Pace
 

I am a quick bowler and have been told that because im am tall that i should have a high leap dsuring my action the problem with this although it gives me accuracy i cant bowl as quick like it. When i bowl with a normall leap i can genearte more pace but spray the odd ball down the leg-side.

Is the few wides worth the etxtra pace or is accuracy more important?

My simple and none commital (sp?) answer would be, it depends on your age.

The extra pace is worth the extra wides if you are still young.

The key to good fast bowling is adding accuracy to pace rather than the other way around. ie Bowl quick and then try to get more accurate rather tha trying to get the accuracy and then adding pace.

The reason is that if you try and get the accuracy first then you end up developing an action that is hard to bowl your fastest with.

I would always be wary of changing a leap as its important an action feels natural and any tweaking with the leap can make the action feel awkward and is a major adjustment.

Accuracy is often down to the left arm. Without seeing you bowl its hard to say for sure, but try running in hard and the normal action but bring the left arm down (front arm) when bowling down the line off of stump (ie almost choppong off stump in half)

The right arm follows what the left arm does and if the body, runup and left arm are going down the line of off stump then that is where the ball should go.

Well im only 13 so ill do what you said and focus on my pace and then get the accuracy, and just curiostity but what is considered a good pace for my age?

I doubt you have access to a speed gun but:

45mph - Fine
50mph - Good pace
55mph - Very good pace
60mph - Excellent pace
65mph - Quick county pace
70mph - International pace

It depends. Take your lead from the batsmen that face you. If they struggle, hop around and back away then that is plenty pace enough.

The quickest 13 yr old Ive ever seen, was in a game I umpired and he amazed everyone there. The boy was lightening.

We put a decent estimate (though you can never be specific) of around 125 kph (approx 77 mph).

He took a wicket with his first ball, but finished with 3 overs 1 for 36 in his first spell.

A combination of a coach and captain not being able to set the correct field (he had 5 slips and 2 gullys) and facing a quality bat that wasnt overly scared of him and played through the line.

High pace at 13 is great for scaring averagep layers but I wouldnt worry too much about being top bracket as good players will still find way to score runs.

The flip side is that although this kid went at around 12 an over, all everyone could do was rave about him and talk about him for the next week or 2. There is no doubt fast bowling is sexy :)

Christ, that's pretty fast for a 13 year old, the fastest junior I've faced is around 72-3mph, and he was way quicker than anyone else in the match.

It was a high level game and he was still yards quicker than the other quicks on either side, who themselves were not slow

How big was he? As far as height and build went.

Small and light. 5'5" maybe and athletic build but skinny. Couldnt guess weight.

Left arm over, he sprinted in of 20-25 yards and was jaw droppingly quick.

The wicket he got 1st ball, I was standing at his end umpiring. The wind from him going past me into delivery stride suprised and startled me and possibly scared me a little :laugh:

Haha, so it was all in his action and pace attacking the crease?

Thanks Manee the estimation my mates said for me was around 50-55 mph which im quite pleased for as the estimation for me at the start of the season was 45-48 mph and this is in my first season. Thanks for the info.

The quickest iv faced was around 65 mph from a 15 year old who was bowling slower at me because it was only nets, but still i wasnt very comfortable.

I've faced 140kph before. Surprisingly, I could see and follow the ball quite comfortably, but the reflexes were left behind somewhat.

I played with Paul Spence in Under 14's and he was sharp too...he used to play Under 14's in the morning and First Grade in the afternoon. Not sure exactly how fast, but scary enough. He ended up playing Australian Under 19's I think.

i know a good system to work out someone's pace with no speed guns or stop watches.

Find somebody who is not a cricket expert, ask them how fast the bowler in question bowls, then reduce that by about 20-25 km/h

There was a 17 year old who played for my club, hes now gone to the top club in Brisbane and is representing the QLD U17 team.

Our A Grade captain who went to the academy estimated his pace around 118-120. And this guy is 6'1, lean and muscular and has perfect technique.

I doubt some 13 year old could bowl faster than him, I really do. Theres a 13 year old in our club atm and he comes to senior training sometimes and he troubles senior batsman in lower grades, hes quick but mainly cause hes wildly inaccurate.

About 2-3 years ago when I was about 15 someone told me I bowled 125 km/h, which I knew was bogus.

People see the likes of Hoggard on tv who bowls 128 or there abouts and say...uhh hes not that fast, but then if you watched him in real life, close up bowling in the nets you would say hes lightning quick.

But I mean the ideal bowler is quickish and is accurate, not 160+ km/h and spraying it everywhere.

Look who the best bowler of all time is - McGrath, he was never that quick and yet he was the most dangerous bowler in the world