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How To Bowl Leg spin
- Thread starter shaunk
- Start date
Neil Pickup
Cricket Web Moderator
Welcome to CW, Shaun. Here's an extract from the CW Coaching Section:
On the other side of the spinning spectrum, the wrist-spinner generates more turn and has more spectacular variations, but on the flip-side his action is far harder to master, resulting in less control and an increased risk of being expensive. Nonetheless, when at its best, wrist-spin is probably the hardest type of bowling in the game to confidently bat against. As its name suggests, this style of bowling uses the wrist - as well as the fingers - to impart the rotations that cause spin onto the ball, and because of the extra spinning forces generated thanks to the addition of the wrist into the action, a wrist spinner can make the ball rotate much more rapidly, and so can achieve much more turn.
A wrist spinner's basic grip is to hold the ball, with its seam horizontal, cupped in the first three fingers of their bowling hand, with the index and ring fingers roughly on opposite sides, and the middle finger fractionally closer to the index finger - resulting in all three fingers lying across the seam. It's perfectly normal for the thumb or the little finger to rest on the ball, but rare for either to do any actual work when it comes to spinning the ball. The hand action that imparts the spin itself is similar to that of the finger-spinner - the 'turning a doorknob motion' but since it's in the opposite direction (anti-clockwise for the right-handed leg-spinner, and clockwise for the left-handed chinaman bowler) and as such involves the wrist to a much greater extent, it's much more forceful. With practice, when the ball is spun the seam will remain in approximately the same position - resulting in achieving more grip and hence more turn as it lands.
Returning to the ever-trusty tennis ball, if you take it in the wrist-spinner's grip and simply lob it gently, underarm, into the air - remembering to include the hand action as it's released, you'll see it spin a significant amount either to your left (if you're right handed) or to your right (if you're a left-hander). A wrist-spinner's full action is generally closer to 'front-on' than 'side-on' - the bowler looks in front of his front arm (or between his two arms as they're raised) and the 'imaginary lines' angle across the pitch in the direction of the covers and midwicket. As with finger-spin, it's important to 'pivot' strongly on your front foot as you prepare to release the ball, and equally after your release to 'drive' or follow through strongly with your back leg (the same side as your bowling arm). The bowling arm is generally vertical, or near-vertical, which allows the bowler to gain as much bounce as possible and get the ball above the batsman's eye-line more easily. It's not uncommon, however, for wrist-spinners to bowl with much flatter arms as either a natural action or simply as a variation.
You can read more here
On the other side of the spinning spectrum, the wrist-spinner generates more turn and has more spectacular variations, but on the flip-side his action is far harder to master, resulting in less control and an increased risk of being expensive. Nonetheless, when at its best, wrist-spin is probably the hardest type of bowling in the game to confidently bat against. As its name suggests, this style of bowling uses the wrist - as well as the fingers - to impart the rotations that cause spin onto the ball, and because of the extra spinning forces generated thanks to the addition of the wrist into the action, a wrist spinner can make the ball rotate much more rapidly, and so can achieve much more turn.
A wrist spinner's basic grip is to hold the ball, with its seam horizontal, cupped in the first three fingers of their bowling hand, with the index and ring fingers roughly on opposite sides, and the middle finger fractionally closer to the index finger - resulting in all three fingers lying across the seam. It's perfectly normal for the thumb or the little finger to rest on the ball, but rare for either to do any actual work when it comes to spinning the ball. The hand action that imparts the spin itself is similar to that of the finger-spinner - the 'turning a doorknob motion' but since it's in the opposite direction (anti-clockwise for the right-handed leg-spinner, and clockwise for the left-handed chinaman bowler) and as such involves the wrist to a much greater extent, it's much more forceful. With practice, when the ball is spun the seam will remain in approximately the same position - resulting in achieving more grip and hence more turn as it lands.
Returning to the ever-trusty tennis ball, if you take it in the wrist-spinner's grip and simply lob it gently, underarm, into the air - remembering to include the hand action as it's released, you'll see it spin a significant amount either to your left (if you're right handed) or to your right (if you're a left-hander). A wrist-spinner's full action is generally closer to 'front-on' than 'side-on' - the bowler looks in front of his front arm (or between his two arms as they're raised) and the 'imaginary lines' angle across the pitch in the direction of the covers and midwicket. As with finger-spin, it's important to 'pivot' strongly on your front foot as you prepare to release the ball, and equally after your release to 'drive' or follow through strongly with your back leg (the same side as your bowling arm). The bowling arm is generally vertical, or near-vertical, which allows the bowler to gain as much bounce as possible and get the ball above the batsman's eye-line more easily. It's not uncommon, however, for wrist-spinners to bowl with much flatter arms as either a natural action or simply as a variation.
You can read more here
Neil Pickup
Cricket Web Moderator
Keep us posted with how you get on 
superkingdave
Hall of Fame Member
why would Shane Warne get dropped for him?
superkingdave
Hall of Fame Member
but how can he play for Australia?
superkingdave
Hall of Fame Member
ah but does he know how to work behind a bar?
honestbharani
Whatever it takes!!!
On that note, I hope to replace Gilchrist as Australia's keeper in order to please all the Englishmen on this forum. 