Orthodox bowling technique only means it is the way that works for most people.
If you bowl in a unique way (Paul Adams?), and taking wickets then no one can or should fault you. You like bowling with no run-up, using your palm and one finger plus thumb and off the wrong foot? Still taking wickets? Yes? Then go for it.
But, we teach orthodox bowling as it makes sense for most.
Hey everyone. I’m giving away a free copy of my spin bowling guide. All you need to do is like us on facebook (those already on there are included!)
It will be a lucky draw and I will announce the winner on monday 14th May.
Also, good luck to all my readers and fellow spinners who are starting their summer.
If you can bowl the doosra – great.
If not, don’t worry about it. You can still be great without it.
But, alternatively you can take it the other way without breaking your wrist. Sunil Narine just pushes it out the front of the hand like an orthodox leg-cutter. And Herath and Mendis flick carrom ball style.
Maybe you can get it to go the other way with your own method?
Bowling to tailenders can be really hard at times.
The reason is that some of them simple swing at everything – and the occasionally they connect.
The lesson here is that you must see it in context: If you play plenty of games then it simply will happen that a tailender will get stuck into you.
What you need to do however, is bowl as would bowl to any other batsman. Don’t get frustrated and try other things. If you keep doing your thing then you will win 9/10 times. The other 1/10 times that the tailender win is just the luck of the draw. Just forget it and move on.
Just so you know
If you can bowl the back spinner, then do so on harder wickets.
On softer wickets it usually just sits up, waiting to be hit.
If you have the ability to make the ball turn as big or small as you want (no? then work on it!), and even the ability to bowl a good top spinner and googly/doosra:
Then try and scramble the seam sometimes. If the batsman did not pick you from the hand he will have no chance of picking you in the air with a scrambled seam.
There is no such thing as a defensive line just outside leg stump.
It only becomes defensive if,
With the rise of Twenty20 cricket, many pundits spelled out the death of spin bowlers, and particular finger spin.
But, currently the top 6 bowlers in Twenty20 are spin bowlers. 7 bowlers in the top 10 are spinners. 6 bowlers turn the ball into right handed batsman, and 5 are finger spinners.
Why even pick fast bowlers in twenty20?!
You take all the advice you can get. And you try to prepare for every situation.
But, sometimes, no advice will help. Those days a batsman hits his zone and smashes everyone all over the park.
You try everything you can. In fact, you are actually bowling well. But, the ball just keeps sailing over your heard.
It’s ok.
It happens.
It will happen again.
Forget it and move on.
Josh Poysden went to India on a spin bowling camp, and here he shares his experience with us.
Scholarship
Through my university (Anglia Ruskin), I am lucky enough to get a sport scholarship each year which I can use to help me balance my studies and cricket, and to help cover the costs of training/playing. Myself and the wicketkeeper for our Cambridge MCCU team, Dean Bell, decided this year to go away a few weeks so we had the chance to train outside, to break up the winter, and to experience a different cricket culture.
Global Cricket School
We both had recommendations of the GCS (Global Cricket School), where players can drop in for a few weeks at venues across the world to train with access to great facilities and great coaching. One specific camp in Pune sounded ideal. Where better than India? A cricket-mad nation, where the weather is hot, the facilities are good, and somewhere where we would both be completely out of our comfort zone! The England Lions joined by Matt Prior, Andrew Strauss and Eoin Morgan had been here before Christmas, and so we both thought that it would be a great opportunity for our cricket.
Flight
Our Cambridge MCCU coach, Chris Scott, was great in helping us to organize the trip. We booked our flights, sorted our visas, and very early on the morning of the 21st of January, we found ourselves at Heathrow about to board an Air India flight to Mumbai. The flight went relatively smoothly, and we were both entertained by a crazy Indian woman next to us (who was on the way to Goa to look after 100 stray dogs).
Journey to Pune
We landed in Mumbai at about 11pm in the evening, and after we had gone through customs and got our baggage we were greeted by a driver from the hotel and were on our way to Pune. We then had our first experience of Indian roads, which words cannot describe. We were on the edge of our seats (sometimes literally) all the way on the three hour ride, which involved several near misses. More on the roads to come! Once at the hotel we unpacked our stuff and finally got to sleep at about 4am, expecting a nice relaxing day to follow.
First Day
After having breakfast we were straight into training that day. We met the head coach, Umesh Patwal, who we briefly talked to about the camp and what we wanted to get from it. He also talked to us about the character of ourselves, and we realised that character development was also something that was going to be emphasized throughout our time there.
A Typical Day
All the training days had a relatively similar structure so I am going to tell you about a typical day in Pune. We would wake up at around 8am, get our bearings and go to breakfast where we had eggs on toast and some fruit to help fuel us for the day. We then went back to our room where we packed our bags and went to the lobby, waiting to get on the bus.
Now, as mentioned, the Indian roads are interesting to say the least. I’m surprised our bus driver didn’t get a late call up to Ferraris F1 team with his driving skills, dodging in and out of traffic and making seemingly impossible manoeuvres. We saw some unreal sights on this bus to and from training, ranging from Indian weddings, cows walking along the road freely, to even an elephant!
The Poona Club
The venue of our training was The Poona Club. It was located fairly centrally in Pune, and is a facility that as well as the grass nets and cricket ground, also has tennis and basketball courts, a gym and a restaurant overlooking the cricket ground. It was a fairly picturesque ground, with trees all-round the vicinity and a white picket fence in front of the pavilion. The wickets were like nothing I had experienced before, they were a very orange colour and although they maybe didn’t have the pace and bounce of English wickets, they spun beautifully!
Training
The batters would warm up with one handed and two handed drives and then some pulls and cuts; and the bowlers would do some warm up drills. The batters would then go and bat against the bowlers, and the bowlers would either bowl at the batters or do some more drills. There was also lots of theory, so time was taken out to discuss techniques and why people do certain things.
The head coach, Umesh, was brilliant at explaining why certain things need to be done, while also keeping things simple. Most of his coaching ideas centred around balance and stability; which come from the head and the hips.
Bowling
I did a lot of bowling in the nets, and it was great to get some bowling on grass wickets under my belt before the season, and to implement what I had been working on indoors to an outdoor environment. The wickets did spin a fair amount and at times this amount of spin became difficult to control, however eventually this become a lot easier to manage. It was a problem that was definitely enjoyed!
After a few days the camp was joined by a former first class leg spinner, Vinay Dandekar, and I therefore then spent most of my time working closely with him. Although a lot of the work we did was just a continuation of my work I had been doing at home, it was interesting to hear some different theories regarding leg spin bowling.
I also did a lot of work on bowling my googly, which was something I found challenging and took a lot of hard work but it is starting to come out well. Vinay also talked about the psychological side of bowling, especially discussing how relaxing is probably one of the most crucial aspects to my bowling.
Batting and Fielding
I also spent a lot of time batting in the nets. On the first morning Dean and I were chucked into the deep end against the local net bowlers, and we found ourselves in a battle straight away. We struggled in the first half an hour but after working out a method of playing we acclimatised well. Sweeping is a shot that I had taught myself the previous winter and so this was my main option, however I also have developed reverse sweeping this winter and my defensive game is also very important.
There were also opportunities to bat against seamers during our time there. I also did some fielding practice whenever the chance arose, although most of the time was spent batting and bowling.
Dean
Dean split his time between batting and keeping. Very early on in our time there he changed his batting style (got rid of his trigger), and so he focused on using this new technique against the net bowlers. By the end of our time he started hitting the ball very cleanly. He also worked a lot with Umesh on his keeping, doing some new drills and implementing some new ideas.
Net Bowlers
The net bowlers at the Poona Club were brilliant. They ran in all day (9-4), in the heat and provided real challenges as a batter, fetched you water and were there generally to help us get the most out of our time there. Dean and I both assumed that this was their job and they must get paid to do this.
However, when in conversation with one of the seamers, Srikanth, who is the same age is me, we realised this was not true. Srikanth said that he does it not for money, but in the hope that he gets some coaching passed on from either the coaches of the GCS or the players he has bowling at. I then asked him if he worked and he said he goes straight from The Poona Club to work (as a courier) and works until 8.
We were both surprised at how much the Indians value their cricket and the depths their commitment goes. You can imagine our shock when Srikanth mentioned that he also trains with his club from 6.30-8.30 every morning! Another net bowler that sticks in my mind is Lal. An off spinner, he was great fun, and I had some good banter with him throughout our time there. By the end of the ten days, I had taught him the whole of the Cambridge MCCU team song! The boys back home become instant fans of him when a video of this appeared. It will be nice to stay in touch with all of the net bowlers through various means.
Other Players
Dean and I were joined by many players through our time at the GCS. There were players from Essex, Derbyshire, Scotland, and also James Hildreth and Arul Suppiah from Somerset to name just a few. It was a good experience to be able to train with players like this regularly and talk to them about the game. An opportunity for Dean has hopefully come out of this, with the possibility of him gaining a trial at a county.
It was really nice to spend time with one lad in particular from Essex, Tom Craddock, who is a fellow leg spinner, and was signed at Essex last year after graduating from Leeds/Bradford MCCU. I met him last summer through playing against him and it was good to see a familiar face and also to see someone who has come through the MCC Universities system and gone on to gain a professional contract.
Lunch/Afternoon
After the morning session which would last 2-3 hours everyone would jump back in the bus and we would have lunch at the hotel. The food in general was brilliant, lots of chicken, rice and naan breads. Although very similar for every meal it was perfect. It was a buffet system so you could eat as much as you want. A shower to freshen up and a quick protein/recovery shake and it was back to the ground. The afternoon sessions also lasted 2-3 hours so everyone was completely knackered by the end of it.
Matches
We were also lucky enough to play in three games at the Poona Club. We played two 50 over games and one Pro 40 game. It was good to put our practice into game situations. The first game was particularly entertaining, with Dean being triggered LBW by one of the net bowlers who was umpiring after middling one back to the bowler first ball.
Keeping Fitness Levels Up
One of the main goals Dean and I set ourselves for the trip was to maintain our fitness levels throughout the camp. We had both been working very hard doing sprints and lifting weights and so didn’t want this hard work to go to pot. Therefore after every days training/match we alternated between doing sprint or weight sessions. This was hard at times as we were absolutely exhausted but now we are back we are definitely feeling the benefits. The gym was fairly basic at the hotel but we managed to figure out ways to do certain exercises.
There were also several regulation Indian power cuts, which could be frustrating if you were halfway through sprints on the treadmill!
Recovery
We were there for eleven days and had full training days on ten of these so recovery was vital to maximising the effectiveness of our time in Pune. After each day a cold shower and protein shakes were taken to promote recovery in our bodies. During training we also took on a lot of ‘Shotz’. These are little tablets that you drop into water to make the drink become an electrolyte. This helps you stay hydrated. On the last day Dean decided to see how many ‘Shotz’ he could get in a drink, this ended in a big explosion when the bottle opened much to my amusement!
Exploring and Star Cricket
We had about an hour of chilling each evening before dinner, and we used this time in different ways. For example on a few nights we adventured into the city for shopping or just walking. We managed to travel in Tuk Tuks which was great fun. Although we didn’t get much chance to explore India properly due to the volume of training, it was great to get the chance to do a bit of exploring. India is a beautiful place and the people are very welcoming. It also made us realise how lucky we are, as there is no hiding from the fact that there is a lot of poverty in India.
As mentioned earlier we only got one day off (for India Independence Day), and we used this to sunbathe on the roof and generally just chill out. Other nights before dinner, we simply just embraced Star Cricket. For anyone that hasn’t been to India, Star Cricket is an Indian TV Channel that just shows cricket 24/7. It varies from live games such as the test series going on in Australia to completely random games such as England Vs. Pakistan from six years ago! By the end of the trip we were definitely over watching cricket on TV!
Evenings
Dinner was very similar to lunch, the food did get tedious eventually but it gave us everything we needed. We would then go back to our room, ordered a Mango Lassi from room service (a traditional Indian yoghurt drink) and watch a bit of Jersey Shore or The Only Way Is Essex before getting a very early night. I only made it past 10pm on one night!
End of the Trip
On the last day, we played our game and then went straight back to the hotel to depart for Mumbai. Everyone at the academy was invited to go to the owner of GCS, Sachin Bajaj, flat. After a four hour coach journey watching some Bollywood movies, we finally arrived in Mumbai. We got to drive past the ‘Gateway to India’ and the ‘Taj’ hotel, which was interesting.
After a few hours at Sachins we had to dash to the airport to catch our flight. We made it in time and as there wasn’t many people on the flat we could spread out over a few seats and get some sleep. It was no fun arriving back in London standing outside the airport in the freezing cold waiting to be picked up in flip-flops. Back to reality!
Thank you
I just wanted to thank everyone who helped make the trip possible, particularly the coaches at GCS Umesh and Vinay, and thanks to the Indian people for their wonderful hospitality. It is a beautiful and very welcoming country- I would recommend it to anyone, let alone cricketers trying to improve their game. I found meeting people like Srikanth the net bowler inspirational and now I am back in the routine of studying and training at university I find myself even more motivated to achieve my goals in cricket.
