Bringing the ball back into a lefty....

[Faisal1985]

Hi All,

I am a fast bowler for my club and play at the Premier level league here in Quebec, Canada. I am sure this forum has quite a few good bowlers.

I have a simple action much like Razzaq or you can say Munaf Patel from India.....and have a natural inswinger (to the righty). Therefore i have no problems taking the ball away from a lefty. But, where i can bowl decent outswingers to a righty......i am not able to bring the ball back into a lefty.......I have tried a couple of times during the last game and missed his pads and gave away wides on leg side....it got really annoying.......

I want to bring the ball back in from the same point on pitch where it leaves the lefty....i know it will require a lot of practice...but at least i have to get the basics of it first.......

Any help will be highly appreciated.

[Burgey]

Sounds like the angle's buggering you up.

Come around the wicket.

[andruid]

The outswing technique from this video could come of use (if you are RF/FM)

[PFN]

I am a right handed fast bowler, I would disagree with coming around the wicket. That wont generate any swing just give you the angle.

Personally I find bowling from as close to the stumps as possible (wicket to wicket, make ump stand back a bit) whilst pushing my (left) landing foot across towards the second slip area really generates in swing to a left handed batsman.

Obviously keep your delivery arm high and pitch the ball up, it seems to work for me. I love bowling to left handers.

Hope it helps... Good luck!

[Faisal1985]

Originally Posted by PFN

I am a right handed fast bowler, I would disagree with coming around the wicket. That wont generate any swing just give you the angle.

Personally I find bowling from as close to the stumps as possible (wicket to wicket, make ump stand back a bit) whilst pushing my (left) landing foot across towards the second slip area really generates in swing to a left handed batsman.

Obviously keep your delivery arm high and pitch the ball up, it seems to work for me. I love bowling to left handers.

Hope it helps... Good luck!

Thats a good tip about the foot. I agree that as a Right arm fast bowler coming around the wicket is just angling the ball in to the lefty and its not quite as threatening as the swing is from over the wicket.

I have noticed so many times that the lefty really struggles when you bring the ball into him from the same spot where you are making the ball go away. Thats certainly an art to have.

Another thing is nipping the ball back into the lefty, which i have seen several times at the international level. Especially Pollock....... i can nip it back into the righty which comes naturally with my action........but how could you actually make the ball do the same to the lefty is beyond me at this time......

[Faisal1985]

Guys i am happy to announce that i was able to move the ball back into the lefty on a coupld of occassions, it did not get me wickets but it was a good feeling how i got it working.......

I used the wind and the tip from PFN:
"Personally I find bowling from as close to the stumps as possible (wicket to wicket, make ump stand back a bit) whilst pushing my (left) landing foot across towards the second slip area really generates in swing to a left handed batsman."

pitched it up, high arm action, and foot angeling towards second slip very close to the stumps....

Its a good feeling.............

[PFN]

Good stuff Faisal, glad it helped. I am a big believer of bowling wicket to wicket.

I think when you get the umpire to stand back and bowl really close to the stumps, don’t worry about hitting the wickets with your trailing foot, the umpire automatically starts to think LBW before you even hit the pads.

I suppose temptation is to bowl “too straight” to top order batsmen. When the batsman’s very good they will love that.

I find it hard to bowl balls that go away from left handers, I don’t really have enough pace and if its not swinging and on a length outside off stump it usually ends up at the boundary!

[Faisal1985]

Indeed PFN you are right about the umps thinking, when you are bowling straight and closer to the stump, any variation in pace might deceive the batsman and if you hit the pads at that point, most probably you got the suker....

I have a natural inswing to the righty, so having the ball leave the lefty is no problem. As a general guideline i am sure you know to point your seam towards 1st slip for a lefty, secondly for me what works the best is to push the ball in the air rather then release it.

So push the ball at the last moment with your wrist upright, make sure the seam position is slightly (not too much as that might go for wides on the offside) towards the 1st slip and finally make sure you hit good length. If this type of delivery is even slightly over pitched a good lefty will drive the trucks out of it.......

Also if nothing works, instead of swinging or seaming the ball, just creat an angel, use the crease and bowl away from the stumps as much as you can, and have the ball angel across the lefty

The biggest nightmare for a lefty is when you are coming at him from a blind spot..... over the wicket far away from the stumps.....i have damaged halmet grills with bouncers which are pitched on leg and shoot up towards the batsman's chin......

Hope it helps........