The bowling action basics

This is a new section that hopefully will integrate with some new content in the near future. This section will either grow in detail or be split into sections, but for the moment here is the content in its basic form.

Many people struggle with the approach to the crease and how and what you should be aiming to do, currently at my club I'm working with a lad who has a similar problem that I had for over 5 years. I always bowled with a skip rather than a bound and was constantly told that it was hindering my bowling, which I suspected was true, but I couldn't see any way without some coaching how I could rectify it.

I have two sons aged 12 and 10 who both bowl and the older lad when he started to play for his club also had an incorrect bowling action in that he jumped off the wrong foot. Aware that if he kept bowling in this manner the more difficult it would be to rectify it later in life, so I helped him get it right showing him what to do in an awkward and exaggerated manner, but within a few hours he corrected it, but I still couldn't see that I'd be able to correct my bowling. A sort of you can't teach an old dog new tricks thing.

Then last season I had 2 problems. (1). It seemed as though developmentally I'd kind of hit a brick wall with moving forward with my bowling. Having learned a great deal quickly, I then plateaued out and then seemed to be going no-where. (2). I developed plantar fasciitis and speaking and visiting a physio/bio-mechanist the suspicion was that this was exacerbated by my bowling action using the skip. So at the end of the 2010 season I decided that having seen the Beau Casson video there was scope to gradually learn the correct approach and end up bowling with the bound. The full version of this video with the variations of the stand start are here. Off the back of that and then with help of my 9 year old son and 'Super Dave' at Stanford Le Hope CC, I eventually got the basics sussed. This got me to a good basic start which only needed a couple of tweaks. Since then, working around the problems with my knee (Damaged meniscus)

So if you're having problems with this and you don't know what your legs and feet are supposed to be doing this may be helpful.

The image here (Above) in my case is off of a handful of steps 6-8 perhaps, but then you hit a point where the business starts. At some point as you reach the crease if you're right legged and right handed you have to start the bowling action and this starts with a commitment off your left foot and this is the start of the 'Bound' an energetic leap. You leap into the bound off the left leg 'A', and it may help when you start out with learning to do this to do so in an exaggerated manner. So this part is the first stage leaping off the left leg into the 'Bound'.

So, now we're mid-bound and this part is one of the crucial sections in the whole action. Whilst in mid-bound you need to be setting your body up to get side-on which is one of the key components in getting the ball to do all those special things like dip and drift. So, while you're in the air you need to be thinking about how and where your foot (A) is going to land on the crease. At this point as a series of words this all sounds complex, but once you get going and realise there's only a sequence of a few essential details it quickly becomes fairly natural. The foot A needs to land side on with foot then pointing sideways towards 'Cover' this will help with getting your whole body into the side-on position.

So in this shot (above) we can see that foot B is going to land, coming out of the bound and it's ready to plant down firmly in the side-on position. Meanwhile your left leg is starting to follow up, but your primary focus is landing foot B side on.

In this image above you can see that the foot is planted firmly side on and that left leg which is going to be the next crucial stage is stepping out forwards to then become the 'Pivot foot' on which you will rotate through the bowling action.

Above; here you can see the pivot foot about to be placed and the emphasis on your focus when you're learning this, now shifts from the side-on landing right foot (at the back in this image) to the left foot on which you're now about to execute the next critical stage.

With the left foot now planted, the right foot has come out of its side-on position and is now kicking up and round, rotating and the 'pivot foot' at the front in the picture above. At this point you need to get as tall as possible on the left foot, so you push up on the ball of your foot and toes. This next bit is the really exciting bit, because as you push up on the toes you then, in addition to swinging around the pivoting foot as a part of your body being swung round by the forward motion and your arms facilitating the pivot, you add to the pivot/rotation by twisting on the ball of your foot from the hips.


So it's this subtle addition in the two images above that could be the key to you producing your leg break with far more spin, dip and drift. The simple addition of ensuring that you get up tall onto the ball of your foot and twisting on the ball of the foot from the hips.

The best exponent I've seen of this is Basildon & Pitsea Cricket Clubs Dave Bonnet, who up to the present time is currently the biggest wicket taker in the league that he plays in. He does this in a beautiful smooth balletic action and I should try and get some video footage of him bowling to show as an example of how it's done. My version of it is a work in progress and I'm sure that in a year or so's time if my knee survives it'll be better, but here it is as I write showing the rise and twist up on to the foot.