Legspin bowling

Legspin bowling Top Tips

This blog has now been superceded by the following blogs

http://spinbowling-wrongun.blogspot.com/

http://spinbowling-legbreak.blogspot.com/

http://spinbowling-flipper.blogspot.com/

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Warming Up

Even though what we do is seen as slow bowling and needless to say it doesn't impact on the body in the same way as fast bowling does, it is still essential that we warm up. Having improved my technique recently with regards giving the ball a big flick it's now obvious that when I bowl my leg breaks the ball is being propelled and spun primarily using just my third finger supported possibly by my little finger. The tendons and muscles used in this delivery are rarely used for anything else and are certainly not used with the same repetitive tendency as when you're bowling. Needless to say the stress on the tendon and muscles has led to a mild case of Medial epicondylitis which has put me out of action for the best part of 2 weeks. Looking around the internet at websites to establish what I should do in order to prevent further injury I've been reminded that one of the most effective ways to avoid injury is to warm up and warm down prior to and after matches. See the following link with regards warming up generally.

http://www.pitchvision.com/how-to-warm-up-for-cricket#comment-20094

I've posted a message re advice regarding bowling, so hopefully I'll be able to link from here to pitch vision with something more specific. Looking around though I've come across this on youtube which seems to have some ideas that are applicable to recovery, but they also strike me as being suitable as a warm up exercise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qBRc7BJFKg

The Legbreak

The Legbreak; Of the several deliveries that the wrist spin bowler uses this is the primary weapon. Attributed to right arm bowlers the ball is bowled relatively slowly in comparison to the medium pacers and fast bowlers. The ball is pitched up towards the batsman at different and varying lengths and then spins away towards the Slips fielders. So from your point of view as the bowler the ball lands and spins away to the left. From the batsmans perspective it lands and spins away to his right as he looks up the wicket back towards the bowler.

From your point of view as the bowler it's necessary to be able to make the ball spin away from the point it lands. The levels of accuracy required for both the length and the line are exceptionally important and as a leg spinner the ability to bowl different, speeds, lengths and line all combine to make this a tricky ball to play. The Legbreak has a number of other attributes - Dip, Bounce and drift.

Dip; Is a description relating to the flight of the ball. The ball is usually delivered in such a way that it is bowled above the eye-line of the batsman, this has the effect of making it more difficult to judge with regards to it's speed and it's likely point as to where it's going to land. The leg break spins anti clockwise with the seam of the ball pointing in the direct of cover/point so it combines some of the attributes of a Top Spinner ball. It' this top spinning characteristic that causes the ball to be affected by the magnus effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnus_effect . The ball flies through the air and from the side it would inititally give the impression that it would land beyond or on the stumps, but because of it spinning and the magnus effect coming into play it suddenly falls out of the sky rapidly far sooner than a ball thrown without spin. Which as you can imagine as a batsman is problematic. This then helps with another of the Leg Breaks characteristics....

Bounce; This is an obvious consequence of the ball suddenly dipping. If the ball was to have been thrown a similar distance without spin, the entry angle into the impact with the surface would be mariginally lesser than the mirrored exit angle. So seeing the ball pitched up above the eye level the brain would then calculate expected entry angle and exit angle out of the bounce and quickly put into action a strategy with the bat to deal with the ball. But then the magnus affect causes the rapid dip and surprising high bounce that is designed by the wrist spinner to be either struck on the glove or the top edge of the bat forcing an error whereby the batsman will be caught.

Drift; This is another attribute caused by the fact that the ball is spinning and is a consequence of the Magnus affect. As well as potentially dipping at the last moment because the ball is spun with the seam at 45 degrees it cuts threw the air and reacts in a way that causes it to swerve off it's initial line swerving in the opposite way to the spin direction, so it swerves towards the leg side.

The Grip; The grip is described as a 2 fingers up, 2 fingers down with the 2 up fingers across the seam as opposed to along the seam in the case of medium pace and fast bowlers. The most important finger is the 3rd finger as it's this that imparts the spin on the ball. It's easy to get really hung up on the grip as there are loads of opinions as to how you do it. Some people have a loose grip, others have a tight grip I had success when I was learning with a solid grip but making sure that the gap between the two up fingers and the 3rd finger was quite wide. I find in my bowling that now the up fingers and the thumb have very little to do with the bowling action and that the position on the seam is absolutely essential. I have to make sure that I place the 3rd finger very purposefully on the seam and concentrate as I bowl on ensuring that the 3rd finger stays on the ball till last micro second. It's this 3rd finger dragging across the seam as the ball comes out of the hand that puts the spin on the ball.

Other people I've observed have very different grips, kids I've noticed including my 7 year old have evenly spread fingers which make their grip look like a conventional 'Holding the ball' grip, but their fingers are all across the seam and they get it to spin. I remember when I first picked up a ball I did something similar and just used a flick of the wrist and got it to turn.

Currently I'm noticing the subtleties of my own grip make a big difference. Currently I'm employing the 'The Straight Ball with the drag off the 3rd finger' approach (See below) and I'm noticing that this gets the ball turn particularly well and it very accurate. By not rolling the ball off the 3rd finger so positively and using subtle changes in the wrist position more top spin and less turn is acquired and this produces a different ball that keeps the batsman on his guard.

Round the Loop; There aren't that many resources available to the wrist spinner but the most important is possibly the book The Art of Wrist Spin Bowling by Peter Philpott. ISBN 1-86-126-063-6 published by Crowood. Philpott in this book writes about the subject in great depth and anyone learning Wrist Spin bowling needs to get a copy and read it not once but several times.

In the book as Philpott describes how to bowl wrist spin he uses the analogy of going 'Round the loop' to describes the position of the wrist in conjunction with each of the variations. It was through reading this book and realising the relevance of the wrists position that I was eventually able to bowl the Leg Break. So look at the diagram and consider the wrist in relation to the batsman. All of the main images here depict the view of the hand and wrist as the arm comes over so the images are of the hand position as seen by the batsman.

The Loop aspect describes the rotation (Twisting) of the wrist with regards to each of the deliveries. The Leg break has the under-side of the wrist as it comes over the top of the head in the delivery facing the batsman with the back of the hand facing you as it passes beyond the position of 12.00 o'clock.

Another piece of advice that I was given through http://www.bigcricket.com/ was that when the arm came over instead of the action being that of a fling it needs to be something that is more akin to a push, this for me gives me the sense that the wrist remains in that forward facing position in the delivery and as the hand comes over and down and the ball leaves the hand the fingers unfurl with the 3rd finger staying on the ball for as long as physically possible so that it then spins the ball.

On the subject of arm action here's some wisdom from the great Clarrie Grimmett....

I'm currently reading Grimmetts on taking wickets kindly copied and sent to me by Macca, cheers bloke very much appreciated! Anyway he's just mentioned a point regarding round arm verses a more vertical arm. The comparison he makes is that of skimming stones across a pond. Suggesting quite rightly that if you throw a flat stone using a vertical arm action it's simply going to disappear into the water, whereas the sideways arm action means that the flat stone doesn't break the surface and instead skims bouncing several times before disappearing. The inference is that the round arm action facilitates a faster movement off the pitch. The vertical action would mean some of the kinetic energy would be absorbed into the pitch and thus slow the ball down.

Three Different Approaches to bowling this delivery

• The Straight Ball with the drag off the 3rd finger
• The Cocked Wrist with the straightening of the hand at release
• The real leg break with the flick

Some of the mastery with the Leg Break is psychological and a brilliant exponent of this is Shane Warne exemplified for example in the lead up to the Ashes in England going so far as having a giant statue of himself being paraded through central London on the back of a truck coinciding with news reports that he was currently able to produce at least 5 variations including his Flipper which it had been previously reported he’d lost because of shoulder operations. The sense you got from the build up was that England were virtually doomed because of Warne’s presence on the team and his ability to completely bamboozle any of the English batsmen with his ridiculous ability to spin the ball a la the Mike Gatting ball.

What I’m trying to say is that with some psychology you can find yourself in a situation where you are in the ascendency before you even bowl a ball simply because you are a Wrist Spinner, so even with a small amount of leg spin you’ve got the potential to dominate the batsmen. You’ve only got to watch small boys with reputations of being spinners bowling against adults at club level to see that simply by flighting the ball and varying the length and speed that spin doesn’t have to be an enormous component of the game. But once you’ve got some spin abilities and skills your potential increases.

The Straight Ball with the drag off the 3rd finger

If you are struggling with the Leg Break, one approach is to bowl the ball with the palm of the hand at the point of release facing the batsman. As the ball leaves the hand the last part of the hand that has contact with the ball is the 3rd finger and it’s this that imparts the spin. This approach seemingly doesn’t use any wrist action but still produces a small leg break with a good degree of bounce. Some people say that as you bring the ball over you should also have a feeling that you’re pushing the ball forward out of your hand rather than flinging it. If you’re suffering from the Googly Syndrome this may be the solution to getting your leg break back because it focuses your attention on the fact that you need to keep the wrist facing forwards along with the palm of the hand. Also try turning the wrist slightly clockwise so that your thumb comes round towards you and the little finger moves towards the bat so that the hand starts to move towards being in the Karate Chop position. You’ll notice that this small variation in the wrist position affects will affect the spin and the bounce.

The unfurled cocked wrist approach

Many wrist spinners you’ll note will start with their wrists cocked at the start of the delivery and then release the ball with the hand in the ‘Traffic Cop’ position on release. Again if you’re having problems getting your Leg Break together this is an approach that you may want to explore that could potentially lead to a break through or an improvement. The unfurling of the cocked wrist to the ‘Traffic cop’ position with the palm facing the batsman on release involves a degree of wrist flick and incorporates the 3rd finger as the last point of contact on the ball thus producing the spin. You only have to do this gently over a couple yards so that you can step forward and catch the ball yourself and you can see how readily the ball comes out of the hand rotating perfectly with the seam rotating at right angles to the direction of flight.

The real Leg Break with a big flick

The real leg break requires the big flick. Look at the earlier explanations regarding the throwing of the ball from one hand to the other and the video on-line at (link & Info coming soon) . As you work on this and get used to the feeling you’ll soon begin to develop an action where rather than just rolling your hand over and round the ball you’ll begin to produce an action more akin to a flick. hopefully this flick will incorporate the use of the 3rd finger, the wrist, the elbow and shoulder in putting the spin on the ball. Again the exact way in which this is done varies from person to person, some people note that the amount of work that the 3rd finger does is such that it produces blisters, Shane Warne apparently was able to produce his spin without having blisters or callouses at all. The important thing is that the flick is there. My own version creates an audible sound not unlike the Flippers click as the ball is flicked off my 3rd finger. In trying to understand the wrist flick and the role the 3rd finger plays my own experience is that the sensation that I have is that I’m primarily bowling the ball off the 3rd and 4th fingers, the rest of my hand apart from the wrist has very little involvement in getting the ball to spin, the thumb and the 2 up fingers only support the ball in holding the ball poised against the fingers that impart the spin.

To see the emphasis and action of the 3rd finger on the ball watch the two sequences of Shane Warne in this video in high quality (HQ). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x72rFy1YmU&feature=related

When learning this, note the sideways action of the ball being thrown from one hand across the body to the other right to left with the flick. This is the basis of the leg break with the big flick. This is the action that gives you the flick coupled with imparting spin off the 3rd finger. The combination of both.

Similarly with the other versions the hand still releases the ball with the *palm facing the batsman, the ball should leave the hand rotating anti-clockwise with the seam at right angles to the direction of flight so that when the ball hits the ground the seam bites and propels the ball towards the off-side away from it’s expected trajectory. You may find that with this variation that your thumb is instrumental in some way and holds the ball in the hand so that the ball is tucked up ready against the 3rd finger on release as the ball is released the hand closes around the thumb. With all these slight variations and approaches there is one consistent aspect and that’s the position of the wrist on release. The underside of your wrist with the veins needs to be facing the batsman on release.

Tactics; I think with regards tactics it's easy to get carried away with watching video clips of Shane Warne, as you kind of get drawn into the idea that as a Wrist Spinner you're supposed to be bowling Leg Breaks down the leg side with the intention that they turn round the back of the bats legs. Well - if you are Shane Warne yes maybe. But as a novice wrist spinner you're more than likely going to be better off sticking to a more basic approach. I found as I learned most balls down the leg side get put away quite easily by the batsman. A potentially better approach would be to bowl with an emphasis towards the off-stump. My own approach (RH batsman) is to bowl at middle and off so that each ball is threatening to hit the stumps and therefore needs to be dealt with and not left. I've seen this approach used by a bloke who was playing on a wicket that offered very little assistance in the way of turn, but he bowled a very accurate line but varied his length using his ability to use dip and keeping the ball up above the eye-line. This bloke was in his 60's and bowled about 10 maiden overs out of 13!

I vary my line slightly but always keep the ball down the offside looking for opportunities of a catch at point, gully, cover etc. But the line I bowl worries batsmen who are not that confident and with the ball spinning away to slips there's always the potential to force an error.

Practice; The key to all aspects of Wrist Spin bowling is practice. Almost without exception anyone that knows anything of cricket all say that Wrist Spin Bowling is the most difficult of all of crickets skills. Therefore it follows that to bowl wrist spin and do it well you need to practice constantly and practice seriously. Philpott writes chapters in his book on this subject emphasising that if you're not obsessed with the idea of being a wrist spin bowler and don't view the prospects of spending virtually every waking hour of your life practicing it you'll never become an accomplished wrist spin bowler.

In C.V.Grimmetts book 'Taking Wickets' he makes some observations with regards Medium Pace bowling. He concludes that Medium Pacers should have as a part of their armoury the Wrong Un because he explains that it is far more natural and therefore easier to release the ball out of the back of the hand at speed to obtain spin than it is out of the front of the hand as you do for the Leg Break. This got me thinking. At my own club we have small boys that bowl seam up medium/fast style and seemingly they can turn their hand to bowling a decent turning Leg Break with some ease. Additionally I've suffered a forearm injury which has coincided with my own sons aged 7 and 10 starting to play for a club and the balls that they invariably face are seam up medium/fast. So in order to rest my forearm and give my sons some practice which is specific to their cricket experience I've been bowling medium pace seam up and been really surprised how easy it is to get it on the stumps.

I then realised that there may be some logic in Wrist Spinners who are learning to bowl leg breaks or maybe trying to recover their leg breaks to explore Medium Pace Bowling? The theory is linked to the fact that the small boys find it easy to go from one speciality to the other and I rather suspect that this is because the Leg Break delivery shares some commonality with the seam up delivery in that it comes out of the front of the hand, which as I've just mentioned Grimmett observes as being the more un-natural technique in some respects. So might it be the case if you're struggling with the leg break that you leave all of the complex stuff and strip your bowling technique down to basics by applying yourself to bowling Medium pace. Could it be that in doing this you learn the fundamentals of bowling, run-up, gather, delivery, follow through, line and length using a far easier mode and you're releasing the ball in that palm forward style?

It strikes me that if you acquire some mastery of Medium Pace and get the fundamentals sorted it may as in the case of the small boys take the adoption of the 2 fingers up, 2 fingers down grip and then apply the cocked wrist and have someone show you that you simply unfurl the wrist in a flick at the point of release to find yourself bowling half decent leg breaks? It then follows that initially you may lose your line and length because you are bowling in a different way, but surely having already mastered line and length with the Medium Pace bowling their would be some self belief in your ability to practice this new delivery and get it nailed?

The Big Legbreak

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.

So have you realized what’s coming next? In order that the ball spins even more radically to create even more deviation off its flight line once it hits the track, you apply the around the loop theory. From the Leg Break position of the hand facing you - now turn your hand further still anti-clockwise so that side of the hand with little finger (The karate chop side) comes round to start to be in front of your face – this is now the side of the hand that should be facing the batsman during the delivery of the Big Leg Break (see image) or put in another way if your were throwing a spear forwards it’s that side of the hand that goes forward that faces the bat in this delivery. In addition you then give it the big flick. If you’re keeping up with this you’ll be sitting there thinking but that suggests that I spin it backwards? Exactly! The ball spins inwards with the seam spinning towards somewhere between Square Leg and Fine Leg.

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.

The Wrong Un

The Wrong Un;

Also known as the Googly and the Bosie. This delivery is in the same basic catergory as the Leg Break, Top-Spinner and Slider in that the grip is the 2 fingers up and 2 fingers down across the seam configuration. (See Leg break). But as with any of these grips each individual adapts the grip slightly to suit them, but as a starting off point you're best advised to use the basic 2 up 2 down across the seam version.

Most wrist spinners would aim to learn this as their 3rd variation as the next most obvious and easily learned variation after the leg break is the Top-spinner usually the 2nd variation that you learn. The Wrong Un when combined with the Leg Break is a devastatingly good ball with very similar characteristics - Dip, Drift and bounce all coming into play once you've mastered it. The magic of the wrong un is that it spins the other way - the wrong way so used in tandem and rarely with the Leg Break this variation causes real problems and takes wickets.

The Wrong Un is delivered down the pitch and then spins off towards Leg Slip (The legside). Bowled in conjunction with the Leg Break it's usually bowled infrequently so that the batsman faces a series of Leg breaks and starts to settle getting a feel for what you do as a leg spinner, just as he gets into his comfort zone thinking that he may be able to handle your consistent Leg Break balls all spinning away towards off you would then be in a position to bowl your Wrong Un which would then turn the other way with a very high likelyhood of hitting the stumps or coming off the gloves for a catch.


Warning - The Googly Syndrome. It's advised by most experts in coaching and teaching of wrist spin bowling that if you undertake to learn how to bowl the Wrong Un you've got to be aware that if you pursue this variation with too much commitment a consequence of doing so will be that you'll lose the ability to bowl your Leg Break. The advice is to try and bowl a Wrong Un for every 8 or so Leg Breaks. Never bowl Wrong Uns in isolation continuously. If in doubt refer to Peter Philpotts 'The Art of Wrist Spin Bowling'.

Clarrie Grimmett the greatest wrist spinner of all time writes in his book 'Getting Wickets' Although I put in hours of practice at this ball, I always, before I finished, had ten minutes at bowling my ordinary Leg Break, so that I should not lose control of it. In this way I mainatined the standard of my bowling, and I also learned to bowl a ball that was destined to get many wickets. Page 24; Clarrie Grimmett; Taking Wickets; Hodder & Stoughton; London 1930

Recently on the big cricket forum we were asked directly how to go about recovering from the Googly Syndrome and my advice was as follows based on my own experience.

One thing I think we need to ask is how old he is as there's that thing that relates to younger blokes having big growth spurts in between seasons and losing their leg break partly because of the growth spurt factor.

If it's got no connection with that then we must assume that he's bowling the wrong un (Googly) too much?In which case there's a few key things as recommended by Peter Philpott in his book 'The Art of Wrist Spin' and a few things that I picked up in my recovery action plan.

1. Stop bowling Googlies (Completely).
2. Get ready for this possibly taking a long time (Took me 8-9 months).
3. Go right back to basics and start to throw the ball from hand to hand across your body really trying to give it a big flick (I really need to make the video and upload it to you tube don't I)?
4. Also with the arm extended out in front of you spin the ball back in towards your chest giving it a big flick.
5. Do this all the time - use balls of all types and sizes, fruit, cubes anything just spin it and get the flick off your 3rd finger going again.
6. Now I reckon this next stage is the key to recovery. Don't intentionally bowl any more Googlies, just for the moment be content to bowl the ball straight. When you practice do so with meaning, don't allow yourself to be distracted and focus 100% on bowling the ball straight with the palm of your hand and the under-side of your wrist facing the batsman on release. I found this incredibly difficult when I started out because all my muscle memory wanted to do was upturn the wrist anti-clockwise and dip the shoulder in order to bowl the googly. You have to be fully focused on not letting this happen.
7. Bowl straight balls for as long as it takes to get them straight, it may feel like you're almost bowling with your wrist turned so that you're almost bowling with a Karate chop action - if this works in order to get the ball straight bowl like it.
8. Bowling the straight ball (I did all this without cocking my wrist at the start) try and get the ball to leave the hand off the 3rd and 4th finger and hopefully this will start to produce a small leg break.
9. Bowl like that for a few weeks maybe even months until you feel comfortable. In the meantime you've been flicking the ball all the time from hand to hand.
10. Introduce the cocked wrist and unfurl the cocked wrist at the last second releasing the ball with the hand in the 'Traffic cop pose' palm and under-wrist facing the bat. You should then start to get the Leg break back.
11. Then start to work on the big flick.

It might take some months and you'll have to be patient. You're advised to buy Philpotts book and read the 8 Stages section. There are loads of ideas relating to flicking the ball up against a wall and observing the way it spins off the wall. Philpott says to spin the ball under-arm as much as over-arm in order to see how the ball spins.

Good luck!

But if you work on it in the correct manner you'll have a valuable weapon. I currently bowl the Wrong Un using two distinctly different approaches and slightly different grips. The more accurate version of my basic Wrong Un uses the the basic Leg Break grip but the ball sits very low in the hand and very loose and relaxed. The 3rd finger rests along the seam and probably makes the most noticeable contact with the ball whilst all of the rest of the grip is very loose. The release then is out of the back of the hand using the rotation of the wrist and the dipping of the shoulder.

The Big Wrong

My version of the Big Wrong is produced by using the same procedure for the Top-Spinner but with the addition of really flicking theball hard so that it rips out of the hand, the focus and attention on getting the ball to rip out of the hand causes me to almost stall in my rotation as the flick happens, but it works. Have a look - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svjEQWOIAiA

The Flipper

Of the five most basic deliveries this one is the most unusual in that it uses a completely different way to impart the spin. The basic flipper is a back spinning ball that skids in low with a tendency to spin away slightly to the offside. This delivery is reputed to be the most difficult to master with Richie Benuad advising people to not even bother with it unless you've mastered the 4 basic variations; Leg Break, Wrong Un, Top Spinner and the Slider. Personally it was the second of the variations that I learned probably due to the fact that as soon as I started to experiment with the technique to see if I could put the spin on the ball it came easily and I could see that the affect on the ball as it hit the ground was dramatic and therefore seemed to me to have loads of potential. Getting the ball straight and up the wicket for me wasn't that difficult either and I found that I could deliver the ball much faster than the Leg Break.

With this ball the on-line resources that are available (See resources link) both the Terry Jenner and the Shane Warne with Mark Richards video's are extremely helpful in that you can see exactly what Jenner/Warne do in order to get the ball to spin backwards. In essence all you do is use the finger clicking action that you use when clicking your fingers to a beat but with the ball in between the middle finger and the thumb. It's this action that rotates and spins the ball. Once you have managed to get the ball to come out of the fingers back spinning you might find (as I do) that the spin is very pronounced and a ball projected forwards gently on a hard surface actually hits the surface and springs backwards because the spin is so acute. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wvix9j7IPgU I’ve found that on damp grass that the back spin is so pronounced that it kicks up divots on impact with the grass.


Recently on the Big Cricket forum http://www.bigcricket.com/forum/t58854-67/#post337873 someone mentioned that their son was learning the technique using a marble initially. There may be some use in using smaller balls as I know my son who’s 7 tries to do this with a cricket ball but struggles to impart the spin. Some people have also suggested that it is quite demanding on the shoulder and I've been told that coaches do not recommend young kids to try it because of the damage that it can do. From a personal viewpoint I have noticed that it affects my deltoids when I practice over long periods but not adversely. Further evidence to suggest that it's a demanding ball to bowl is here in this article which explains that Warne went through a phase of not bowling the Flipper after a shoulder operation which suggests that there's recognition that the Flippers action would have hindered the healing process? http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/cricket/article1560273.ece


Dip

There is no dip. In use I find that it’s one of my faster deliveries and it utilizes the Magnus affect in the opposite way to the Leg Break. Instead of falling out of the sky because of the top spin with the Leg Break the Flipper with it’s under-spin holds it’s line through the air seemingly resisting the forces of gravity and keeping a very straight line from hand to impact with the pitch. Again logically with no understanding of the Magnus affect and how a ball reacts when spun, the expectation of the layman or an unsuspecting batsman would be that the exit trajectory after the bounce would be similar to the entry trajectory? Needless to say with the pronounced back-spin it’s not. The ball bounces far less than expected and has a tendency to skid in low under the bat. Additionally through empirical observation over short distances I suspect there is also a minor stalling of the ball as it bites the pitch on impact?

Bounce



As mentioned above bounce is minimal which makes the Flipper combined with it's very straight trajectory an easy ball to get onto as a batsman if it's bowled consistently. The Flipper because of it's flight and lack of bounce therefore needs to be treated as one of your variations that you bowl on an irregular basis. I use it loads for helping my kids practice batting because of it's predictability. But out of nowhere amongst a sequence of Leg Breaks with their bounce and slower speed (In my case) it's a very useful addition to your variations.



Drift

I've had recent discussions on a forum about the deviation off the line of flight with the flipper and my understanding is that because the ball isn't rotating at 90 degrees or thereabouts to the direction of flight if it does deviate it's not drift - it's swing because the seam is upright.


Grip

The grip varies but the bog standard grip is as seen in the image above. The first finger plays some part in balancing/holding the ball but 65% of the rotation is created with the use of the thumb and the rest of the job 35% is done with the middle finger. If you do your research (The Art of Wrist Spin Bowling - page 43) you'll come across an image of Clarrie Grimmetts grip who Philpott accredits with the development of the Flipper and this grip is a very different animal to the Warne version. Grimmetts version appears to have the fingers very much closer together and possibly used in unison, no doubt the middle finger as with my version played a vital role in getting the rotation going? There is another version the Bruce Doolan version that uses the thumbs nail but that's as much as I know at this point.

Round the Loop

Once you get the hang of it and you’re able to bowl the Flipper which for me has a tendency to spin off towards Off you then become aware that other people have the opposite experience and then it follows that the wrist is having some part to play in the direction the ball spins. So using the Peter Philpott around the loop analogy it then follows that exact same process can be applied to a Flipper style delivery? So whereas the thumb leads the way with the bog standard flipper, the around the loop application begs the question what would happen if you turned your wrist so that the thumb was pointing to Point in the delivery and the palm of the hand faces the bat? I’ve played around with this approach and in some basic experiments the spin which is clockwise makes the ball turn towards Leg side. Having said that it’s a very difficult delivery and one that may take months of practice to develop and may cause problems akin to the Googly Syndrome and affect your standard Flipper in some adverse way? Taking it even further, a year or so ago I turned my wrist 180 degrees with the Flipper and twisted my arm in a delivery and came up with what I call the Gipper. (See http://legspinbowling.blogspot.com/2009/03/top-spinner.html ) It's since been discovered that the great Clarrie Grimmett describes a ball the same as this in his book 'Taking Wickets' and he calls it the 'Wrong wrong un' which is also a good description because when bowled with the twisted arm it does look like a wrong un

Another variation of the Flipper that Grimmett worked on for years and used and referred to as his secret ball was this. (See image below). Hold the ball for the basic Flipper delivery with the thumb pointing forwards, now turn the wrist 180 degrees so that your thumb is pointing towards your face. Now bring your arm over in the delivery action and click the ball from between your thumb and finger at the point of release. This will give you the opposite effect to the normal Flipper delivery and will produce Top Spin. This ball I've worked on a bit and as well as Top Spin it turns away towards the Leg Side.

Tactics

In my experience at club level and watching Warne and partly because Wrist Spin Bowling is such an underrated and dark art not many batsmen have been subjected to the Flipper, so if used with scarcity this can be a devastating delivery that can take the batsman by surprise. The Flipper can also be used as a slow ball as well and this works particularly well with not very experienced batsmen. I find the slower and loopier the ball is thrown up, the more it tends to turn (Towards the off-side) but better still the back-spin causes the ball to almost stop which can catch people out.

The Clarrie Grimmett Flipper

This is an old variation which is discussed in Peter Philpotts book. Grimmett was the inventor of the Flipper and in his own book 'Taking wickets" he describes how it took him the best part of 12 years to develop this ball and use it in test matches. We can only summise that with no reference point and no way of knowing if the variation would ever come to anything this might be the reason that Grimmett took such a long time to get this ball together? Benuad on the other hand took 4 years to develop his version of the Flipper which I'm under the impression was more akin to the ball that we can see Shane Warne and Terry Jenner demonstrating on the youtube videos listed elsewhere on this blog? Warne is said to have picked up the Flipper in a matter of days and I had the same experience with the Flipper myself.

The Grimmett Flipper is a slightly different variation.

The Clarrie Grimmett secret ball

This is another variation of the Flipper described in his book 'Grimmett on cricket' see image.

Warning; Experts in the field of Wrist Spin bowling do not recommend that youngsters attempt to learn the Flipper because it exerts a lot of stress on the wrist and the arm ligaments. My own personal experience is that the joints in the thumb suffer if over-practiced. At what age you can go on to develop the flipper I'll look into and try and get some advice from an expert.

The Flipper; the dark horse of Wrist Spin, the ball that almost doesn’t exist.

On the Cricinfo website there’s an article that purports to undo the ‘The Physics’ of Leg Spin bowling and reads like the comments of an expert until it comes to The Flipper. The bloke points out some contradictions between Benuads and Jenners description of the Flipper and ends the article with ‘I'm reasonably convinced the ball is not just an exercise in mind-games, but I've yet to be convinced I've seen one’. Peter Philpott too in his book ‘The art of wrist spin’ spends very little time describing the flipper and similarly comes across as being unsure about this variation and writing as though it’s not a variation that he has developed himself? Philpott then shrouds the ball in further mystery by commenting on the fact that expert cricket commentators continually embarrass themselves again and again on TV claiming that they have just seen someone bowl a Flipper. All this and they’re struggling with one of 5 different variations of the same technique!

At club level I’ve only ever come across it used by one other person, my mate ‘The Wizard’ and he bowls it as I have till recently as the Bog Standard Flipper as seen on Youtube demonstrated by Warne & Jenner. (BBC, Channel 9, Cloverdale videos). But if you delve further into crickets history you will come across the balls originator a bloke called Clarrie Grimmett arguably the best Wrist Spinner ever. Between 1928 and 1940 he spent 12 years developing the ball using the same principle as Peter Philpotts ‘Around the loop’ theory but applied to the ball being spun using the Index finger and thumb to ‘click’ it out of the hand.

Grimmetts Flipper is slightly different to Warnes and Jenners who’s version owe more to Richie Benuads adaption of Grimmetts original. Benuads bowling action was near vertical with the seam being upright like a seam bowlers delivery. Whereas Grimmetts action was far more round armed almost to the point where it resembles Sri Lanka’s Lasith Malinga but then corrected by the fact that he then dipped his head and body through the action so that the arm came through in a more vertical manner. Grimmetts grip as described by himself and Philpott meant that his hand through the delivery was over the top of the ball whereas Benauds version is virtually the same as the one demonstrated by Warne and Jenner. The intricacies of Grimmetts grip I’ve not fully grasped, but Benauds version is easily understood.

(1). The Benuad/Warne/Jenner version

This is the one I describe as the Bog standard Flipper. See the image elsewhere. This spin is imparted by clicking the index finger against the thumb as you would do to click your fingers to music.

(2). The Grimmett version

This is the simplest variant of the Bog Standard Flipper. It’s the same delivery but you simply use more fingers along the seam – 3 fingers or four fingers. See youtube and type ‘Grimmett Flipper’ and you’ll see a clip of me demonstrating the grip and release action. Because of the far more solid grip my own experience of this ball as demonstrated in the video clip is that you get a lot more back-spin on the ball and you’re able to bowl it considerably faster because of the secure grip. Along with the increase in speed and the vertical seam, this ball has the ability to be bowled with in-swing to a right handed batsman and then on pitching it breaks like a little Leg Break.

(3). The Wrong Wrong Un aka ‘The Gipper’. (Googly-Flipper).

This one I really like as I discovered this through experimentation almost 2 years before I was introduced to Clarrie Grimmett. This is the ‘Gipper’ or as Grimmett called it the Wrong Wrong Un. It’s as the name suggests, it looks like the Wrong Un but then spins away like a Leg Break. All that’s required with this is that the ball is bowled in exactly the same way as you would a Wrong Un, but you just need to twist your arm and your wrist a bit further in order that when released at the point that you click the fingers the spin imparted creates a ball that spins massively to Off.

(4). Variant 4.

This one as far as we can make out has no name and has never been described anywhere. Adopt the bog standard grip holding it above your head at 12.00 o’clock – your thumb should be facing the batsman and the back of your hand will be facing you. Now rotate the hand/wrist 90 degrees so that the palm of the hand faces the batsman and your thumb is pointing towards your face. Theoretically when you now click the ball from the hand it’ll produce Off-spin.

I’ve experimented with this a little and didn’t get on with it, but if you work on ‘The Mystery Ball’ first it trains the wrist to adopt the more acute wrist position and makes this delivery possible.



(6). Variant 6.

This variation is possibly the way that Murali bowls his Doosra but requires ridiculous flexibility in the wrist and arm, but Philpott describes it in the Flipper section of his book. Start at the ‘Mystery ball’ position and rotate your wrist another 90 degrees clockwise so that at the point of release the palm of your hand is facing up-wards with the flipper grip. The more the hand is bent inwards towards the body at the point that you flick the ball the more it’s going to produce a Leg-Break action when pitching on the wicket. To be honest without you being able to bowl with the same inward arm/wrist action that Murali uses this variation looks physically impossible.

Supple wrist and strong thumb.

The key to these deliveries is the practice that you’re able to do off the field. In his book Peter Philpott advocates spinning the ball back in towards yourself initially and the description reads as though he is going to take you on to explain ‘The Mystery Ball’ but he doesn’t. So why you would go through the process of spinning the ball in towards yourself as you do when learning The Big Legbreak I’m kind of baffled when he doesn’t then go on to describe the ‘Mystery Ball’. I think most people would practice bowling the ball from one hand to the other across the body marvelling at the amazing backspin you eventually get through the clicking of the fingers.

Once you’ve got the back-spin, go back to Philpotts description of how you should learn the action. Hold the ball out at arms length in front of you holding it with the Flipper grip. Cock the wrist so that the back of the hand faces away from you almost and the thumb is under the ball and the fingers over the top with the seam up facing you. The clicking of the fingers in this position will now propel the ball back towards your face with over-spin (Top-spin). Keep doing this being careful not to strain any tendons (Medial Epicondylitis). In his book Philpott overlooks the potential of this as a way of bowling and then suggests that you go from this practice action to the hand to hand action which then produces back-spin. But it’s this spinning towards yourself producing Top Spin that is Clarrie Grimmetts ‘Mystery Ball’ action that Grimmett was so protective of and held in high regard. The same practice action also has the duel purpose of being good training to enable you to bowl the awkward Variant 4.

The Top Spinner

The Top Spinner probably the most basic and least problematic of the lot and potentially a very useful tool in learning some of the other variations or at least a starting point with regards putting some of the theory into practice. This delivery is a forward spinning ball with the seam aimed directly at the batsman. On impact it bounces more than expected and shouldn't deviate off it's incoming line after making impact with the wicket. The desired effect is that the bounce catches the batsman off guard and glances off either the gloves or the top edge of the bat and ends up with a catch being made.

The batsman sees the hand viewed from the side with the thumb leading the hand as the hand comes over the head. My personal experience with this ball is that this is the one that allows easiest flick action of the wrist. Other observations are that if you're concentrating on learning how to bowl a good line and length this is the ball that could be instrumental in facilitating this process. With no need to try and do anything tricky with the seam e.g. make it come out of your hand with the seam rotating sideway (Leg Break & Wrong Un) you can bowl straight unhindered again and again just tweaking your delivery until you find the right feel. After a lot of bowling you'll reach a very satisfying point when your accuracy comes to you.

Dip

The top spinner with its forward spinning characteristics is potentially the ball that drops out of the sky the most dramatically as it’s not subjected to any side spin as the Wrong Un and Leg Break are? It’s here that I have to concede that my lack of experience means I can’t confirm this as it’s not something I’ve observed or had a batsman come back to me and mention. But reading about spin and the Magnus affect it makes sense that this ball is potentially the one where this comes into play the most? Again, the effect would be the batsman would see the ball released and it would begin it’s trajectory through the sky and he would calculate it’s expected path based on experiential information – the entry trajectory would be mirrored with a slight decrease by the exit trajectory out of the bounce off the track. Henceforth with the top-spin the ball suddenly dips rapidly out of the sky and in doing so with the forward spin then bounces far more than expected because of the sudden increased angle of entry into the bounce. The effect is the ball bounces far higher than expected and comes off the top of the bat or the gloves for a catch.

Drift

As far as I know a well delivered Top Spinner doesn’t particularly produce drift because the rotation of the seam is upright. But in the same way that an outswinger or an inswinger is affected by the surface of the ball e.g. one side is shiny and the other not as shiny there's the potential for the ball to swerve through the air as a result of the rough side causing friction against the air. Similarly if the ball is bowled with a slight emphasis with the wrist towards the Leg Break or Wrong Un position on an un-responsive track the affect may be a dead straight non-turning ball with the Top Spinners bounce but the accompanyment of drift through the air.

Tactics

At club cricket level one of the best passages of play I’ve ever seen was a spell by an older bloke in his late 50’s bowling primarily Top-Spinners. The team were short of bowlers it seemed and between 4 blokes they had to bowl 50 overs. This bloke bowled 13 of them and got 10 maiden overs. I didn’t see his initial overs and I can only assume that at some point he got one or two of the balls to turn because when I picked up the spell he had the batsmen tied down and he was into his Top-Spinners. The batsmen were two of our openers, cricket players of many years (In their 40’s) on our own wicket and yet this bloke was had them fixed to their respective ends playing defensive shot after defensive shot. The only ball I could see that he was bowling was a Top Spinner. After the match I asked our bats ‘What was going on out there’? and they said "There was nothing we could do he was so accurate and was bowling different lengths, different speeds and different flight all of them on the stumps meaning that you had to play the ball.

The Slider

More to follow - these are just ideas and notes - Yeah I'm totally baffled by the slider too and I've never met anyone who bowls it either. What I call my slider (based on the fact that it's a back spinning ball) is a ball that is gripped in the conventional 2 up 2 down across the seam wrist spinners grip. What I more or less do is bowl it as if it's a seam up ball with the fingers trailing off the under-side of the ball causing it to back-spin. This means that it then has a scrambled seam and has a flight like a Flipper e.g. it stays in the air and goes straight. When it hits the deck it reacts in accordance with it either hitting the smooth part of the ball wherein it stalls slightly and skids in low or hits the seam and then acts erratically. The other thing with it is - because you're not trying to put any side spin on it in any way you're able to bowl it like a Medium pacer and I bowl the slider much faster than any of my other balls so it has that as a surprise element. I rarely bowl it though because I find that I tend to get it right first go but then it all goes to pieces if I try and practice it.

Update Dec 2009

Over the closed season and unable to get out and bowl much I've been flicking the ball in the way that Peter Philpott tells you as a spinner to do all the time. So indoors I have an array of balls which I flick around while I'm watching cricket or waiting for the kettle to boil etc. Over the last few months I've been flicking the ball inwards in the way that you do for the 'Big Leg Break' but I've noted that when you actually try and put this inward flick into action to produce the Big Leg Break it often doesn't turn. Initially I just put this down to the fact that I'd done something fundamentally wrong but then back in October I realised I was probably back-spinning it so much that it was simply going straight....... A Slider.