The Art of Bowling
I've built up this understanding over 6 years of discussing, watching, analysing, reading and applying the techniques I've learnt. It's still an ongoing effort. There are good days and bad ones. I mostly try to remember the good ones!!
Finally, this is a Work-In-Progress...
Publish or Perish.
This blog is raw and unchecked... Currently...
Learn Cricket with Frank Tyson
(Typhoon Tyson the Brit who decimated the Australian side like a whirlwind.
Now a coach, this manual is an Indian Edition meant for budding cricketers)
ISBN: 8129100053
List Price: Rs. 295.00
Worth its weight in gold if you want to take more scalps on the field!!
Complete howto for coaches and players alike. Many exercises to develop in all the different aspects of the game.
If they had an audio-book it could help so many youngsters esp. in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri-Lanka where people have more passion but less guidance.
Transcript of Mail to Hemant on Bowling the Magic Ball
Hi Hemant,
The magic bowling Tip of Tyson gives you 2-3 times faster ball at the minimum with little extra effort. It uses levers to generate the pace.
I'm writing a longer mail 'coz I don't want you to injure yourself.
At the same time you should be able to enjoy this powerful new technique....
Use your common sense. Ceaveat Emptor!!
[Note:] This is my understanding of the technique in short.
(Better refer to the book anyway)
Generating PACE:
1)Flush the toilet!!
Pulling the flush chain of a toilet with the non-bowling left arm.Snappy action as you swing the left arm from fully extended above head to bent at elbow and firmly tucked into your ribs.
This reduces effective lever length from left arm to right arm finger tips.
It increases torque or moment of XYZ or something.
2)Stamp on the Roach!!
As your forward foot lands, act as if you're Stamping The Roach... ie keep the knee locked straight without a bend!! This increases the length of the lever from toes to finger tips instead of leading knee to right finger tips.
3)You'll feel a fast stretch diagonally across the back muscles from right shoulder to left waist.... (this is where good stretching And strength in back muscles helps).
Do Bhugangasana/Pull-Ups for Back strength and Janu-Shirasana for flexibility.
+You'll feel a whip-like action as your fingers tingle with the acceleration the first time you bowl this delivery. Later you will get used to it.
+To bowl within yourself you can skip Step 2) to generate a 2X delivery or Step 3) to get 1.5X
+ The closer the ball is to the batsmens offstump the better or at least close to his nose. Bowling down the leg side will only give him the advantage.
+See the pencil experiment in the book. The page no. is 55
Esentially it goes something like this:
Take a pencil or a thin small stick. The objective is to send the stick flying as far as possible.
a) Balance the center placed on a finger with one end jutting out.
Now snap one end downwards. It'll hardly jump off your finger.
b)NOW, balance the pencil on your finger with only a small portion on one side and the rest on the other. Now just flick the smaller portion.
You can easily send the pencil flying across the room. The strength used in both cases is the same. The difference is the amount of Leverage.
Now you've got an effective way of generating more pace using the same or lesser amount of strength.
Avoiding Injury:
As It puts greater stress on the back muscles
- I use the fast ball rarely
- When I feel the batsman has become complacent.
- Generating only 1.5 to 2X pace instead of the full 3X Speed.
This is to avoid injury, while surprising the batsman!! (Have the cake...)
The best part is that once the opposition knows you can bowl this delivery, you don't have to actually bowl it. It helps keep the batsman nervous esp. as there is not much difference in the action.
I usually follow these steps to avoid injury:
1) I warm-up till I start sweating before starting the practise (or) bowl the 2X ball after bowling 3-4 overs in bowling practise before the match. This way I can bowl the first ball at 1.5 to 2X
2) I do stretching yoga-asanas before setting out from the house.
3) I start bowling faster incrementally.
4) I bowl only 1 or max 2 such balls per over. I especially like to alternate with the slower ball and see the batsman make a fool of himself esp. if the 2X ball was a good length.
5) I first concentrate on putting the ball in the right place and then try to bowl the 2X ball to avoid wides.
6) Since you've been running, swimming and bowling for quite some time now. Your joints should be able to take the stress easily (if you follow directions properly).
Once you've got PACE and avoid Injury comes the other part of the technique
Accuracy:
1)Body and bowling arm in plane:
The plane of the action - the side on body, arms, legs must remain in the same plane. Try bowling with your back against a wall!! Best way to keep accuracy while increasing speed.
If you see wides on either side your arms, shoulders or some part is going out of the plane causing the delivery to be bowled diagonally across the plane.
a)If you're bowling wide offside either your leading shoulder is not pointing at the target spot or you're bowling across your body diagonally instead of in line with it.
b) If you're bowling wide legside either leading shoulder is pointing down legside or you're bowling diagonally.
As you Runup take a small hop/skip at the start this somehow synchronises your legs timing.
Run with a partial side on with leading shoulder pointing towards target spot and your eyes looking at the target spot. Lean forward as you do the RunUp as this makes your eyes stare more. At the point of delivery your eyes should still be stuck on the target-spot this ensures that the ball will land exactly at the spot without deviation.
Jump: How to force the batsman into playing awkward shots.
What will really get the batsmans goat, will be if he sees a fuller length ball jumping up at him.
Result:
StraightBat: Inside edges to the stumps, Outside edges to the slip, straight/on drive return catch to bowler, cover drive catch etc.
CrossBat:
Mistimed pull and hook shots, Playing on to stumps on a square cut, top-edges to point, deep thirdman, slips etc.
The bowler converts his forward motion into an vertically attacking motion from a height down INTO the pitch. Essentially Even though he would be releasing the ball at the point of landing, but now his momentum is pointing into the pitch.
On a bouncy wicket, this will happen without any extra effort from the bowler. Any extra effort on the bowlers part will only generate More bounce off a full-length delivery. But on slow wickets the bowler would effectively be bowling from a higher position generating the bounce.
At the point of bowling both feet would have landed parallel to the bowling crease the leading shoulder and the leading side/ribs would be pointing at the target spot.
Hold the ball in your right arm as far up as possible during the runup.
As you swing your arm the ball should make an arc from left shirt pocket to right pant pocket.
Ideally your arm should brush the clothes in the arc.
Avoiding Throwing/chucking the ball:
a) Run in with bent elbow and fingers holding the ball near your leading shoulder.
b) If possible hold the ball near your chin or even above your head. This tends to lessen the bend in your elbow.
c) To avoid chucking, coil/uncoil your back fully.
Thus, your arm will straighten out behind your back instead of straightening in the last stage of the delivery.
A good way to auto-detect throwing is
a) not feeling effort either in the shoulder or
b) Lack of extreme contraction/expansion in the lower back muscles.
If you do the coil/uncoil properly you will get a feeling as if your entire upper body is being thrown behind the ball and projecting towards the target spot. This means that you're bowling reallllly well. Check for injury!! But if its your day and your muscles co-operate Enjoy 'coz you're
gonna cream the batsmen.
2)Sighting the target:
The best area to bowl in is a spot just outside the Line-of-offstump and just out of reach of the outstretched bat.
When you start runup the spot would be farther up and as you run the spot moves down. This means that during run up you would have to lower your gaze continuously.
Eyes should pinpoint location of ball pitching throughout the delivery and if possible into the followthrough.
If the batsman moves around a lot you tend to look at his bat and bowl away from the Best spot. So you've to make a conscious effort to keep the ball just out of reach by compensating.
bye,
Guru.
Transcript of Conversation with Ravi Kiran on The Spot to Bowl At:
Ravi: a picture showing the exact region would be of a lot of help, generally when we bowl outside the reach of the batsman, there is a good chance that the ball might miss the stumps
already done
Guru: When you bowl outside the line of the stumps the ball Will miss the stumps unless you bowl an incutter.
Ravi: i meant height wise, not width wise
Guru: Heightwise? in what sense is that...
Ravi: if i pitch the ball on middle stump outside the reach of the batsman then the ball would attain enough height to miss the stumps completely, going above them
Guru: Reach here means both length and line-wise. If you bowl a wide the batsman can't reach it. Also a bouncer is also unreachable (most of the time).
Here reach keeps changing on batsman and the conditions of the wicket...
Ravi: my experience has been that the ball is within reach but placed ambigiously, to keep the batsman confused till the end
Guru: Height of the batsman, amount of footwork, speed of the ball, bounce in the wicket all define reach.
Yep.
Ravi: Hmm..
Guru: The idea is to make the batsman lazy enough not to adjust that last 2 inches of the line or length.
Ravi: that might be the case
Guru: The edge of the bat is only that much outside the center of the bat. If he hits with the center of the bat it's a good shot, if he hits just 1.5 to 2 inches outside he's out!!
One way to define reach is " What ever this batsman can reach just keep out of reach by 1.5 to 2 inches from the center of his bat"!!
Let me correct that sentence.
" What ever this batsman can reach with the center of the bat keep out of reach by 1.5 to 2 inches from the center of his bat"!!
Ravi: oh
Guru: So the margin for error for the bowler is very less and even less for the batsman.
That's why bowling side on is such a big advantage.... with some effort and concentration, You can restrict your bowling in a single plane
That's half the battle as far as line is concerned.... Length is the next half.
Which is where targetting the spot by tracking it throughout the delivery comes in....
Guru: This just occured to me as I was reviewing our conversation.....
Ravi: what
Guru: The line of the ball defines the distance from the center of the bat.
Let me correct that.
Ravi: well the bat moves as well, the batsman won't be stationary
Guru: The Line of the ball defines the HORIZONTAL distance from the CenterLine of the bat. The Length of the ball defines the Vertical distance from the Sweet Spot.
True. But if you look back at my definition of Reach. The idea is to account for the movement and playing style of the batsman and THEN decide where to position the ball such that it'll still catch the edge of the bat.
Ravi: i find a lot of variables involved here
Guru: True. The idea is to let the batsman play his shot normally but to trick him by predicting what his final position is and then making him feel he's playing his perfect shot when actually he's playing a slightly bad shot.
That's where the skill lies.
Ravi: Hmm...
Guru: At final count the margin of error for the batsman is very small. He can hit a six one ball and on a similar but slightly different ball get out playing the same shot.
Just think of it in this way. This is the reason slow balls result in a return catch to the bowler.
The line and length is the same the shot is the same but since the timing is off the ball balloons in the air for a simple catch.
Guru: If the batsman gets defensive he won't play shots. The bowler will find it difficult to take his wicket. The key is to make the batsman be confident so that he'll play his shots. The trick is to turn a good shot into a bad one. Shane Bond of New Zealand became famous because he got all the top batsmen of Australia out IN Australia!!
They all got out on their favourite shots including GilChrist, Ponting and the rest.
Ravi: i have to see his bowling
Guru: The whole field was set for the mishit on the favourite shot and the bowler only bowled to that line. The batsman got a bit greedy after getting a few boundaries on the shot.
Ravi: sahi hai
Guru: Then came the cleverly altered ball on which the batsman attempted the same shot. End of story.
Guru: Here the key is the accuracy of the ball. Shane Bond got Famous for that and being able to bowl so accurately at that speed and consistancy.
Stub for Video explanation of Bowling Action:
Runup
Jump
Twist
Coil
Uncoil
Landing
Twisting
Followthrough
Finally, this is a Work-In-Progress...
Publish or Perish.
This blog is raw and unchecked... Currently...
Learn Cricket with Frank Tyson
(Typhoon Tyson the Brit who decimated the Australian side like a whirlwind.
Now a coach, this manual is an Indian Edition meant for budding cricketers)
ISBN: 8129100053
List Price: Rs. 295.00
Worth its weight in gold if you want to take more scalps on the field!!
Complete howto for coaches and players alike. Many exercises to develop in all the different aspects of the game.
If they had an audio-book it could help so many youngsters esp. in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri-Lanka where people have more passion but less guidance.
Transcript of Mail to Hemant on Bowling the Magic Ball
Hi Hemant,
The magic bowling Tip of Tyson gives you 2-3 times faster ball at the minimum with little extra effort. It uses levers to generate the pace.
I'm writing a longer mail 'coz I don't want you to injure yourself.
At the same time you should be able to enjoy this powerful new technique....
Use your common sense. Ceaveat Emptor!!
[Note:] This is my understanding of the technique in short.
(Better refer to the book anyway)
Generating PACE:
1)Flush the toilet!!
Pulling the flush chain of a toilet with the non-bowling left arm.Snappy action as you swing the left arm from fully extended above head to bent at elbow and firmly tucked into your ribs.
This reduces effective lever length from left arm to right arm finger tips.
It increases torque or moment of XYZ or something.
2)Stamp on the Roach!!
As your forward foot lands, act as if you're Stamping The Roach... ie keep the knee locked straight without a bend!! This increases the length of the lever from toes to finger tips instead of leading knee to right finger tips.
3)You'll feel a fast stretch diagonally across the back muscles from right shoulder to left waist.... (this is where good stretching And strength in back muscles helps).
Do Bhugangasana/Pull-Ups for Back strength and Janu-Shirasana for flexibility.
+You'll feel a whip-like action as your fingers tingle with the acceleration the first time you bowl this delivery. Later you will get used to it.
+To bowl within yourself you can skip Step 2) to generate a 2X delivery or Step 3) to get 1.5X
+ The closer the ball is to the batsmens offstump the better or at least close to his nose. Bowling down the leg side will only give him the advantage.
+See the pencil experiment in the book. The page no. is 55
Esentially it goes something like this:
Take a pencil or a thin small stick. The objective is to send the stick flying as far as possible.
a) Balance the center placed on a finger with one end jutting out.
Now snap one end downwards. It'll hardly jump off your finger.
b)NOW, balance the pencil on your finger with only a small portion on one side and the rest on the other. Now just flick the smaller portion.
You can easily send the pencil flying across the room. The strength used in both cases is the same. The difference is the amount of Leverage.
Now you've got an effective way of generating more pace using the same or lesser amount of strength.
Avoiding Injury:
As It puts greater stress on the back muscles
- I use the fast ball rarely
- When I feel the batsman has become complacent.
- Generating only 1.5 to 2X pace instead of the full 3X Speed.
This is to avoid injury, while surprising the batsman!! (Have the cake...)
The best part is that once the opposition knows you can bowl this delivery, you don't have to actually bowl it. It helps keep the batsman nervous esp. as there is not much difference in the action.
I usually follow these steps to avoid injury:
1) I warm-up till I start sweating before starting the practise (or) bowl the 2X ball after bowling 3-4 overs in bowling practise before the match. This way I can bowl the first ball at 1.5 to 2X
2) I do stretching yoga-asanas before setting out from the house.
3) I start bowling faster incrementally.
4) I bowl only 1 or max 2 such balls per over. I especially like to alternate with the slower ball and see the batsman make a fool of himself esp. if the 2X ball was a good length.
5) I first concentrate on putting the ball in the right place and then try to bowl the 2X ball to avoid wides.
6) Since you've been running, swimming and bowling for quite some time now. Your joints should be able to take the stress easily (if you follow directions properly).
Once you've got PACE and avoid Injury comes the other part of the technique
Accuracy:
1)Body and bowling arm in plane:
The plane of the action - the side on body, arms, legs must remain in the same plane. Try bowling with your back against a wall!! Best way to keep accuracy while increasing speed.
If you see wides on either side your arms, shoulders or some part is going out of the plane causing the delivery to be bowled diagonally across the plane.
a)If you're bowling wide offside either your leading shoulder is not pointing at the target spot or you're bowling across your body diagonally instead of in line with it.
b) If you're bowling wide legside either leading shoulder is pointing down legside or you're bowling diagonally.
As you Runup take a small hop/skip at the start this somehow synchronises your legs timing.
Run with a partial side on with leading shoulder pointing towards target spot and your eyes looking at the target spot. Lean forward as you do the RunUp as this makes your eyes stare more. At the point of delivery your eyes should still be stuck on the target-spot this ensures that the ball will land exactly at the spot without deviation.
Jump: How to force the batsman into playing awkward shots.
What will really get the batsmans goat, will be if he sees a fuller length ball jumping up at him.
Result:
StraightBat: Inside edges to the stumps, Outside edges to the slip, straight/on drive return catch to bowler, cover drive catch etc.
CrossBat:
Mistimed pull and hook shots, Playing on to stumps on a square cut, top-edges to point, deep thirdman, slips etc.
The bowler converts his forward motion into an vertically attacking motion from a height down INTO the pitch. Essentially Even though he would be releasing the ball at the point of landing, but now his momentum is pointing into the pitch.
On a bouncy wicket, this will happen without any extra effort from the bowler. Any extra effort on the bowlers part will only generate More bounce off a full-length delivery. But on slow wickets the bowler would effectively be bowling from a higher position generating the bounce.
At the point of bowling both feet would have landed parallel to the bowling crease the leading shoulder and the leading side/ribs would be pointing at the target spot.
Hold the ball in your right arm as far up as possible during the runup.
As you swing your arm the ball should make an arc from left shirt pocket to right pant pocket.
Ideally your arm should brush the clothes in the arc.
Avoiding Throwing/chucking the ball:
a) Run in with bent elbow and fingers holding the ball near your leading shoulder.
b) If possible hold the ball near your chin or even above your head. This tends to lessen the bend in your elbow.
c) To avoid chucking, coil/uncoil your back fully.
Thus, your arm will straighten out behind your back instead of straightening in the last stage of the delivery.
A good way to auto-detect throwing is
a) not feeling effort either in the shoulder or
b) Lack of extreme contraction/expansion in the lower back muscles.
If you do the coil/uncoil properly you will get a feeling as if your entire upper body is being thrown behind the ball and projecting towards the target spot. This means that you're bowling reallllly well. Check for injury!! But if its your day and your muscles co-operate Enjoy 'coz you're
gonna cream the batsmen.
2)Sighting the target:
The best area to bowl in is a spot just outside the Line-of-offstump and just out of reach of the outstretched bat.
When you start runup the spot would be farther up and as you run the spot moves down. This means that during run up you would have to lower your gaze continuously.
Eyes should pinpoint location of ball pitching throughout the delivery and if possible into the followthrough.
If the batsman moves around a lot you tend to look at his bat and bowl away from the Best spot. So you've to make a conscious effort to keep the ball just out of reach by compensating.
bye,
Guru.
Transcript of Conversation with Ravi Kiran on The Spot to Bowl At:
Ravi: a picture showing the exact region would be of a lot of help, generally when we bowl outside the reach of the batsman, there is a good chance that the ball might miss the stumps
already done
Guru: When you bowl outside the line of the stumps the ball Will miss the stumps unless you bowl an incutter.
Ravi: i meant height wise, not width wise
Guru: Heightwise? in what sense is that...
Ravi: if i pitch the ball on middle stump outside the reach of the batsman then the ball would attain enough height to miss the stumps completely, going above them
Guru: Reach here means both length and line-wise. If you bowl a wide the batsman can't reach it. Also a bouncer is also unreachable (most of the time).
Here reach keeps changing on batsman and the conditions of the wicket...
Ravi: my experience has been that the ball is within reach but placed ambigiously, to keep the batsman confused till the end
Guru: Height of the batsman, amount of footwork, speed of the ball, bounce in the wicket all define reach.
Yep.
Ravi: Hmm..
Guru: The idea is to make the batsman lazy enough not to adjust that last 2 inches of the line or length.
Ravi: that might be the case
Guru: The edge of the bat is only that much outside the center of the bat. If he hits with the center of the bat it's a good shot, if he hits just 1.5 to 2 inches outside he's out!!
One way to define reach is " What ever this batsman can reach just keep out of reach by 1.5 to 2 inches from the center of his bat"!!
Let me correct that sentence.
" What ever this batsman can reach with the center of the bat keep out of reach by 1.5 to 2 inches from the center of his bat"!!
Ravi: oh
Guru: So the margin for error for the bowler is very less and even less for the batsman.
That's why bowling side on is such a big advantage.... with some effort and concentration, You can restrict your bowling in a single plane
That's half the battle as far as line is concerned.... Length is the next half.
Which is where targetting the spot by tracking it throughout the delivery comes in....
Guru: This just occured to me as I was reviewing our conversation.....
Ravi: what
Guru: The line of the ball defines the distance from the center of the bat.
Let me correct that.
Ravi: well the bat moves as well, the batsman won't be stationary
Guru: The Line of the ball defines the HORIZONTAL distance from the CenterLine of the bat. The Length of the ball defines the Vertical distance from the Sweet Spot.
True. But if you look back at my definition of Reach. The idea is to account for the movement and playing style of the batsman and THEN decide where to position the ball such that it'll still catch the edge of the bat.
Ravi: i find a lot of variables involved here
Guru: True. The idea is to let the batsman play his shot normally but to trick him by predicting what his final position is and then making him feel he's playing his perfect shot when actually he's playing a slightly bad shot.
That's where the skill lies.
Ravi: Hmm...
Guru: At final count the margin of error for the batsman is very small. He can hit a six one ball and on a similar but slightly different ball get out playing the same shot.
Just think of it in this way. This is the reason slow balls result in a return catch to the bowler.
The line and length is the same the shot is the same but since the timing is off the ball balloons in the air for a simple catch.
Guru: If the batsman gets defensive he won't play shots. The bowler will find it difficult to take his wicket. The key is to make the batsman be confident so that he'll play his shots. The trick is to turn a good shot into a bad one. Shane Bond of New Zealand became famous because he got all the top batsmen of Australia out IN Australia!!
They all got out on their favourite shots including GilChrist, Ponting and the rest.
Ravi: i have to see his bowling
Guru: The whole field was set for the mishit on the favourite shot and the bowler only bowled to that line. The batsman got a bit greedy after getting a few boundaries on the shot.
Ravi: sahi hai
Guru: Then came the cleverly altered ball on which the batsman attempted the same shot. End of story.
Guru: Here the key is the accuracy of the ball. Shane Bond got Famous for that and being able to bowl so accurately at that speed and consistancy.
Stub for Video explanation of Bowling Action:
Runup
Jump
Twist
Coil
Uncoil
Landing
Twisting
Followthrough
posted by Gurudutt Mallapur | 6:42 AM
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