Wednesday - and some good news!

Had a go at the Beau Casson drill that's on the internet (Type 'David Freedman legspin' in google) and it seems to make sense, but I feel that the drill is more to do with learning and perfecting your action with regards to 'Exploding through the crease and follow through' rather that what's happpening with your wrist and how that imparts the rotation on the ball. I tried this a few times and it made no real difference to my spinning action.

Again standing still and throwing it over short distances I can get it to turn towards slip and with the one step walk in if I'm lobbing the ball up in a very loopy fashion. I did have more success with the wrist position that spins the ball back into the body a la Peter Philpott. It may be that I really have got to do this stage by stage and do this across a short distance and build the distance up gradually? But it is depressing.

I also noticed that the straight technique which is like a slider (See October blogging) gives a little bit of spin and it does seem that if I use that technique and flick the wrist dragging the fingers across the ball as the ball leaves the hand imparts more spin. The gutting thing is I feel like if had someone to do this with back and forth it would come together. We'll see what happens next time I have a practice, I'm tempted to go tonight.

Later..........

After work at 20.45hrs I went over to the basket ball court and spent 40 mins there trying to put some of the stuff I've been pondering into practice. It worked! I went back to the technique where I just simply have my hand straight (Well that's how it feels) and as the arm goes over flick the wrist a bit but sort of make sure the "Down fingers" stay on the ball until the very last minute. This kind of translates into me turning flicking my wrist round and the hand coming down and dragging the fingers over the ball rotating it as it does into the spin. The degree to which this happens has a profound affect on the spin, when the drag and timing is right the spin and deviation off the bounce is far better, but you've only got to get it slightly wrong and you end up doing the classic dragging the ball down and it bounces about 11 yards in front of you. But if you get the flick and the release of the ball timed right it works a treat!

I think tonight I may have been getting it right because I used to work with a girl from New Zealand called Liz and she bowled Leg Breaks and was particularly good at it. I only faced her once and I think she bowled me in the nets, but she could turn the ball. But I remember asking her whether she bowled Flippers because I was suffering bruising in my fingers fron doing it so much and was asking whether she had the same problem, but she didn't bowl the Flipper. But she then went on to say that she got blisters on her spinning finger every year once she started to bowl again and it took time for her skin to harden up. Well tonight for the first time I've got soreness on that spinning finger suggesting that maybe for the first time I've been doing it correctly?

Things that I was doing today that seemed to be helpful -

1. Because I use a Basketball court there are lines that I bowl along and these are useful in that you can see that the ball is pitching along the line and you can see how much deviation you get from the spin.
2. After watching the David Freedman/Beau Casson Legspin video I picked up on the advice regarding starting with your arm, shoulder and leading arm all pointing at the stumps, with your bowling hand and the leading hand up at eye level.
3. The 2 up fingers close together and big gap spread quite wide with the 2 down fingers very much on the seam. Today the little finger I didn't worry about because it was obvious the ring finger was the one that was causing the spin.
4. Constantly flicking the ball in between bowling getting a sense of how the finger should come into play as it leaves the fingers.

As the ball was leaving the fingers it was clicking out of the fingers because the flick is so pronounced and this is the affect I get when I do the standing flicks, so it really does seem that once again I'm getting somewhere? This gives me some incentive to get the mpa lads together for a practice indoors.

After tonights session I'm pretty optimistic again and now looking forward to the next session. I've just looked at the Warne at the Gabba with Mark Richards video again and I think it is coming together for me. Tonight unike Warnes advice I was gripping the ball quite hard, but I reckon in time this might change, but in the short term I'll do what works.

I might order a load more of the slazenger Hockey balls that are perfect for bowling on tarmac/concrete as they're roughly the same size and they weigh 5.5oz and have similar bounce qualities.

Here's a weird article. It's from the cricinfo website and starts off ranting about the fact that the internet is full people commenting on the great spinners and it kind of implies that they're all talking out of their Jacksies and here and now on cricinfo he's going to tell us how it really is because he's an authority on the subject. But then look what he says at the end about the Flipper - he more or less says it doesn't exist. Well mate, come to Grays in Essex on a Sunday or over to Valence Way in the summer in the evenings here in Basildon - grab a bat and I'll bowl a few at you and then I'll show you what an upside down Flipper does (The Gipper). Have a look....

http://usa.cricinfo.com/link_to_database/ABOUT_CRICKET/EXPLANATION/LEGSPIN_PHYSICS.html