Peter Philpotts Going around the loop - Wrist-spin bowling

Peter Philpotts 'Going around the loop'


In his book ‘The Art of Wrist Spin bowling’ the Aussie wrist-spinner Peter Philpott describes how the ball can be bowled with the seam rotating (Spinning) in pretty much any direction through the use of the Wrist position – hence Wrist-Spin bowling.

If you hold your hand out in front of you with your palm facing up, place a ball in it using the Wrist-spinners grip as below (Double click on the image) ...

 

With the hand and arm extended in front of you, now rotate both your arm and wrist and you’ll see that you’re able to turn your wrist with the ball in your hand ‘Round the clock’ 360 degrees to present the ball once again on top facing you. The initial position is pretty much the release for the leg-break delivery and the final position is the release position for the Googly (Wrong Un). All the intermediate stages give you the other variations - Top-Spinner, Big Leg Break and Orthodox back-spinner.

This bloke here in the video demonstrates it particularly well.. double click on the image for the videos. This one from the side...

 This video below from the front (Double click on the image).

And here below is Shane Warne's mentor Terry Jenner going around the loop.

 Jenner at the end of this then shows you the basic Flipper, which also can be bowled in numerous variations using the exact same principle of adjusting the wrist position.

 

The Leg Break

The Leg-Break                                         work in progress 79 view 8/4/18

This is the main delivery bowled by ‘Wrist-Spinners’ or ‘Leg-Spinners’. The description I’ll use here will assume that the bowler is a Right-armed bowler. Otherwise unless stated, the scenario will involve a RH (Right-handed) batsman.

The basics

From the bowler’s perspective when the ball is delivered it hits the wicket and because of the ‘Leg-Spin’ (anti-clockwise spin/rotation of the ball), it deviates off of its line and ‘Breaks’ towards the left (Off-side) of the cricket pitch. 

From an absolute learners perspective, the key thing is to be able to get the ball to spin and therefore turn off the wicket. If you're learning from scratch this above all else is the most important thing - make the ball spin 'Give a rip'. 

Some people have a very natural ability to do this, kids for some reason shown once or twice are often able to do this with real ease. If you struggle with it, the thing you should do is have a ball you can have with you as much as possible, or an apple or an orange and continuously flick the ball from hand to hand. Do this with the ball deep in the hand in the palm, or further up in the fingers, try with a firm grip and a loose grip and bit by bit you'll find a method that suits you at this stage. In the longer term, you'll need to develop the technique with a loose grip as that's generally seen as the most effective technique.

The Grip

The basic grip involves the ball nestled in the palm of the hand lightly using a 2 fingers up and 2 fingers down grip. The ring finger is rested on the seam normally and it's this finger that primarily imparts the spin on the ball when released. 

The cocked Wrist and Flick

This is another aspect that some people are confused by the idea of Flicking the ball. In your gather you generally 'Cock your wrist' e.g. bend your wrist over as per the image below and you maintain this 'Cocked' position through your bowling action right through to the point at release. As you bring your arm over to the point of release you 'Un-cock' your wrist and flick the ball off of the 3rd finger simultaneously with as much of a snap/flick as you possibly can to put the revs on the ball. The idea is that the ball shouldn't be rolled off the fingers, but flicked off the fingers. Some people infer in their guidance that you shouldn't focus on this and you shouldn't do any form or training with regards this. I'm with Peter Philpott on this and I reckon your should be constantly flicking the ball or something similar as much as you can.

If you do flick the ball all of the time (1). It'll maintain the flexibility of the wrist and build muscle memory, and (2). It'll allow you to get a feel for what it is you need to do. If you vary it at the start - loose grip, tight grip, in the palm or a more fingery position in the hand, you'll sense that you're flicking it sometime and rolling it at other times. Philpott advocates you do this all of the time flicking it from hand to hand. You'll see bowlers do this as they stand at the top of their mark before they run in and bowl.

On the subject of the Flick I personally was never sure that I was doing it right for years, I could get the revs on the ball, but was it enough? Was I flicking or was I rolling? It wasn't until I thought of the action as an un-furling that I kind of got my head around the idea and felt confident that I was doing it correctly. Have a look at this video here as this was a bit of a revelation to me with regards to developing the flick and snapping action. I found this a really useful method of working it out.

The bowling action

It's probably the case that you've come to wrist-spinning via bowling seam up initially, so hopefully you'll have some idea about your approach to the crease - the 'Run-up'?

As Wrist-Spinning is a form of slow bowling, generally the approach to the crease is short. Guidance differs with regards to whether you come in straight or come in at a slight angle, a lot of people such as Stuart MacGill who comes in off of a fairly long run-up advocate coming in relatively straight - keeping all of the energy moving towards the batsman. Other Wrist-Spinners, such as Abdul Qadir run-in off of an angled approach to the wicket. It's probably more important to not get too hung-up on whether you do it one way or the other, as long as you're getting the ball to spin you're on the right track. The most important thing with Wrist-Spinning is that you spin the ball.

So, going back to the premise that you're a learner in the early stages of your development... You're now spinning the ball and you've got a run up. We'll assume that you've got a method of getting through the bowling action at the crease and you're landing the ball on the cut strip. We'll skip the intricacies of the bowling action as that'll be covered in more detail here and we'll focus for now on landing the ball 'Line and length'.  

Line and length

This is one of those tricky elements of bowling where there's no real specific answer and it's not much help when you get it wrong in a game and someone says to you "Get your line and length right".

I'll attempt to simplify it. I guess a lot of people will think about wrist-spin bowling in terms of Warne's ball of the century pitched out-side of leg. The anomalous name "Leg-spin bowling" doesn't help either, it should be referred to as Wrist-Spin bowling as we don't always look to bowl down the leg-side as the name kind of suggests. Personally as a starting-off approach I would encourage anyone starting out to try and bowl an off-stump line. 

I advocate this approach for a number of reasons...

You can kid yourself that the reason your bowling both with an off-side and leg-side attack is that it's wholly intentional when you know full well, that you were actually trying to bowl a middle and leg line. You can do this and it'll get you wickets, but there will be a day when you realise its massively beneficial to be able to bowl where you either want to or need to. Additionally you or your captain would have set an appropriate field which you need to bowl in a way that is appropriate. You may have heard the phrase "Bowl to your field". So if the captain or you yourself have set an offside field like this...

Where the majority of the team are on the off-side, the last thing you want to be doing is bowling it down the leg-side, so that the batsman can hit the ball into the empty areas of the field. In the situation above, the field may have been set with the prior knowledge that the batsman had a good cover drive... You need to watch the batsmen prior to your spell, to ascertain his strengths and weaknesses and come up with plans to try and exploit these. With the knowledge of the batman's preference to use the cover drive, or maybe trying to encourage a batsman to use the cover-drive you could leave a gap (Indicated by the purple) section on the image. What's then required is that you bowl on the off-side trying to encourage the cover-drive looking to force a mistake - with the ball coming off the edge of the bat into the areas loaded with fielders in zone A.

Therefore in order to execute the plan you've got to be able to bowl an off-stump attacking line. So, as a part of your development, work on your accuracy be able to bowl consistently on an off-stump line either turning the ball away from the bat or reducing the amount of rev's you put on the ball and bowling it relatively straight. 

As you get better, you'll come to realise that using only your Leg-Break you've got a whole series of options...

1. Change your wrist position to increase the seam angle to potentially increase and decrease the amount of turn.
2. Lower or raise your arm angle and release point, again this usually increases or decreases the amount of turn off the wicket.
3. Intentionally take the spin off the ball with the use of the fingers and wrist - don't flick it as hard.
4. Bowl slower or faster - change the pace.
5. Spin it harder, so that it dips more and potentially drifts.
6. Bowl loopier or flatter.
7. Bowl from different positions on the crease to vary the angle of attack. This means using crease width and potentially the depth e.g. bowl back from the popping crease or even level with the stumps.
8. Move your field around - tweak it a bit, just to get the batsman thinking.
9. This one you might not of ever heard and it's relatively subtle... Don't get up on your toes in your pivot. Getting up on the toes tends to increase the amount of action you get on the ball, you might find that by not doing so  reduces the amount the ball does (Spin and dip). My own bowling action doesn't facilitate a full on rise up on to the toes as I'm quite old, but I've noticed that if I bowl and intentionally get up on the toes the ball does more. So, it may be the case that the opposite happens if you don't go up on your toes? It might be worth exploring especially if you're looking for a way to vary your bowling in some subtle way?

Point 7 above the moving around the crease is a really useful tactic used by Warne and at anytime on the internet there's usually a couple of video's of his SKY TV Masterclass that explain and demonstrate this have a look at the links below...(Click on the image for the video). 

To be able to bowl with such accuracy takes either natural ability and luck, or tuition at an early stage to establish and groove a bowling action that works. Or as in the case of most people lots of practice. Some people say, (Me included) it's going to take you years and hours of practice in order to develop this ability. 

Shane Warne as far as I know doesn't say much about how much he used to practice and you can find plenty of articles saying about his idea of training involved a burger in each hand! He did though and there's plenty of documentation that evidences his relationship with his mentor the late Terry Jenner, this video here (below) which I'd never seen before, features Warne Bowling in the nets in 1997 accompanied by Jenner - again click on the image for the video.

Warne says of his abilities...

"Where my ability to spin a cricket ball came from I don't know. I can only think that I was born with it. I have a skill as a cricketer and fortunately cricket found me".
Shane Warne My Illustrated Career. Cassell Illustrated, London, 1998.

Jenner was a big part of Warne's bowling, having met in in 1990, he was the bloke that Warne turned to when things weren't going right as Jenner had the ability to spot what was wrong and help Warne rectify the problem. This relationship as far as I'm aware continued right through to the very end of Warne's career. So, despite Warne's obvious natural abilities he obviously trained and worked to rectify problems when he had them and so should we.

Google images of Warne with Terry Jenner.

The question is how much and how often?



Pitch Vision - https://www.pitchvision.com/how-2-workouts-a-week-can-make-you-a-better-spinner/#/

The Leg-Break delivery is known as your 'Stock delivery' this means that this is the ball that you bowl the majority of the time - 85%-90% of your deliveries. It also has to be the ball you bowl with the most accuracy and consistency and should be the ball that you get the majority of your wickets with. Therefore in practice it's the delivery you work with the most and it's the delivery that you build your plans and strategies around in the game.

In order to execute the delivery with maximum effectiveness you have to understand that it combines a whole body approach in it's execution. This whole body approach includes attention to detail to the way that you move your body through the crease in the bowling delivery from your toes to the very tips of your fingers. Similarly, the movement through the crease, from the point that you bound into the delivery, to your follow through, having released the ball all dictates the effectiveness of your Leg-Break. Again there are a multitude of bowlers that you can look at as examples of how this is done, but there are flaws in trying to emulate and copy the style of other bowlers, you should look to develop your own approach appreciating that your physique to some extent dictates how you'll end up bowling.

Key components of the action include...

• Landing sideways on as you come out of the bound
• Pivoting on the toes in the rotation 
• Rotating 180 degrees
• Using a high leading arm - reaching forwards
• Looking over the outside of the arm in the gather
• Bringing the bowling arm down across the body and past the hips in the follow through
• Following through and fading out of the delivery rather than stopping abruptly.

Whether to pitch the ball on the leg-side or the off-side is down to you, having made a decision as to whether the batsman has particular strengths and weaknesses. This is done based on prior knowledge or from watching the player prior to starting your spell. 

The intention is that the batsman tries to play a straight or cover drive and the ball deviates off its initial trajectory catching the edge of the bat and being caught behind or in the slips. 



Leg - break bowling 1

Have a look at this one too from Ben in New Zealand - he's got a pretty good channel you should subscribe to him.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdRyK6mDThM

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The Big Leg Break

Updated 6/1/19  - 56 veiws                8/4/18 - 40 views

Note this is still under-construction

See comment (a) Below

Your stock ball leg-break will probably have a seam that is released with the seam angled approx 45 degrees to the direction of its flight. In the previous post on the Leg-Break I've written about the fact that the Leg-Break is your main delivery and the one that you need to master over and above all others. I also explain in other posts that it has sub-variations... more side-spin or more over-spin (Top-Spin). The Big Leg-Break is one of the sub-variations facilitated by the angling of the wrist and or the lowering of the arm in some instances. These changes enable you to release the ball so that it is bowled with the angle of the seam at 90 degrees to the flight direction. 

Some of the stuff I'm going to write below is fairly contentious and there will be lots of people that completely disagree with what I write. One of the things I'll point out at this point is that, Warne's career ended right at the point where camera technology was about to move forward to enable the use HD high speed cameras. As a result, there's very little footage that is readily available that we're able to analyse with any confidence. This means that any arguments that arise relating to the use of the Big-Leg-Break and its attributes are a moot point. 

I’d never heard of the Big Leg Break being described as something different to your bog standard Leg Break until I read Peter Philpotts book. I thought a Leg Break was a Leg Break and when it turned big it was either - you putting more effort into it or you getting lucky and the ball turning out of some rough! I didn’t realize that there was a technique to it, but there most definitely is and if you haven’t read the book the art of wrist spin bowling you may find this contentious or simply physically impossible. The characteristics of the biggun are all pretty much as you’d expect of the Leg Break, but it just turns more – a lot more! This comes about through the application of Philpotts round the loop theory whereby the position of the wrist dictates the direction of the spin and therefore the direction of the deviation from the expected line of delivery.

The top spinner with it’s over-spin - spins forward because the wrist flicks forwards with the thumb leading the way. The batsman sees the hand with the thumb at the front and the side of the hand visible. Hold your hand out in front of your with your thumb facing your nose that’s the aspect that he sees. Now turn your hand 45 degrees anti clockwise between the Top-Spinner position to one where your thumb is pointing to your right and the face of the hand is facing you. This is the leg break position and any variation between those 45 degrees potentially offers you varying degrees of sideways deviation off the line of flight because of the sideway rotation. Needless to say the palm facing you with a big flick would mean that the ball would come down the wicket to you as the batsman with seam rotating sideway and only the smooth side of the ball visible, so once it hits the track it’s only going to go one way – sideways.

Therefore, In order that the ball turns even more radically off the wicket, you apply the round the loop theory. From the Leg Break position of the back of the hand facing you...

(A) Now turn your hand further still anti-clockwise so that side of the hand with little finger (The karate chop side) is facing away from you, as in the image above. Note for some people (dependent on your wrist dexterity) this may be enough to release the ball with back-spin producing the exceptionally rare Orthodox back-spinner  so if this happens, you should work with this and make this one of your deliveries! Most of us though, will find that this enables us to release the ball with far more side-spin and we can see that with some work the 90 degree spinning leg-break is possible. Image (B) below is an approximation of how you'd see the ball from your perspective e.g. on release the back of your hand would be facing mid-wicket.

Another way of visualising the position of the hand/wrist at the point of release is if you think of yourself throwing a javelin or spear.

Image (B)

When you're trying to learn this - try and go further round than you need to - try and execute the Orthodox back-spinner as that's the way that I figured it out and gradually was able to get my wrist into a position to release the ball with the seam rotation at 90 degree.

See the video here where I demo how to flick the ball inwards as described by Peter Philpott in the book "The art of wrist-spin bowling". Needless to say, as a part of the release you need to flick the ball as hard as possible in order to spin it as much as you can.


In the book Philpott alludes to this early on, suggesting that as well as spinning/flicking the ball from your right hand to left hand with the seam sideways to you, also hold the ball at arms length with the seam straight on to you and spin it back in towards your body.

As we have already discussed, spinning it from right-hand to left-hand. The other is to hold the it out in front of your body and spin it back towards your chest. I'll come back to that later. (The Art of Wrist Spin Bowling - Peter Philpott 2006 -page 22),

So right from the start he’s suggesting that you learn the back spin technique as well as the conventional side to side technique when you're just standing around learning how to flick the ball and get the rotation going with the use of the wrist.

It’s this that produces the Big Leg Break. The ball lands and has diagonal backspin towards the off-side. The forward motion is suddenly interrupted by the contact with the surface in the same way that the Flipper is but the diagonal nature of the seam angle means that the forward energy is combined with the diagonal backward forces and the result is the big turning Leg Break.

I think I’ve said before that lots of people do have the ability to pick up a cricket ball and simply using common sense and agility can bowl leg break balls using all sorts of variations of the 2 up 2 down grip and sometimes other more unorthodox grips. When I first discussed this technique (Big Legbreak) on website forums it was met with derision by some people and I personally couldn’t do it across 22 yards always instead producing a Googly/Wrong Un ( Googly syndrome ). But I did have an hour once practicing with a mate throwing the ball back and forth and I got it and was able just for that hour to produce massive turning Leg Breaks. Other people on the forum that tried it have developed it and now report that their little leg Break is now a big Leg Break simply by using Philpotts back-spinning into the body technique.

If you try this standing up at arms length and bowl it over short distances it’s relatively easy to replicate with the big flick and back-spin and you’ll see how the forward motion is interrupted on impact and the ball spins away to the left (Off-side) massively as a result of the seams position and the back-spin. If you have any doubts with regards the validity of this as a technique I can only point you in the direction of Peter Philpotts book The Art of Wrist Spin Bowling.

(Jan 2019) Other active blogs that I write include the following with frequently update content...

My other active blogs include…

https://bowlingplans.blogspot.com/

http://theoldwristspinner.blogspot.com/

http://wristspinbowling.blogspot.com/

This is an example of some of the bowling vids on my Youtube channel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBodRls5i80&t=21s

The Flipper - spin bowling

Wrist-spin bowling - 'The Flipper'

57 Views 6.4.18 - last updated.

There's a really interesting chapter in Brian Wilkins book "The bowlers Art" where he looks at Flippers in some detail, some of it I would say is over-exaggerated, especially with regards to how difficult it is to bowl. This is probably based on the fact that all of the past exponents of the Flipper had to go through a process of learning it with very little information. As far as I’m aware and Wilkins goes into this in a lot more depth than I am here, Grimmett was the first to write this stuff up in detail in 1930 in his book “Getting Wickets”. At the point the book was written he was only using the Flipper method in demonstrations to show the effect of how through the use of the wrist position the ball could be readily made to spin in any direction… Off-Break, Leg-Break, top and back-spin (Page 61 and 62) by simply clicking he ball between finger and thumb see here.

As I recall Wilkins explains that Grimmett would have been shown the method by the pre-over arm ‘Lob Bowlers’ (English bowler Simpson Hayward) who were the originators of the finger click method of imparting spin on the ball. It would appear that in 1930 when Grimmett was using this method to demonstrate how the wrist was the key component in getting the ball to spin in different directions, he was either in the early days of integrating the technique with over-arm bowling or hadn’t even considered it. Wilkins notes that Grimmett loved the confusion around all of these deliveries despite describing them explicitly in the 1930’s book, seemingly never quite giving up the facts and dates about the development of his own over-arm Flippers. This is very much in the same way that Warne messes with everyone’s heads with regards the non-existent ball everyone calls the ‘Slider’, but that’s another story to be found here. Grimmett says of his own development of the Flipper, that it took him the best part of 12 years before he felt able to use it. Of all of the variations that can be bowled Grimmett seems to have been obsessed with bowling the top-spinning variation because of it property in gaining speed off the wicket; As opposed to Warne’s much easier back-spinning version. This Top-Spinning Flipper which almost everyone dismisses as being impossible, may have well taken the 12 years to master? Partly in that there was no template, example, exponent and no existing literature on the delivery with which to work with.

Similarly Benaud waxes lyrically about the fact that it took him several years to develop his Flipper which again is a different variation to both Warne and Grimmett. Benauds variation appears to the be the one that spins around its own axis like a flying saucer See here.

The main point I’m trying to make here is you shouldn’t be put off by these stories of it taking years to develop these deliveries. Wilkins book which is excellent in its analysis of the Flipper, you have to remember precedes the internet with its video tutorials and demonstrations, and the bigger issue nowadays is the confusion created by there being so much information. 

Having watched Warne’s demonstration on Youtube below with Mark Nicholas I went out and learned the back-spinning variation that Warne uses within a matter or weeks. The key thing is you have a visual example and point of reference and this makes the whole learning process that much easier. Prior to the internet the only way you could make sense of any of these deliveries was through reading about them. I've yet to find anyone else other than my mate who plays for Orsett and Thurrock CC - Alex McLellan who bowls a Flipper despite all the info on the Internet. Nowadays with all the visual info - especially videos like the one below and my own ones here you know that these deliveries are possible and the learning process is sped up.

Double click the image to go to the video.

My thoughts on the Flipper.

Having tried every single variation and got all of them to a point where I could bowl them at batsmen in the nets over 22 yards I’ve come to a few conclusions and observations.

(1). Don’t get bogged down with the idea that you need to execute your Flipper with text book precision. The key thing to keep in mind is – does it serve you well as a variation – does it bring something otherly to your bowling. If so don’t worry about it not being text book perfect – just as long as it comes off the wicket in a different way to your stock leg-break. Grimmett was after something that would substitute his Googly as he felt that it was too easy to pick and he was aware of Walter Meads off-spinning Flipper if he could master realised that it would serve him well as it was less obvious from the hand.

So, as long as your Flipper gives you the variation aspect, don’t worry about whether it’s text book.

(2). Like the Leg Break wrist-flick, this delivery with its finger and thumb dexterity and strength requirements needs to be practiced all the time, so between looking at gormless crap on your phone pick up a ball, apple, orange or similar and flick it to maintain that dexterity and strength in the thumb and fingers.

(3). Try them all and find the one that suits you. Initially I started with Warne’s classic back-spinning version as seen demonstrated in the video above. I followed this with the ridiculous ‘Wrong – wrong-un’ which looks like a Googly but breaks like a Leg-Break, extremely difficult. That was followed by the off-spinner, top-spinner and a long time after Benuad’s ‘Flying saucer’ version. Personally – I would advise anyone starting out to do so with the back-spinner.

Grimmett says that during the 12 years of developing the Flipper he ‘Pruned’ the variations eventually arriving at the ‘Mystery Ball’ the one that “Made speed off the pitch” which sounds like the top-spinning Flipper, which, with a little tweak can produce an off-break. Both these deliveries are exceptionally difficult to bowl, I seem to recall reading in Ashley Malletts book about Grimmett him talking about Terry Jenner trying to bowl it and saying that it was physically impossible and casting doubt on whether Grimmett actually bowled the delivery.

My own experience of the top-spinning version which was some years ago now was that it was extremely difficult to execute. But, as far as I was aware, and this goes back to point (1) above. I could bowl a Flipper which has some over-spin, without the use of a high-speed camera I could never be sure how true a top-spinning Flipper it was.

Grimmett said of his Flippers and bowling in general with regards to the ‘Pruning’ “I realised that the new delivery had great possibilities. And it was sound in principle to concentrate on my Leg-Break and straight ball, since the fewer other balls I bowled the less risk I ran of losing control”. The point here is you’re highly unlikely to be able to execute all of the deliveries well. I’ve reduced mine down to two that I frequently practice and one that I use at high-risk of it going wrong on rare occasions. I think this year I’ll drop one of them – which is the Warne back-spinner to focus on the off-spinning variation as I no longer bowl the Wrong-un because I’ve gone through having Googly Syndrome.

I’ve also found that even though I use the back-spinning variation very infrequently, even lower level batsmen seem to recognise the ball almost immediately as being different and react to it accordingly almost dealing with it effectively 95% of the time, so for me over the years it’s been ineffective. I have more success with it against better batsman – who almost get caught out by it, but I only get to bowl at these batsmen in the nets.

Again, try them all and figure out which one works for you.

So - what you do have to do – what are the first steps?

(1). Be able to bowl a good Stock Leg-break. Like a lot of the guidance out there for Wrist-Spinners it’s the usual story. Don’t even try this if you consider yourself a Wrist-Spinner and you’ve not nailed your Leg-Break. You have to be able to bowl your Leg-Break well before moving onto variations.

(2) Be able to bowl a Top-Spinner. I say this because the Top-Spinner is the next easiest variation and should be an easy transition from your Leg-Break. Then I would say learn the Flipper next.

(3). Learn to click the ball out of the hand using the thumb and fingers. This for some may be the stage that they are put off, as some people don’t seem to be able to do it with any vigour. As with most of the wrist spinning deliveries you have to want to do it, it wont come easy unless you put some effort into it. The thing you should do is initially practice with smaller and lighter balls and gradually build up to larger balls. Note* For younger bowlers this may not be advisable as it may have some long-term consequences with regards ligaments in your hand if you over do it. In fact, I believe that Benuad advises not to bowl it until your around 18 years old and fully developed.

Once you’ve got it spinning from the fingers with some good revs, you can give it a go with the whole bowling action. As much as you can in between the constant practice of flicking the ball for your Leg-Break, you now have to Flick the ball for the Flipper. Initially your line and length is likely to be a disaster and it may be necessary to execute the delivery over a shortened length, but, if you persevere, you'll soon see it coming together and you'll be enthused. Over a short period of time if you practice it consistently you'll get it and all you then need to do is mix it in with your Leg-Break practice. It's then down to you to adopt a practice regime which includes the Flipper as you will lose it, if you don't practice it. I find that a lot of the time the first delivery is pretty much a disaster and that's probably down to the fact that (a). I tried too hard when bowling it for the first time, and (b). I probably don't practice it enough. Actually sitting here writing this, I've just realised that what I need to do in future is mid spell when I start a new over, before commencing the new over bowl a flipper to one of the fielders - Mid-off or Mid-On.

 On the subject of revs, one of the reasons Grimmett was so determined and spent 12 years working with his variation was Grimmett saw that he could get far more revs on the ball using this method in comparison to his usual 2 up 2 down finger configuration for his normal wrist-spin deliveries. 

To be continued (last updated 6/4/18).

In his book ‘The Art of Wrist Spin bowling’ the Aussie wrist-spinner Peter Philpott describes how the ball can be bowled with the seam rotating (Spinning) in pretty any direction through the use of the Wrist position – hence Wrist-Spin bowling.

If you hold your hand out in front of you with your palm facing up, place a ball in it using the Wrist-spinners grip as below...

The bowling-action - Spin Bowling

work in progress (06/01/19)

There's some useful professional/academic written analysis on-line if you dig around using the correct search prompts looking at and explaining the action of bowling, this is my version of it taking it several steps further.

Too many of the video's on-line focus on the hand and the variations, they're fine if you can bowl your leg-break perfect, but first and foremost you need to be able to do the very basics e.g. bowl a good leg-break. Part of this process includes establishing a consistent and repeatable run-up and it's this part of the process I'm adding to the standard phases 1 through to 6.

(a). The Plan This advice comes from Warne and Macgill. At the top of your run, you need to have a plan Warne says before you've even been given the nod to bowl you should have already been looking at the batsmen trying to figure out where their weaknesses are... Do they move their feet, have they got a weak side that they struggle to hit the ball through, is there a gaping great gap between bat and pads, do the tend to play straight or with a cross bat action; do they seem to struggle with figuring out the length of the ball? When you're learning these are pretty tricky things to figure out, but try as much as you can to learn about batting and ways that batsman get out, think about your own batting against spin - in what areas do you struggle.

Warne also suggests that you start your first over bowling different lines with your leg-break and bowling from different positions on the crease e.g. close to the stumps, midway between the stumps and the return crease and close to the return crease. If you have observed that the batsman is weak on the leg-side try a few balls in from the leg-side too, but re-arrange your field in accordance.

The important thing though is to have some kind of a plan and fundamental to that is when you're fielding watch the batsman try and figure out where they are weak, talk to your captain too, normally the captain is more knowledgeable on these things and will have ideas you may not have thought about.

(b). Start point In relation to the 'Consistent and repeatable action' which is essential, it's important that your stock ball is consistent and repeatable and part of this process is your run-up, this too has to be exactly the same each time for the most part (95% or more). The only time you might change it would be as some form of tactical approach e.g. your might start further back and bowl off of a point deeper in the crease to furtively change the length. But almost all of the time you start out from the exact same point. Some people score dirty great lines in the grass with their spikes others have run-up markers that you tend to forget about and leave...

For what they are these things are expensive so I use bottle tops off of Lucozade bottles either red or orange and press them into the ground with my heel. They do exactly the same thing and are free. In fact they tend to stay there and I use them the next time the strip is used in a game. When I arrive at a game and find out what strip we're playing on, I usually go out and measure my run-up before the game starts and put a marker in at both ends ready for when I bowl.

Once you've got your mark you can set off from the same length every time and this should negate any chance of your bowling a no-ball. 

(c). Relax; Stuart MacGill and Warne both make the point that you need to relax, bowling with any tension will affect your bowling. Warne makes some good point about being relaxed all the way through to the grip, the grip should be loose. MacGill in his Wrist Spin video explains the grip should be loose and relaxed and advocates shaking your arm and wrist to ensure that you have a floppy flexible wrist. Being relaxed is a massive part of spin bowling and one of the most demanding aspects of this is to remain relaxed even though you may have been hit for 4 or 6 or worse still a series of 4's and 6's. Similarly when you're learning and bowl wides, short balls or no-balls, being able to brush that off and not worry and to back to your game plan is one of the key parts of being a Wrist Spin Bowler. I can tell you now, it is not easy, you tend to feel like you're letting the side down and you're losing the team the game. It's in these situations where you need the support of your captain and to be able to dismiss the situation and get on with bowling your stock ball in a relaxed state. It comes with time and experience.

(d). Delivery choice; You've got your plan, you need to make a choice about where you're going to put the ball. Don't run in and just bowl, have an intention based on your observations of the batsman. Again if you're learning keep it simple, bowl at the off-stump so that the player has to play the ball, if the ball spins and goes away from the bat, you've executed a good ball if you land it on a good length for that batsman and his style of playing. The important thing is not to just bowl, try and get it in the area you feel is going to be effective.

(e). Setting off; MacGill says and I totally agree - always set off of on the same foot. The only adjustment you might make at this point is the width from which you start off, start from the same length, but maybe stand a step wider or closer of your basic run-up. Warne would say that doing this gives the batsman something to think about, try and get the batsman thinking about what you're doing rather than what he's doing. Then MacGill says to exhale and then set off.

(f). Phase 1. At this point we're into the phases of the bowling action - PDS Pre-delivery stride.

I feel that the run-up is one of the more neglected aspects of spin-bowling. You need to establish as soon as you can a way in which you can execute your run-up, otherwise you'll have to return to this at some point and correct it and establish it later. A lot of people will advocate spinning the ball hard first and complete neglect the run-up, but I feel they go hand in hand. Spinning the ball hard is something you should be doing constantly at every moment, you should have balls around your house which you pick up and give a flick. But when you're out and bowling the full 22 yards in practice, you must have an established run-up, one that is consistent and repeatable. Otherwise all of the following information is virtually irrelevant. Look here for some guidance with regards to the Run-Up.

Don't just look at Warne, look at Kumble, MacGill, Shah, Afridi, Tambe, Rashid, Benaud, Grimmett and Ahmed for examples, look at the different ways that they run-up, which one looks like the one that might suit you, do you feel like a bowler that approaches the crease slowly off of short run-up or do you feel like someone that will run-in with some speed and aggression?

While this is still under construction you might be interested in the following...

My other active blogs include…

https://bowlingplans.blogspot.com/

http://theoldwristspinner.blogspot.com/

http://wristspinbowling.blogspot.com/

This is an example of some of the bowling vids on my Youtube channel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBodRls5i80&t=21s

FFC Front foot contact



















Bibliography http://www.quintic.com/education/case_studies/Cricket%203.htm

Spin bowling - line length and accuracy practice

 25 views 15/4/18 78  views 31/07/18

Accuracy – Line and length; Observations and ideas.

The main dictum when learning how to bowl Wrist Spin is “Spin the ball hard”. Almost all of the advice out there is along the lines of “You’re a spin bowler, so over and above everything else you have to spin the ball”. This article here assumes that you’ve reached that stage e.g. you’re able to spin the ball well and get it to turn off the pitch.

If you are able to spin the ball hard and get it to turn off the pitch the chances are you’ll get wickets even if it’s short, too full, slow, fast, drifting or not drifting, but there’ll be days when you go for loads of runs and will feel as though you’ve let the team down. You’ll probably have games where you’ll reflect on what’s happened and you’ll think we lost that game because of the runs made off my bowling. I reckon this is the reason many kids give up wrist spin bowling and without a really good captain and a supportive team around a player, spells like this are exceptionally hard to come through without internalising the situation and drawing a negative conclusion.

If you are wrist spinner in a higher grade team facing this scenario, you’ll be relegated to a lower level if you’re consistently expensive without taking wickets, but if you’re in a lower level team, the situation is will probably be that you’ll be given less overs. You’ll still be given the opportunity to bowl, but the onus of responsibility is on you to make the changes to justify longer spells. This is where your commitment and determination will be put to the test as well demonstrating that you’re thick-skinned… You can’t internalise such poor performances and dwell on them. Reflect on them – yes, but dwell on the situation and let it eat away at your confidence – no, otherwise you’ll be a gonna! Such poor performances have to be rationalised and put out of your mind.

So what do you do?_________________________

Peter Philpott would say practice, practice and then more practice. But he also makes the point that practice without a specific aim is worthless. So, we’ll assume in this section you can spin the ball, so what can you do in order to address the fact that you’re going for too many runs and you’re not taking wickets?

The issue may be accuracy. As I write I’m watching the test series between England and Bangladesh Oct 2016. The Bangladesh spinners have bowled well, but England’s spinners on Sky TV have been mauled by the pundits primarily for their inaccuracy. Adil Rashid our Wrist Spinner of whom I’m a massive fan, for some reason gets cut some slack saying that everyone expects him to be expensive, but the finger spinners, all of the pundits suggest because it’s so much easier, they should be bowling far more accurately, accumulating maiden’s if not wickets. I must admit I often wonder about how much practice professional bowlers do and how they practice as sometimes their bowling is dog crap bad, particularly Adil as he bowls a lot of short balls. If New Zealand and Warwickshire’s Jeetan Patel is to be believed they don’t do enough practice… English Spinner don’t practice enough

 http://www.espncricinfo.com/county-cricket-2015/content/story/917767.html

Patel says... "They need to be more specific with their training - it's very easy to say that it's green and therefore it won't spin but you've got to find a way to succeed in the game.
To say that we play too much in April and May? Well too bad, just get on with it. It's just what it is. If you want to succeed, want to be good and get to the next level, then you've got to find ways to do that, whether it's getting bounce, drift, spin - whatever it is you've got to find a way to do that."

Like Philpott, he also makes the point that your stock ball has to be the one that you have full control of, this is the one that you have to practice with, this is the one that you threaten with, that gets you the majority of your wickets.

Specific practice____________________________

        So, we know that as we develop as Wrist Spinners, we’ll be given the chance to move up to better standards of cricket, if you’re a youth player, you’ll be expected to start playing adult cricket from about the age of 14. You’ll be placed in the lesser teams to introduce you to the game at a realistic level and this will be challenging unless you are a Peter Philpott who took 2 for 36 and 3 for 77 at Manly, Sydney when he was 12 years old in an a couple of adult games, but you never know… I’ve seen several youngsters do the same kind of thing ages 13 and 14.
       You might find at this stage or perhaps a little later on, that where you had a great deal of success against kids of your own age, this step up in levels proves to be a lot tougher than you expected. If you’re up for it though, this is where you need to develop as a player. If you’re lucky, you might have a coach that can help and they may give you some suggestions. If not here’s some ideas that I’ve picked up on over the years and use myself. The only thing you need that’s not always readily available is a whole bucket of balls 24-30. Put them on your Christmas or birthday list… just buy cheap ones for practicing with.
Accuracy *Or 6 or 7 balls if you're able to bowl up against a fence or net.

To start with let’s get going with a positive aspect so as to not get on a real downer. If you read anything by Clarrie Grimmett or Ashley Malletts book on Grimmett you’ll come across the stories of Grimmett practicing every day of his life almost in his back yard right through till his 80’s. The story goes that he wouldn’t allow himself to go back indoors until he’d managed to land the ball on an area the size of a handkerchief 4 or 5 times consecutively. While that’s an aspiration worthy of aiming for we are talking about a man that was known to be one of the most accurate of all Wrist Spinners.

Instead we’ll look at a starting point as suggested by Terry Jenner. In this video here at 2’10” Jenner makes several useful points primarily suggesting that the area that you bowl into is relatively large

Most of the videos you’ll see on-line and the majority of the guidance is aimed at kids and people starting out, so in the case of this video, this is definitely useful as the point that is being made relates to a good general rule providing you’re spinning the ball hard. He goes on to talk about the flight of the ball and the fact that it needs to be above the eyes. There are little details in Jenner’s instructions that are easily missed. He says “it’s dependent on the way the ball arrives towards the batsman”.  Here, he’s alluding to, but not being specific about things such as dip and drift which are essential, especially if you’re going to be bowling into such a large target area. So while such videos are definitely good starting points there are loads of details that are not gone into.

This big target area approach will potentially work in many scenarios especially if you are getting the ball to drift and dip. Additionally, its effectiveness will be dictated by the state of the game, the ability of the batsman and your own tactics. In order to understand these nuances you need to be playing, watching and reading about cricket as much as possible. Watch all formats of cricket, but it's probably useful to watch the one that replicates the format you yourself play in. You can't apply T20 bowling tactics to a game that lasts a number of days!


So what can we do?______________________
We have to have some understanding of what is a good length. An Indian bloke spoke to me about this years ago when I was practicing and had this advice... He said to get your bat and stand with your back foot just inside the popping crease-line and then stretch forwards with the bat as though you’re playing a fully extended slog sweep. Where the bat tip reaches he said “That’s where you bowl”.

The pitch maps above from Sky TV show that the considered good length for a spinner is somewhere between 3 meters from the crease to 5.7 meters which is quite a big distance. When considering this as a guide to your bowling one key factor you need to think about and consider is your speed... Bowling on a length that is almost 6 meters away from the batsman may be fine if you're bowling at speeds in the 50mph + range, but any slower and the batsman is going to have time to play you off the back foot.

The image above is my interpretation of the Sky TV illustration converted into a viewed from above. I've scaled it so that it's in both Meters and Yards. As you can see the light central area is considered to be 'Good', but you have to consider the speed you bowl at and given that I bowl much slower than a professional spinner, this has to be taken into consideration. The area/length that I work with when doing my own personal accuracy drills is indicated by the white rectangle, which is in the area my Indian friend suggested -  which is more in the region of about 3 to 4 meters in front of the batsman's position on the popping crease e.g. slightly fuller than a much faster professional or perhaps younger bowler than me!

How to analyse and check your accuracy.

This is what I do... You need a few balls - 6 or more; A friend who will watch and make notes; A fence or wall; Tape measure; some paper; marker pen; tape; Stumps and a target.

Figure out the length as described above. Or a length that you feel would be your ideal length to bowl considering the speed you bowl at and the level that you play at. Measuring it out and remember it for future reference. 

For the target I use a piece of hardboard that I position on the wicket (Indicated by the white rectangle in the diagram above) it's relatively small 90cm x 28cm (35"x11") and aim to hit the target as frequently as possible with my stock ball. 

I'm not overly concerned with how much the ball turns during my practice sessions because the area I use is nothing like the pitches that I play on and it gives a false impression, but I have to admit it is good fun! If you want to record how much you get the ball to turn as well as how accurate you are - get some paper and write numbers on them and hang these on the wall/fence behind your stumps as in the picture above.

Get a friend with a clipboard or notebook to stand near the target area and make a note of where the ball lands in relation to the target area. My main objective when I do this is to be as accurate as possible and to watch the ball out of my hand so that I can see whether the ball is rotating at 90 degrees or another chosen angle - usually 45 degrees (more over-spin). 

Philpott in his Book "The Art of Wrist-Spin Bowling" writes about the seriousness of fully committing when practicing , he says that if you don't do it with 100% comittment it's pointless. So when you do this try and do so with total focus on accuracy. 

To take the accuracy aspect a stage further the easiest thing to do and I massively recommend this if you're serious - take the stumps away and don't even consider the stumps.

Bowl as many balls as you wish - I reckon that you should bowl about 24 at a time and get your mate to mark on a note pad/piece of paper where the ball lands like this...

 .If you're noting how much turn you get as you bowl each ball shout to your mate the position the ball hits the fence or wall directly behind the stumps and he then will write the number on his note pad where the ball lands.

What I've then done for the use of this article is scan the piece of paper and in Photoshop using layers produce a digitized version of the points at which the ball has landed. This then allows me to produce a detailed analysis of my own accuracy. Obviously it's not essential to record your own results using Photoshop, you could easily just keep a paper drawn version of your results to look at and refer to, to check and analyse whether your own accuracy is improving or otherwise.

I reckon Jeetan Patel would be most impressed!








This is another thing I've done in the past and found useful.

 This is just a piece matting that's a lot bigger than the examples above. I spray painted lines on the matt either side of the bigger area and me and my younger son Joe in the image who bowls occasional Finger Spin used to bowl alternate balls. The mat would be lined up central to the stumps (not as it is here) and he would bowl outside of the off stump aiming to hit the mat on the 'C' strip turning his Off-Breaks into the stumps and I'd bowl leg-breaks trying to hit the 'A' strip doing the same. We have a point system - 1 point for hitting the centre of the mat, 3 points for hitting your strip and 5 points for landing on your strip and hitting the stumps too. This was good because it adds a competitive edge to your practice.

Again this is another really basic and cheap way to create a really focussed drill that improves a specific aspect of your bowling. With kids or if you're doing this yourself and you're only just starting out, don't make this ridiculously hard so that it becomes depressing, give yourself half a chance to succeed.

Of the two drills though I reckon the first one done without the stumps, just focusing on landing the ball on the designated target is the most beneficial.



landing the ball on the designated target is the most beneficial.

Peter Philpott has some advice in his book ‘The Art of Wrist Spin Bowling’ on the subject of practicing. He writes

The longer and more often you can bowl your wrist-spinners, the more likely you are to be successful and certainly the more likely you are to be accurate. With one important proviso! You must expect to practice ‘correctly’.
      You see, ‘Practice does not make perfect’. It is ‘perfect practice that helps to make perfect’. The emphasis must be that you practice correctly. And that needs some explanation.
     Perfect practice does not mean that you have a perfect wicket to practice on. The conditions are not the most important factor at all. More important is that your approach to practice is serious, positive and purposeful.
    Bowling in the back-yard, the street or school playground is valuable practice, whether there is a batsman or not. But in all these circumstances, regardless of the quality of the conditions you must do it seriously and properly.

He then emphasises the need to bowl your stock ball and run-in with your standard approach to the crease and then says…

Above all, concentrate totally, as you would in the most serious match. I put it to you that unless you are concentrating totally during a practice session, you are wasting your time. 

Philpott then goes on to say you shouldn’t muck about or talk to people, you should be in the zone – total focus when you’re practicing…

None of us can get enough practice as wrist-spinners, let alone too much. So none of us can afford to waste practice situations by fooling with them. Do them properly, treat every ball you bowl like a test match. Then every ball you bowl is likely to be improving you as a bowler.

This next bit resonates with me and is something I often do as I find net bowling to be pretty useless, an opinion that I share with Clarrie Grimmett…

As a wrist-spinner you should try to bowl as long as possible at practice. One hour of bowling is only a warm-up. Try and bowl right through the session. If you’re forced to make way for another bowler, you can still bowl meaningfully to another player out of the nets – preferably the wicket-keeper, or simply into a wall or side net. Your aim is to be chalking up ‘Bowling hours’.

Philpott then makes the point that as wrist-spinners and with the need to bowl more than anyone else in matches and in practice, you need to resourceful in your search to come up with solutions to enable you to bowl all the time and he insists on sessions of 1 to 3 hours! He finishes the section reiterating the need to practice intelligently and with purpose, suggesting that you break up the practice into 15 minute sections e.g. 15 minutes on spinning the ball hard - turning it round corners, 15 accuracy, 15 with your leg break and so on.

Peter Philpott, The Art of Wrist Spin Bowling, Crowood Press, Ramsbury, England Pages 53,54.




Smart Targets


With Philpotts advice ringing in your ears, you now have to go out and practice with purpose, set yourself SMART targets. Don't just go to bowl go with an intention...
S - Specific - Target practice/accuracy.
M - Measurable - How many times to you hit your target.
A - Attainable - Initially give yourself a large target to hit, don't make it impossible and demoralising.
R - Realistic - Don't expect to hit your target 90% of the time at the start.
T - Timely - Set yourself a timescale to achieve a particular target e.g. within 3 sessions I want to hit my target x amount of times.


This goal setting is a professional technique used in coaching see here - http://www.yourcoach.be/en/coaching-tools/smart-goal-setting.php

Here's this put into action...

this is an update of the original article from my old blog here