Personal development

Because I've now got a whole bagful of variations - Leg Break, Wrong Un, 4 x Flippers (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egstYb4Oz70 ), Slider & Top-Spinner the only thing I need to do is drop some of them and focus on a handful maybe as many as 4 that I can perfect and use in matches. So at the minute the ones that I'm looking at are -

Leg Break as my Stock Ball
Conventional Back-Spinning Flipper
Wrong Un
Top-Spinner

There's a couple of issues within the list - for instance my Leg Break has a couple of sub-variations......

1. My main leg break which is a very accurate ball bowled on the off-side that spins away from the edge of the bat, it turns but the turn isn't enormous http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mm3VxsgKTKw&feature=player_profilepage

2. A variation where the ball is gripped differently (lower in the hand) and is less accurate but spins a lot more.

3. A similar ball to No.2 but more flight and slower.

But the thing I need to work on is the Big Leg break with the big flick, so this will be the main thing I'll work on and at the moment I'm kind of working with the flick in the house and gradually aclimatising my wrist and fingers to having the flick action smooth and natutal. Later in the winter I'll get outside and give it a go and see how it works out.

The other area is the Top Spinner at the moment I have 2 variations of the Top-Spinner, the normal wrist spin type with the big flick and the obscure Flipper variation which was used by Clarrie Grimmett in the 1930's and 40's and is arguably the 'Original Flipper'. The idea is that I'll re-instate the normal variation and see how it works alongside the Flipper Top-Spinner and try them out in the nets come February and then stick with the one that gets the best results. I'm kind of hoping for the Flipper type as I already bowl that well at the minute.


Run up

Another thing I've looked at this week and considered is changing my run up. Earlier in the year my older son Ben had to work on his own run up as he was taking off on the wrong foot and everyone said 'He needs to address this sooner than later as if he sticks with what he's doing for much longer he'll really have difficulty correcting it. So I video'd a bloke at nets bowling properly and Ben and showed him what he was doing. I watched it and sussed out what I needed Ben to do e.g. launch off his left foot and ended up doing it myself in order to show him. At the time I was kind of impressed by the feel of the technique and then really impressed at how quickly Ben got it and modified his own bowling.

Recently I've been looking at it again with a view to considering trying to modify my own run up as I do this little shuffle that everyone notices and reckons slows my speed down. So I may give it a go and see if it has any benefits?