http://www.mpafirsteleven.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/wrist-spin-bowling-top-spinner.html
For me there has always been the conundrum that if you bowl faster this equates to flatter, whereas you'll know if you're a cricket aficionado that watches and observes spin bowling they do bowl the ball (Especially Wrist Spinners) 50 mph and faster and the ball loops landing short of the batsmans comfort zone. If you're a medium pacer or any other type of bowler do it, try and get that ball well above the batsman's eye level and get it to land at his feet, don't worry about making it turn to off or leg, just get the ball up above his eye level at least as far as 1/2 way down the pitch at 50 mph and get it to land 5 yards in front of the batsman. You'll probably find it gets to him about chest or waist height, so - how do they do that?
Nearly six years into this journey, I think I've cracked it or I'm beginning to crack it. I had a discussion with a bloke on a forum only weeks ago about 'Arm speed' he was saying that the run in had little to do with the speed of the ball through the air and that arm speed was the key aspect to the balls pace. I argued otherwise, but I didn't discount what he'd said entirely and had a look at speeding up my own arm speed.
Prior to that I'd been looking at some advice about getting up on to the toes and twisting the foot during the pivot with a rigid ankle, this twist is generated it seems from the hips and this had yielded some amazing results including dip and drift. Drift until this point was something that happened rarely and accidentally, dip was only something I could achieve with a Top-Spinner and here I was now simply because of the inclusion of getting up on the toes nice and tall and twisting the pivot foot I was getting both with my Leg Break and it was turning more frequently.
The same people that were looking at my bowling from two different perspectives - bio-mechanics and technical then made a lot of observations relating to a video I up-loaded to siliconcoach and sorting through the advice that was left I then moved on to the 'Flailing leg'.
The 'Flailing leg' is the feature here in the 3rd row down third image in from the left. My understanding is that if you bowl like this, it has a detrimental affect on your bowling and is physically demanding on the pivot leg which is in contact with the ground. Rather that swing that leg round like that, the advice that I was given was to bring the leg through towards your target. This makes a lot of sense when thought about in conjunction with the scant advice that you'll get from videos from Warne and Jenner on-line (You tube) and elsewhere. The mantra is that your energy should be directed forwards towards the batsman and with the leg swinging round like that the energy is not being directed correctly.
The result of implementing this 'Through' approach as opposed to the 'Flailing leg' approach is that combining it with the lift and twist of the pivot leg and more arm speed is that I'm bowling a lot faster and I'm getting those magic elements of Dip and drift with lots of turn off the pitch. The accuracy for the first 18 or so balls so far isn't that good, but once I find the rhythm, the accuracy increases exponentially with me landing the ball on a mat 12" x 12" in increasing frequency and this is with far more venom and speed than I've ever bowled and this is because of the dip. It's exciting times!
