Development and re-construction of bowling action - repeatable and consistent.

Previous Post can be found here

(1). What Happened? Bowled today against a bunch of sloggers at our fun day using a plastic training ball on an artificial wicket and wasn't able to get the ball to turn. Also got called for foot over the line 'No-Balls'.

(2). Feelings. Okay, not that fussed on what happened, the only person that really got after me was my own son Joe.

(3). What was good and bad? (Evaluation). The ball didn't turn anywhere near enough, but I beat the bat loads with the little turn that there was combined with the increased pace. At one point I was told 'Float it in - don't bowl darts'. Bad... No-Balls, where I stepped over the popping crease in the delivery.

(4). Analysis. The weight of the ball was significantly different, but I adapted to it quite quickly. For some reason the ball didn't turn a great deal, but I beat the bat loads with the pace. My accuracy was pretty good and I got the edge a couple of times with the wicket keeper taking the catch on 2 occasions.

It does appear that when confronted with a batsman that I don't know, I run in faster and as a result I was called no-ball a few times, so one of the things I need to do in my practice is extend the run-in to 13' and work with that.

The ball wasn't turning, but I'm not that fussed about that either, I think that may have been the nature of the ball and the fact that we were bowling on an artificial surface. One of the things I may have to look at and adapt to when bowling is ascertain whether my bowing is going to turn off the wicket and if not bowl with a lot more over-spin which I can easily do with an adjustment of the wrist, but looking ahead I will need to improve my Top-Spin release so that it is spun harder and gets more dip.

(5). Conclusion. Keep going as I am, put any negative thought behind me and work with the arm as previously discussed.

(6). Action Plan.
(a). Adjust the length of the run-up to 13'.
(b). Explore reaching out with the leading arm and see if it leads to any significant improvement.
(c). Start to explore getting up on to the toes in the pivot. It's already been noticed in the last video that the bowling is better when I do this.

Adil Rashid - England v New Zealand 1st one day match 9th June Edgbaston.

Everything you need to know about bowling Leg Breaks here.

A brilliant start for the new look England side today. Came in from work turned the tele on and saw 400 runs and just assumed we were chasing 400. Got settled and started watch the game and then realised England were bowling and had scored 400 plus!!!!

Then a few minutes later Adil Rashid is standing at the top of his mark ready to start his spell and what a spell it turns out to be! With the protection of so many runs Rashid was able to settle and looked as though he was completely relaxed and able to go about his work. Later in the interview he acknowledge this saying "I was able to play with a positive mind set and just work on spinning the ball hard". He started with an off-spinner finger spin delivery - stump to stump, but then moved straight on to his leg-breaks. Initially they didn't look that spun hard and it took a couple of overs to settle, but then once he'd taken his first wicket - Kane Williamson caught deep mid - off (Joe Root), he settled and started to bowl really well. His next wicket was Santner caught in the slips by Chris Jordan. 3rd wicket was Henry bowled with Googly and trapped LBW see field below.

This was to Matt Henry who was bowled with a Googly trapped LBW

The classic one was Luke Ronchi who caused England all sorts of problems in the test series batting like a one day batsman. He came out and Rashid hadn't used the Googly for a while, but you just knew Ronchi would give it the biggun, he just had that aura about him that kind of suggested he would smash Rashid back into the England Lions and Yorkshire. I guessed he'd come out and be aggressive right from the outset and sure enough he did, but Adil was one step ahead of him and bowled him clean with a Googly.

The fields for Rashid were interesting...

The commentators mentioned the fact that his Wrong-Un turns more than his leggie. When asked about his variations and at what point he deploys them, he said that it wasn't a case of 'Showing the batsman' the Googly early, it was just a case of bringing it out when needed, but he said you have to be confident that you're going to be able to pull it off, because you need to be seen to be an attacking option and stay on top of the batsman.

It's going to be interesting to see how he goes in the rest of these matches as McCullum is no doubt going to come out hard and I'm pretty certain that like Luke Ronchi had intended to do, they wont want Rashid to be a key part of the England set up, as the more he bowls and the more frequently he's used effectively and he comes away with wickets, the more his confidence will grow. I'm pretty sure New Zealand will target him. It'll be interesting to see how he's used when he hasn't got that same buffer in terms of runs on the board, will he be used in the same way and will he bowl with such confidence?

Statistically he's done well in this game at 5.5 an over and having taken four wickets. Everyone is saying that this is his time, he's 6 years older he made a massive contribution with the bat with the highest number 7 partnership in all one day cricket history at this level. He's also come away with the best Leg-spin figures for an English man in one day history too. Let's hope this is Adils moment and he gets his chance to cement a place in this side for the next 10 years or so.

 

Check out my other blog here - this is all about Leg-spin bowling and nothing else. Double click on the image below.