I'm still here 2022 pre-season nets

 I think everyone who plays at our club have come through Covid 19 okay. The next worry is Putin and things like food shortages and the cost of fuels - cars and heating next winter. But in the short term... Cricket!

So, a quick re-cap. The last 2 years I've been bowling flippers. The issue with my knees was resolved through self governed physio and rest and it seems the likely issue was weak glutes and and core. That exacerbated by over doing extreme exercises. The man I follow for my strength and conditioning is this bloke here... (Double click the image). 

The Flippers worked well and I bowled them 95% of the time and people just couldn't deal with them. But last summer my run-up went wrong and I developed a stutter in the run-up that I couldn't resolve. Towards the end of the season I started to bowl off a 2-3 step walk in and it worked okay in some instances. 

So, week 2 of pre-season nets I've been bowling primarily off of 2- 3 steps and it's working for me. I've tried a couple of long run-ups for the Flipper bowling, but the run-up is still a mess. The interesting thing though is that I've bowled a line that I've always avoided in the past. Over the stumps into the leg-stump area with leg-breaks. There's an awkward blind spot there where the ball can potentially disappear for a split second and this can be exploited to an extent. Added to this I'm also attacking the stumps with the ball turning.

My normal perception is that bowling this line is a high risk strategy as most batsmen fancy themselves to be able to hit the ball over the boundary. Before he died I watched a video or saw Warne on a SKY program saying that when you bowl you need to be able to tell me what your plan is... "How you going to get me this blokes wicket"? Thinking this through in terms of my own bowling, my approach has always been wholly reliant on good wicket keeping, slips and fielders on the off-side with no hope of hitting the stumps as I'm always turning the ball away from them. 

So now my response to the same question would be...

(1). I'm trying to turn the ball into the stumps and bowl the batter round their legs.

(2). With the ball outside of leg and spinning, the batter is going to sweep/slog the ball leg-side to a packed field (See below) and someone's going to take the catch.

But add to this approach the fact that I've been bowling Flippers now for 2 seasons and they have a handful of attributes as I bowl them in a number of variations...

(a). A conventional back-spinner with an upright seam which is a much faster change up and is straight. (b). The same ball but stupidly loopy and slow that almost stops because of the back-spin - LBW or bowled option. (c) The same back-spinner with a crossed seam and again much faster or slower - but straight again, but with the addition of the crossed seam comes weirdness off the wicket and swerve in the air. 

(d). An off-spinning flipper which I used tonight against one of the best bats at our club and I clean bowled him as he played for the leg-break, but the ball had just a little off-break to it.

Finally my top-spinner is back and that keeps the batsman on their toes and a few of them bounced and were hit high up the bat for potential C&B.

The interesting thing though was the better batsmen struck the ball as expected through zone A in this diagram and the really good bloke back up the wicket past me tight or an on-drive to "7" (Long Mid on), so the chances are they may have been singles or I may have attempted to catch them in a game scenario. 

I think next week I'll show them this field diagram and say play me as though I had this field set and see what they do. I'll record where the ball goes as well and see if this works. I know that if I get the line wrong I'll go for runs through the off-side.

21^st March nets.

It didn’t go that well. All my plans went to pot and I bowled poorly and there’s nothing to report.

28^th March nets

This was a different story though. Had some decent bats in my net so potentially a real challenge. I didn’t dabble with my run up and kept it simple coming in off just 2-3 steps. Going with the loose grip, cocked wrist and lowish arm angle – the aim was to get it up above the eyes just around 6” – 12” outside of the leg-stump on a good length. It’s pretty obvious that the length is key and getting the ball turning. Taking a leaf out of Warne’s book to some extent I bowled the initial ball on the off-side just to see if I could get the ball to turn. I guess this would be a good approach in a game when you start your spell as the batter doesn’t know what you’re about to do and if it turn’s you’re already getting in their head potentially? I did that and the batter played and missed trying to cut the ball.

Thereafter I went either straight or on my intended line and pretty much bowled with good accuracy, a few wide balls, but for the most part where I wanted it and yes it caused problems. The only other balls I’m using are the off-spinning Flipper and a Top-Spinner and the combination works. The off-spinning flipper looks particularly dangerous with the batters saying they can’t pick it. Varying the speed obviously helps and causes problems too. It all looks promising. The only thing I can put my finger on that I did differently was some stretches?