still bowls the odd bad ball but he is one of those bowlers that seem to take wickets with the odd long hop.

Something is always happening when he is bowling , he spins it hard and it will be great for legspin bowling if he becomes a test match winner. I would go so far as to say he is probably as impressive as any young legspinner i have seen, didn't see warne till he was 22 or so but he underwent massive improvement in those years. Smith is bowling flippers at first class at a younger age than warnie, but not by much.

 

[macca]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

Good luck to your son Macca hope he takes a bag full of wickets, let us know how he gets on.

He should go well, it seems he cant bowl short even if he wanted to. He gives the ball that much air, too much often. But the only safe shots to play against him are drives and only if you can get to the pitch, so far they have tried 6 keepers and only one works.

 

[Dean3]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

Yeah - but are they still bowling Leg Spin and are they taking wickets by the bagful?

One is (playing seniors as an U/15 and is currently leading wicket taker in his division) - the other is now a medium pacer/batsman/keeper.

 

[Legspin is my life]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

Yeah I'm with Macca, one too many skips but as long as what's happening feels smooth and gets you putting the ball in the right places you're doing okay. I reckon in comparison with your earlier video where you were coming in from an angle there's been a big improvement, so it looks like it's coming together.

Try and lose the first skip maybe by just shortening the run up, work on that and see how it works out. Do you think it's made a difference yourself - have you noticed any improvements?

i try losing the skip but i sense there's something wrong in my bowling rhythm
is it ok to have the skip

 

[Jim2109]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

i try losing the skip but i sense there's something wrong in my bowling rhythm
is it ok to have the skip

the only reason i can see for having the skip would be that your brain is telling your feet that your run up is going to take you past the line, so the skip is there to adjust the run up (or maybe its not, but i cant see any other reason why someone would introduce it into their game). id think that if you paced your run up out very accurately, and then force yourself to practice without the skip whilst counting your steps to try and improve your rhythm, then after a while it should disappear. its probably better not to have the skip as it basically makes your run up as effective as starting from the place where you skip and only taking one or 2 steps, but at the same time some of the best bowlers have had one.

i was watching Australia vs India this morning for a while and Harbhajan Singh was bowling, and he has a skip in the middle of his run up. ive never noticed it before, but he has been bowling quite poorly this year whenever ive seen him. maybe its always been there, or maybe its a new addition because hes struggling for form, i dont know.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

I think Harbhajan's always had a single skip - I love his bowling style and have even tried bowling with the 360 circular arm action and it's potentially very good as it increases the bowling speed dramatically (For me at least). I had an Indian mate who used to practice with me 3 years ago and he had the same bowing action and he was a pretty good bowler.

 

[gundalf7]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

i wouldn't worry to much about having a skip if it gives you rhythm, a lot of international leg spinners have had one, kumble, kaneria and the current zimbabwe leggie graeme cremer also, who looks like a good prospect.

 

[someblokecalleddave]

Re: Wrist Spin Bowling (Part Two)

YouTube - me bowling legspin pt 2 yeah looking at it again the first skip is so early that it probably has no bearing on the outcome at all other than to regulate the run in and get it all lined up ready for the delivery - so yeah I'm inclined to say that not to worry about it. What's your accuracy and turn off the wicket like?