Where does a bowler's pace come from? Spin compared with run-up

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By comparing the speed gun measurements of a spinner's stock delivery with their straight (fast) ball variation - and a fast bowler's stock delivery with their slow delivery variation (usually an off-cutter) it looks as if the spin accounts for 10-15 mph of the delivery.

Therefore, about 10-15 mph of the energy into a delivery goes into generating spin.

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What about run-up?

Well a 'big spinner', with a fast arm speed, who bowls at 55 mph off a few slow paces to the wicket can often deliver a fast ball variation at 70 mph (maybe a little more, but I would suspect chucking) - whereas a normal quick bowler off a long run-up will bowl at about 80 mph.

Therefore, assuming that the spinner's and quick bowler's arm speeds are about the same - then a long run-up probably generates about an extra 10 mph for the quick bowler.

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So - taking the bowler's straight delivery off a few paces as standard: spin subtracts about 10-15 mph while a run-up adds about 10 mph.

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Reverse wrist/ off-break doosra bowling needs a bent elbow - but chucking is not necessary

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This report about Ajmal clarifies what seems anatomically necessary: that a reverse wrist spinner/ off-break-doosra bowler very probably needs to have a bent elbow, but does not entail chucking

http://www.espncricinfo.com/pakistan-v-england-2012/content/current/story/552579.html

This is quite simply because the elbow needs to be bent in order to rotate the arm (specifically to rotate the shoulder) to point the elbow towards slips (for a right handed batter) - which enables the forward flip of the wrist to generate the doosra.

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Note added 12 March 2012 - it is notable that the two best doosra bowlers so far seem to have had a permanently bent, unstraightenable elbow on their bowling arm.

Murali had this congenitally (i.e. he was born with a bent elbow), while Ajmal had a bent elbow as a result of an accident.

This suggests that unless a bowler has a bent elbw, he will probably not be a really effective (as well as legal) doosra bowler.

The possible exception is Saqlain Mushtaq; but for whatever reason, nobody seems to be able to replicate his method.

http://the-doosra.blogspot.co.uk/2007/03/how-to-bowl-doosra-without-chucking.html

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Reverse wrist spinner - the best name for an off-break-doosra bowler like Ajmal

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In Mike Selvey's Guardian column today

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2012/jan/28/pakistan-england-changing-world-order

he used the term reverse wrist spinner to describe off-break/ doosra bolwers like Ajmal.

Sounds like the perfect name!

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(I found a couple of other previous uses of the term reverse wrist spinner on Google - such as this time ten years ago on cricinfo by Sambit Bal - http://www.espncricinfo.com/ci/content/story/226249.html) . Perhaps the cricket journalists have been saying it for a while?

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Simon Hughes blows a fuse over the doosra

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I'm a big fan of Simon 'the analyst' Hughes as a writer and TV commenter - but this video of him supposedly trying to bowl a doosra is very annoying:


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/sportvideo/cricketvideo/9034353/

Simon-Hughes-tries-to-bowl-the-doosra.html

The doosra is in the news because of Ajmal's mastery dissection of the English batters in the current test series, but what Hughes is bowling bears zero resemblance to Ajmal's innovative action.

Hughes makes the usual mistake of bowling a conventional off-break - where the ball is gripped between index and middle fingers, and which uses forearm supination to impart most of the spin; then trying to turn this action around to make it into a leg-break - which is pretty much impossible, otherwise off-spinners would have been bowling doosras ever since the beginning of cricket.

But Ajmal has devised a new way of bowling - with a 'back-flip' extension of the wrist, and ball gripped between middle and ring fingers - so Ajmal's off-break is nothing like Hughes off-break delivery.

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For heavens sake, can't people see the difference - it isn't subtle!

That's why I began this blog - because the pundits don't seem to look at the way that innovative spin bowlers are doing their tricks; and the most ridiculous tosh gets written about, say, Paul Adams, Murali and now Ajmal.

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Forearm spinners - the commonest type of spinner

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The commonest type of spinner - the off-break and orthodox left arm spinners (like Monty Panesar and Graeme Swann) should properly be caused forearm spinners, since it is the supination of the forearm which imparts spin to the ball.

Supination is the rotation of the forearm from a position with the palm facing down and the thumb on the media (middle) side being rotated to the palm is upwards and the thumb is on the lateral (out) side.

It is this rotation of the forearm which generates spin - and it has almost nothing to do with the fingers (they merely grip the ball firmly) - so the name 'finger spinners' is wrong and misleading.

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True finger spinners are those rare types who use a finger flick to impart spin - such as Mendis or Herath's carrom ball, or from the past Jack Iverson.

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Wrist spinners are mostly leg break and chinaman bowlers, who bowl with the forearm in pronation (thumb medially rotated - but Saeed Ajmal is a new kind of wrist spinner who bowls with the forearm in supination (thumb laterally rotated).

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What of Murali?

He was mostly a shoulder spinner. The whole of his arm rotated, and the ball was either an off-break or a doora according to whether the wrist was flexed/ folded palm towards arm (doosra) or extended/ with wrist 'cocked' and back of hand towards arm (off break).

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Some googlies are also shoulder-spun - bowled mostly from shoulder rotation, especially when the bowler has a round arm action like Shane Warne.

Warne's most serious injury was of his shoulder, and resulted from bowling a sequence of practice googlies to Ian Healy.

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(By contrast, right arm wrist spinners with a high or vertical arm action - such as Chandrasekar or Kumble - tend to bowl googlies (or top-sinners) rather than leg breaks; and their googly is bowled with a flick of the wrist and not by rotating the whole arm from the shoulder.)

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What will be Ajmal's new 'mystery' delivery? A knuckleball?

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I read that Saeed Ajmal will unveil a new 'mystery' delivery against England in the UAE test series. What could it be?

Since Ajmal is too shrewd to mess with his beautifully-honed action - which is making him into the best world spinner, overtaking Swann - and knowing the method of his stock deliveries

http://the-doosra.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-does-saeed-ajmal-bowl-his-doosra.html

i.e. ball held between middle and ring finger, spin imparted by a forward flip (extension) of the wrist with the back of hand facing batter...

Then I can make a guess that the mystery delivery will be a straight, floating, wobbling ball with no spin at all (thereby creating turbulence and unpredictable movement, like a baseball pitcher's knuckleball) - and he will deliver this simply by not flipping the wrist forward and instead releasing the ball completely dead, seam sideways to the batter.

It's just a guess - and it will be interesting to see if my prediction is correct.

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Maurice Holmes = Saeed Ajmal?

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Maurice Holmes was recently banned from bowling (he plays for for Warwickshire) due to suspicions of 'throwing' his doosra.


It seems that after being reported for a suspicious bowling action, he was unable - or unwilling - to reproduce his match play action under laboratory conditions therefore it seems he was banned by default. From my reading he was not actually proven to throw his doosra. I have previously suggested how Saeed Ajmal can bowl the doosra without chucking:

http://the-doosra.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-does-saeed-ajmal-bowl-his-doosra.html

I have never seen Holmes bowl but from the photos available online he seems to use the same grip as Saeed Ajmal, therefore he may be using the same - legal - method for bowling the doosra.

Observe the similarity in the grip:

Purely on this basis, it seems possible that Holmes might actually or potentially be able to bowl a legal doosra.

Since Saeed Ajmal is one of the most effective spinners in world cricket this could be important.

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How does Saeed Ajmal bowl his doosra?

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Originally posted Wednesday, May 25, 2011

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I have been watching the West Indies v Pakistan Test series on TV, and thoroughly enjoyed watching Ajmal bowl.

He is a real craftsman, and looks like currently being the second best spinner in the world (after Swann).

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He also has the best doosra ever - in the sense that he is the first off-spinner to have a doosra good enough to be a stock delivery - it doesn't seem to cost much effort, seems impossible for the batsman to 'pick' from the hand, has a useful bats-width deviation and very good bounce.

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How does he do it?

Of course I don't know for sure - but I think this is the method:

1. He uses his middle finger as the spinning finger for the doosra (contrasted with using the index finger for spinning the off-break).

But the grip doesn't look very different for the two deliveries.

2. He also uses a flip of the wrist - specifically an extension of the wrist - to impart extra spin.

This is an important innovation, since without this extra wrist flip, the doosra would spin only slowly; but with this wrist extension he get good top-spinning revolutions which gives his doosra dip and bounce.

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The reason that the doosra is so rare is that the off break is usually bowled using a rotation of the forearm (anatomically called supination - like putting your elbow on the table with the forearm lying flat, and moving from having the palm on the table to palm facing upwards).

But supination cannot be used when the back of the hand is facing the batter (the forearm is already supinated), so most bowlers would need to rely on a small amount of finger-imparted spin, a small sideways movement of the wrist (called adduction) and perhaps an element of elbow straightening (a 'back-chuck').

But by flipping his wrist forward, Ajmal is able to produce plenty of spin without throwing.

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His other advantage is that (I guess) Ajmaal has built his bowling action around the doosra - with an almost vertical arm action, so that his off-break is bowled from a very similar action and hand position - his off-break is more of a top-spinner than most other off-break bowlers.

Most off-break bowlers build their action around optimizing their off-break - then they find that they cannot bowl a doosra - or at least not without chucking, or bowling something very obvious and easy to 'pick'.

So (leaving aside Murali as a one-off and unclassifiable bowler) I believe that Saeed Ajmal should be recognized as the first international quality true doosra bowler!

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Maurice Holmes = Saeed Ajmal?

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Maurice Holmes was recently banned from bowling (he plays for for Warwickshire) due to suspicions of 'throwing' his doosra.

It seems that after being reported for a suspicious bowling action, he was unable - or unwilling - to reproduce his match play action under laboratory conditions therefore it seems he was banned by default. From my reading he was not actually proven to throw his doosra.

I have previously suggested how Saeed Ajmal can bowl the doosra without chucking:

http://the-doosra.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-does-saeed-ajmal-bowl-his-doosra.html

I have never seen Holmes bowl but from the photos available online he seems to use the same grip as Saeed Ajmal, therefore he may be using the same - legal - method for bowling the doosra.

Observe the similarity in the grip:

Purely on this basis, it seems possible that Holmes might actually or potentially be able to bowl a legal doosra.

Since Saeed Ajmal is one of the most effective spinners in world cricket this could be important.

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