Leg Spin bowling practice - Gibbs Reflective Practice in Sport (4th May)

What Happened.

Had another practice - the equivalent of 12-14 overs. Again only using 6 balls. Venue the paddock. Objective - accuracy and spinning the ball hard.

Feelings.

Yeah, a lot more positive than yesterday, a definite move forwards with some positive observations relating to the things that I tried.

Evaluation. (Good and Bad).

The good thing was with the additional focus on accuracy, it seemed to work really well. In addition my Googly is coming together - very accurate with loads of top spin a lot of the time. Bad stuff - for some reason irrespective of what delivery I chose at the start of the over, a lot of the time it ended up very wide down the legside.

Analysis.

The way I'm practicing this season is to use a mat, we started to do this last year, but since then I've looked at a few things and realised that one of the really important things is the length. In the nets over winter and at training I come up against some very good batsman who are able to read the spin, but if the flight combined with the length come together it leaves them in two minds. So the focus is to land the ball in a specific area. The point of reference for the ideal length comes from information that batsman have suggested 4-5 yards from the stumps and this is confirmed if you watch the IPL when the spinners are bowling their pitch maps have a 'Good length' defined as 4 metres.

The area that I spin into is relatively large, again there's some debate about this, spinners such as Grimmett and Benaud talk about being able to land the ball onto very small areas, but I reckon that if you're pursuing this discipline and you stick to that idea, you're going to get very despondent. It might be a target to aim for in the much longer term e.g. when you've been bowling this stuff for ten years or so, but when you're learning something akin to what I'm doing here I reckon is a good start.

Confirmation of the idea that a big target is acceptable, can be found here (Click on the image) and watch it at about three minutes in. This is Terry Jenner, Shane Warne's mentor.

 



Recently I've noted that when I bowl with loads of balls I don't take it as seriously as I should do, as there's always plenty of balls in the bucket to bowl correctly next time and it seems I get really sloppy. So now I go out with just six balls looking to bowl really well from ball 1 and trying to make every ball count. The fact that I then have to walk down the other end and gather all the balls together almost recreates the time gap that occurs as the other blokes over takes place. We never bowl more than six balls at a time and therefore our rhythm is disrupted and I feel that it's important to recreate this when you're practicing.

 

 

So today I set up the mat initially so that line was as below...

When I do this I pre-allocate points to each strip. So on this occasion I've said that landing the ball on 'A' scores me 3 points, the ball on 'B' scores 2 points and 1 point for 'C'. Hitting the stumps in addition scores an additional point. The mats as mentioned previously is on that 'Good length' the centre of the mat is at 4 yards, so the more I'm able to bowl onto the mat, the more it becomes to feel natural to bowl that length. The drill can obviously be changed in order that you bowl fuller or shorter and this again stretches your abilities.

 

So the first half of this evenings session was with this configuration trying to bowl at the stumps which in theory would draw the batsman forward to defend or drive the ball, or get him skipping down the wicket. So as I'm bowling I'm also trying to change the speed and flight and get more over-spin in order to get the ball to dip more rapidly. All these subtleties, still require the ball to land on the mat.

 

Initially I didn't score that high, the balls were too full and I didn't have any way of recording the points. In addition the amount of spin I was getting with my Leg Breaks meant that all of the balls were missing the off-stump by a mile. So then I changed the mat position to the one below...

With the ball turning so much I was then able to focus on getting the ball on the 'A' line attempting to turn it into the stumps and this was a lot more successful. Hitting the 'A' line coming around the wicket at the other end for some reason was a lot easier. My top-spinners were very accurate too and these look as though will be a key feature of my bowling at the start of the season. If they work as well as I'm envisaging that'll be a big leap forwards. My Googlies again were very accurate tonight landing on 'C' and missing the leg stump by some way as well. Point-wise I scored a couple of 9's and a 10, but to be really honest and brutal I need to take a piece of paper and record my success rates and post these up on the blog maybe?

 

I didn't have the camera tonight and yet I bowled relatively well, it does seem as though if I've got the camera recording me I get the Yips!!!

 

Conclusion -

 

I still need to get the first over bowled well, with good accuracy, so it may be that I should bowl Top-Spinners for the first 2 or 3 balls next time and then see if the 3rd or 4th ball as a leg break produces a better result? The first ball of several of the overs went way down the legside irrespective of whether I bowled around or over the stumps and I need to explore this. It may be that I'm still just be sloppy?

 

Action plan -

 

Bowl tomorrow night using the same approach. Record what I do and the points scored. Position the mat slightly differently and bowl over the stumps. Have the 'A' strip slightly wide of leg and have that as the '3 point' target. Bowl with more over-spin. Bowl some overs with a top-spin priority and adjust and record the target strip.

 

If you're looking for more info and ideas about Wrist Spin Bowling - check my Leg Break bowling page out here. http://mpafirsteleven.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/wrist-spin-bowling-leg-break.html

 

 

 





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Drift - A laymans explanation

Each of us has a different way of learning and these are known in Pedagogy as learning styles. My own preference is called Kinaesthetic and works best when I actually try things out and do them - usually again and again and it works best if it's something I have to do all the time. Whereas some people can simply read stuff and make sense of it, that's something I'm not so good at 'Abstract Conceptualisation'. So in the past when I've been reading up on Drift trying to get my head round it and making sense of it in practical terms, I've generally been linked to articles and videos on and about the Magnus effect. Despite reading and watching all these, the penny has never quite dropped, I've never quite got all the explanations and illustrations. But today I've come across an article and an explanation that made it as clear as daylight in a couple of short paragraphs and all because of one really simple explanation that I was able to relate to and understand and it was a written piece. So, here it is in my own words and later the link to the website that finally calrified what Drift is caused by and why............

If you're spin bowler, you'll understand the basic principles simply by empirical observation of your own bowling and probably from tennis and table tennis. Top Spin causes the ball to dip. The usual analogy is that a tennis player slices the ball with the racket across the top of the ball imparting top spin and the ball dips violently over the net. Same with your Top-Spinner in cricket you impart over-spin (Top-Spin) and the ball falls short of the batsman despite being bowled at a speed that would normally mean the ball would end up at his feet or around about his knees. Back Spin on the other hand does the opposite, the ball floats through the air maintaining a relatively straight trajectory - not dipping anywhere as expected. Footballers apparently do this particularly well slicing the ball under-neath so that it stays straight through the air - even rising in some instances till it reaches a point where its speed means it eventually starts to dip.

So....How do they do that? The explanation goes like this. A spinning ball as it spins creates a layer of air immediately around it that spins in the same direction that the ball is spinning. If the ball is also moving forwards e.g. with Top-Spin, the direction of the spinning ball will mean that its layer of air will be moving around the ball with the same direction, so at the top of the ball, the spinning air will be colliding with the air that its moving through, whereas the spinning air at the bottom of the ball will be helped along with air that it's meeting as they're moving in the same direction thus making the ball dip. The backspinning ball does the opposite, the air at the bottom of the ball is rotating against the air its meeting and so lifts the ball and prevents it from dipping.

For me that was it, that explanation worded slightly different here http://www.catcheswinmatches.com/coaching/spin/ suddenly made me realise what was going on and now I know how and what I need to do to get the ball to drift!

Epiphany (Again)?

Yep, I’ve just had one of those seemingly epiphanal events. I hadn’t had a bowl in a few days and having rolled the wicket (the first opportunity since February when we last had a good drop of rain) I wanted to take advantage of its flatness to see if I could extract some turn off it. First hour or so bowling 36 balls at a time out of a bucket and retrieving them again and again, it wasn’t looking too clever for a range of reasons……


(1). What not to do when you’re 51 and got ropey knee ligaments http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NRx7UFLHLI
and therefore a newly re-injured knee.
(2). No rhythm.
(3). Indecision with regards rolling or flicking.
(4). Loads of Leg-side crap.
(5). A bunch of youths were sitting outside the paddock mucking about and not allowing me to do the total focus thing.



So having bowled pies for an hour and not getting anywhere, the kids left and I thought about what I was doing and set about getting things right. First up, I loosened my grip using the big flick method and straight away the ball turned off the pitch far better. Thinking things through, I remembered ‘Spin it up’ and tried releasing the ball marginally earlier and again this seemed to make a substantial difference for a short while, but then it started to fall apart again. Reviewing it once more I focussed on what it was in the last 36 or so balls that had made the biggest improvements and concluded it was the slightly earlier release and the more relaxed grip and this had a direct relation to something I do in between bowling the balls. I’ve mentioned before either here or on the Spin forum http://www.bigcricket.com/community/forums/spin-bowling.36/
that in between bowling I go through the arm action and release the ball over my head and spin upwards so that I see the seam rotation and catch the ball. This gives me a sense of what I’m trying to achieve when I next bowl the ball forwards with the bowling action and it usually makes a difference on the next ball. For some reason it occurred to me that, perhaps as I bowl the next ball instead of looking down the wicket at where I’m bowling I’ll look up and watch what happens with my fingers, hand and wrist. Again if you’re a regular reader of this blog you may have read my thoughts on fine motor actions and the fact that in the bowling action, I perceive that I’m wholly un-aware of what happens to my fingers, hand and wrist as the ball is released whilst looking down the wicket. I’m pretty convinced that I don’t actually do what I’m trying to do and that this is a consequence of having gone through the googly syndrome and still not having recovered.


So this evening I bowled the ball and watched what I was doing with my hands, observing where all the components were. I watched as the ball came out of the hand spinning perfectly as per the description in Bob Woolmer’s book describing Warne’s ball of the century. The ball pitched and turned ridiculously at 45 degrees off of a slow delivery with lots of loopy flight. 36 balls later I collected 95% of the balls from a position very wide of the off-stump line having landed 90% on a good length and line with varying degrees of turn. Another bucket of 36 went down with very similar results. Weirdly, even though this meant that as I was bowling, I was having to take my eye off of where I wanted the ball to go, in order to watch what was happening to the hand, my accuracy seemed to be better? But, watching the hand meant for some reason I was able to maintain perfect seam presentation and flick the ball ridiculously hard, but it required a different level of emphasis in the delivery as I was grunting like a pig in my efforts to get the ball spinning hard in the way that I wanted?


With these epiphanal moments I have to be wary as I find the next session I’m unable to replicate the same outcome and that’s a bit depressing. But hopefully remembering to use a loose grip and releasing a smidge earlier and watching the ball again I might be able to produce the same results. The conclusion seems to be that I’ve confirmed my belief that I’m not actually doing what I think I am. Despite all my best efforts it now seems obvious that my usual bowling action for some reason or other is still far more like a ropey top-spinner than a Leg Break most of the time. This seems to be down to this bad connection between my brain and the physical action and I’m convinced that this is connected to the Googly Syndrome and the fact that bowling Wrong Un’s in the way that I did in order to learn the delivery completely re-writes the programming and makes a full recovery very difficult.


Hopefully if I’m able to repeat what happened tonight the longer term prospects will be that if I carry on bowling like this….


(a). I’ll be able to bowl Faster.
(b). I’ll get some drift.
(c). Bit by bit I’ll have to look up less and the action will be learned without the necessity to watch the hand?

To Spin or not to Spin

There's been some debate in the past as to whether there is any merit in bowling without any spin if you're struggling with your bowling. The concensus does seem to favour the opposing view that if you're a spinner, first and foremost the thing you must do is spin the ball and spin it hard. This theory is supported by Peter Philpott in his book 'The Art of Wrist Spin Bowling'. But, what if you came to spinning at such an early stage in your bowling development that you hadn't really honed any basic skills in bowling?

Is there not some merit in stepping back from months and months of frustration where perhaps you feel you're not going forward with your bowling and just having a good look at your basics? At one point I'd have argued that there was some value in this process and some time spent just assessing whether you could bowl in a straight line and hit the stumps might be a good idea? I then had a change of mind a while back whilst making some in-roads into bowling the Big Leg Break. My thoughts a few months back were that the Big Leg Break was so fundamentally important that no time should be spent tinkering with anything else and that you should focus entirely on Leg Breaks and the Big Leg Break.

I think I've softened on that viewpoint again and now might advocate that a basic sound bowling technique may be the pre-requisite to moving forward and learning wrist spin? The basis of this new opinion is that watching my younger son develop in his bowling he has gone through 3 distinct phases to date.

Phase 1: Initially with very little effort and no real technique with regards his explosion through the crease and follow through, he like many small boys could produce a leg break. This Leg Break because of the very slow and loopy flight and a degree of accuracy got him wickets.

Phase 2: Once he came up against boys that could bat a bit and was tonked around the park a bit, seam up bowling suddenly looked like a better solution and he went over to the darkside. During his 2 years in the seam up wilderness, because of his size and the fact that he is 2.5 years younger than his older seam up bowling brother he always compared himself to his older sibling. So for the 2 years he tried to bowl as fast as his brother, which was (In the short term) always going to be a battle that was going to be lost. But what did seem to happen was that he explored the Malinga round arm action and just trying to bowl much faster than he'd ever done. On his own with very little input from me he seemed to learn that varying the flight, length and speed worked if it coincided with accuracy.

During the phase 2 period, his whole bowling action improved along with physically growing. His bowling action by the start of this summer looked more like that of a spinner with a slow walk-in buidling up to the explosion through the crease, with a spinners follow through.

Phase 3: That's kind of happened in the last 2-3 months or so. Around June he started to bowl Wrong Uns http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUG6g9VLyd8 that turned quite a bit and asking questions about them. "So it's just by turning my wrist and bowling out of the back of my hand that I bowl a Googly"? This was then followed up with questions about the Leg Break once I'd said "You don't really want to be bowling Googlies, otherwise you'll end up with the Googly Syndrome". I simply explained that he needed to be bowling out of the front of the hand with a flick of the wrist having the ball come off the 3rd finger.

Then last week we were mucking about outside the house and he bowled a series of lovely Leg-Breaks and when asked about it he said "I'm just flicking my wrist when I release the ball".

In conclusion: It strikes me that he made enormous progress whilst bowling straight not trying to get the ball to turn. During that Phase 2 the very fundamental elements of bowling were laid down allowing him to then recently add the flicking of the wrist either way to bowl the Leg-Break and the Wrong Un?