Paddock news & the Big Flick

A couple of days ago (6th June I think) it rained properly for the first time since February giving me the opportunity to get in the paddock and get the roller going. In recent weeks what with the back to back sunshime in what is now the dryest and warmest start to a summer for more than 101 years, the paddock had already gone through the big cracks phase and was on the verge of strating to crumble on the surface. So this bit of rain is most welcome as it's allowed us to get out there and affect some serious repairs and set us up for another month or two I reckon. Looking around tonight when I was bowling (see below) there was more ominous clouds and the report is for more chances of short but heavy down-pours. If that happens I'll get out there again and roll again.



I've just bowled another 250-300 balls tonight all flicking the ball rather than my usual rolling technique, not once tonight have I rolled, which is a major break-through 5 years into my development as a bowler. Again tonight I followed the same format as last night - cocked wrist - gently flicked or unfurled, with the big flick off the collective fingers as in my Youtube video from a couple of months ago which I need to re-shoot. Initially I was having some reasonable success omitting the looking up, but in comparison to last night the results weren't so consistent, but still nonetheless reasonable. Then the last bucket of 50 balls I went back to the looking up at the hand and bowled 44 good balls. 4 went wide legside and 2 went wide off-side and all using the big flick and looking up at my hand as I bowled.

I haven't got a clue really what the affect of the looking up is, but the impact on my bowling is massive, it may be I'm standing taller, I know in doing it I get up on to the ball of my foot in the rotation and it maybe that I'm releasing earlier as well, but all in all it's giving me a massive improvement on what I've been doing the last couple of years! It's not fast - but it's loopy and accurate and turns big. In between the odd ball here and there I've been bowling the Wrong Wrong Un and that is vastly different and coming along very nicely- Tiny off-break action and skids in low at massively higher speed. All in all a very good couple of sessions in the paddock and my recently re-injured knee is showing signs of improving already which is good.

Ben & Joe B&PCC news

Both Ben and Joe have a game this weekend and again they're at different venues. So far I've been at Ben's games and watched those and they were on a winning streak. Since then we've been away on holiday and missed 2 games and 2 other lads that were in the 'Core' U13's team were also on holiday and some of the other lads got to play and came up against some very stiff competition and B&PCC having got off to the best start to a season in their U13's history came crashing down and out of the cup across the 2 games. On the upside though, Joe's Under 11's have continued there winning streak and have yet to lose a match. I reckon I'll go and see Joe at his away game with Horndon. Ben's at home and he's playing against the Horndon U13's. From what I can gather the remainder of the games for the season are against the strongest teams in recent junior cricket history, so both matches will be difficult.

The Big Leg Break

Four + years in and this still isn't a key feature of my bowling and still remains to be one of the key components that needs to be added. The Big Leg Break requires (in my opinion) either a wholly natural and therefore unconcious perfect wrist presentation with the big flick off the fingers. Or, very good awareness and control over your motor skills in order that when you bowl you are aware of the wrist presentation and can flick the ball from the fingers with perfect timing in conjunction with the flick of the wrist at the right point through the arc of the arm as you bowl.

Because of my knackered leg, I've been flicking the ball in the manner that is required watching the seam presentation over short distances making sure that it is rotating perectly 90 degrees to it's direction going forwards. The more I do it the more for me purposely I have to bowl with the feeling that I am almost bowling with the wrist turned so far round clockwise it feels as though I'm bowling with a Karate Chop action. On my youtube channel I've had several people ask me for advice primarily relating to the Googly Syndrome where they've lost the ability to get the ball to break towards Off and their Leg Breaks either do not turn or turn towards Leg (Googly). The easiest remedy for this is to not bowl the Googly anymore and work with this feeling that you're turning your wrist so far round that it feels like you're bowling with a Karate Chop action. Possibly as a hang-over from my Googly Syndrome days this is the modus operandi that I still have to follow in order to get the ball to turn big. In order to do this I find that I really have to focus and concentrate exceptionally hard on my fingers in order to flick the ball from the hand and have the wrist in what feels like a karate chop position. When I do it, it comes out very well and this was the case a few days ago and since then I've been bowling non-stop with this kind of action.

The thing that still surprises me with the Leg Break is the complexity of it and the difficulties that some people like myself have with bowling it and the ease that others bowl it with. Having said that the majority of people that do bowl the leg-break have only a rudimentary grasp of its potential because they basically stick with the stock ball and a limited number of variations, keeping the whole thing really simple and allowing themsleves to develop their stock ball to a good level. Having said that though I've only ever seen 2 or 3 good Leg break bowlers and attempts at discussing the finer issues of their actions with them have drawn a blank because they have become Leg Break bowlers it seems through natural ability.

The Big Flick development

The Holy Grail in Wrist Spin bowling is that ability to really rip the ball off the fingers combining the Flick of the wrist and a nice energetic rotation through the crease with a good follow through. (There's other bits as well that are important). The bit I'm working on is the flick off the fingers with the correct wrist presentation as it unfrurls (Flicks). If you can get this right you'll have the ball leaving the hand rotating at whatever angle you wish in relation to the direction it moves along the length of the pitch.

Increasingly I'm having more and more success with it, especially when bowled in conjunction with the stand start drill and it was looking promising for this season in that I may have moved on to trying it out in a couple of games. But having now sussed that I can bowl with a bound, I've got to go several steps backwards and almost learn how to bowl again!

I've got nets on Monday night I may take a load of training balls and practice in the end net with no batsman and see if I can start to incorporate the bound into my bowling action. I had a go today outside and it didn't look too promising, but I can sense that longer term it may come together.

Update of Legspin Blog

Because of the lack of recent content, I'm going to post up some of the content from the re-vamp of the Leg Spin Bowling Blog which is currently on-going.


Motor Skills; This is the complex process of your brain communicating with your body (Limbs) effectively to produce coordinated movement.

So this now brings me back to the notion of ripping the ball from the hand putting maximum revs on the ball. Now here comes the contentious part. In Philpotts ‘Art of Wrist Spin Bowling’ he describes as best he can using text and stills images how to practice flicking the wrist to produce the Leg Break. He shows images of someone flicking the ball across the body from the right hand to the left using the 2 up 2 down grip, all the time focusing on giving it a good flick. The image and the explanation are straight forward and you can see quite easily once you start doing it what he means and over a period of weeks and months you go from rolling the ball over to really giving it a good flick. But in the same section he talks about using the same Big Flick to spin the ball from an outstretched arm inwards towards your chest. This inward flick he doesn’t dwell on at all, but just says to practice it alongside the flick across the body from right hand to left (See my video clip Legspin Bowling Drill No.2[H1] ).

Philpott later in the book returns to the ‘Inward flick’ action as the final part of his Round the loop system to explain the variations. Grimmett used the exact same explanation back in 1930 in his book Getting Wickets and the basic premise is that the position of the wrist at the point of release is instrumental in producing the Wrist Spin variations. Philpott though more than most using the inward flick drill demonstrates what seems to be the little known method (I would argue the genuine version) of producing The Slider. If you’ve followed Philpotts round the loop advice, you’ll have understood that the variations in Wrist Spinning are a result of wrist presentation at the point of release, again on the internet, both Shane Warne and Terry Jenner focus on this to some extent in their videos on Legspin bowling, but they do not dwell on it at all and just rush through the explanations leaving gaping great holes in the information. It is only when you research further – Grimmett, Benaud, Philpott, Jenner, Woolmer and Warne using a broad range of information sources that you’re able to collate all the information and synthesise it and potentially come to the conclusion that I have.

The notion of spinning the ball inwards is not common-place, but then neither is Wrist Spinning where the bowler has the knowledge of all of the variations. Furthermore knowledge of the variations is one thing, but being able to execute the variations in a match situation with accuracy and length is virtually unknown. There’s a sequence to learning Wrist Spinning and because of the complexities of the discipline the perception that I have is that most practitioners rarely move beyond bowling the Leg Break and the Top-Spinner, which to be honest will serve you well in most situations. It may be the case that most people pick up Philpotts The Art of Wrist Spin Bowling get through to the sections that deal with the Leg-Break, Top-Spinner and Wrong Un and then call it a day at the Wrong Un? Therefore having possibly struggled with the Wrong Un and maybe got no-where near mastering it don’t fancy the prospect of trying to get the wrist round to spin the ball inwards for the Slider? Who knows?

But, if you’re looking to master the Leg Break and bowl it with differing degrees of turn and therefore dip and drift and hoping to be able to bowl the coveted ‘Biggun’ (Ball of the Century) I think you need to explore the potential of the real Slider and this is the ball that requires the Inward Flick.


The key conclusion that I’ve come to and this is alluded to by Philpott more than the others is that the Inward Flick Drill is possibly the key to becoming an advanced practitioner of Wrist Spinning. I’ve found that the inward flick because it is so unusual and requires that you turn the wrist so far has led to far more control over the release of the ball from the hand – Fine Motor Skills. It’s been the case for the last 3-4 years as I’ve developed as a Wrist Spinner that I’ve been unaware of what it is that happens with my hand/wrist on release. On one hand, body and hand are seemingly coordinating in order to produce the Leg Break, yet the result is a Wrong Un, Top-Spinner or a very weak Leg Break. All of which are indicative of having The Googly Syndrome (See other sections).

[H1]The intention is that I’ll re-do the videos – possibly shooting them at college in the atrium during a holiday or at the weekend and re-name them all.