General stuff

A colder weekend but still fairly warm - 16 degrees and sunny. Underfoot it's still dry so I went over to the field across the way (Valence Way) and threw 120 balls over a 3/4 hour session. Still working on the Leg Break and I've not really got a great deal to say with regards the progress, I'm getting the ball to turn which is the most important thing, it's still not a big turn but it is a turn and that's enough. Accuracy with regards line was fine, length was a bit erratic. But I did notice that the ball was stopping a lot further up the pitch indicating that I'm probably bowling a bit faster which can only a be a good thing.

Also bowled flippers and they went well too and they turn more than the Leg Breaks again quite accurate. I also tried to bowl the Knuckle Ball after reading about Mendis's Carrom Ball, I also tried my Gippers and they seemed okay, a bit wayward but I'm not fussed on developing them further until later in the year once I've got the Leg Breaks fully sussed. at the minute I'm managing to get 3 or 4 practices a week in which is quite good and generally I'm doing about 1/2 hour per practice session. If I can sustain this I'll look at trying to get the ball to turn more around the end of Nov perhaps? But I've got to say I can't see at this point what I'm going to do to get the ball to turn. I find it weird that it turns as it is as I don't put any effort into turning it at all yet it does turn. I've got a feeling that I'm still bowling the ball with my arm almost if not completely virtical and that there maybe the potential to turn it more if I bring the arm down a bit. I did try to increase the use of the 2 down fingers in the grip as it's these that I think that are affecting the spin and it did seem to make a difference.

Later on waiting for my two boys to finish their swimming lessons I had about half an hour on concrete with tennis balls and it was a very similar story. I tried some really weird looking grips having seen Mendis's Carrum ball and I didn't really conclude anything other than the fact that the Baseball 'Knuckle Ball' seems to have some potential. I bowled a few Doosra's and they went pretty well too.