Activate Cricket Centre 23 Tennyson Road, Mortlake, NSW 2137 (02) 9736 2677

Spin Bowling


Part 5 - Strategy & Tactics


This article by the Activate Cricket Centre aims to provide you with some basic information on the different strategies and tactics used by spin bowlers to help develop your pre, during and post game skills.

The Bowling Plan


The bowling plan can help any skilled or unskilled player to develop a routine of consistent improvement. This is a cyclical process that allows for the constant modification and re-evaluation of your technique in order to achieve your desired results. 

Essentially, the bowling plan is a formulated break down of a normal week in which you utilize various days to examine, re-think and deploy your old and new techniques. 

Here is an example:

  • Tuesday - Skill enhancement/correction
  • Wednesday - REST
  • Thursday - Match day bowling, early spell & strategy practice
  • Friday - Plan for match day, evaluate opposition, speak to coach
  • Saturday - Warm up & play the game
  • Sunday - Warm up & play the game
  • Monday - Reflect, Measure, Evaluate & set a task for TUESDAY

Bowling Phases in the Game


Pre Match

The night before and the morning of the game, think about your:
  • Range of variation
  • Early line and length 
  • Pre-match understandings of the opposition

Pre Spell

Before you commence your spell:
  • Warm up to awaken your muscles 
  • Visualise each delivery
  • Loosen up with some bowling

During Spell

While bowling:
  • Overs 1 & 2 - What is your plan?
  • Overs 3 & 4 - What options do you have?

Post Spell

After your first spell:
  • Reflect
  • Think
  • Do your job in the field
  • Prepare for next spell
  • Stretch

Communication


This is an important aspect of any sport. Increased communication allows others to identify crucial aspects to what is happening around them and allows you to emphasise and refine your techniques by reiterating what you know in your mind.

  • Captains & Coaches expectations and understanding of you
    • You need to know your role in the team
  • Team expectations and understanding of you
    • The team needs to know your role in the team
  • Your own expectations and understanding
    • You need to communicate your plan and way of bowling to your Coach, Captain & Team

Cyclical Training (Ball by Ball)




Plan

Visualise what you are about to bowl, sense or feel your rhythm, feel the ball out of your hand, see it land and spin. Feel it! Believe and trust in it, there are only positive thoughts. Set yourself at the top of your mark, focus on the type of delivery and its line and length. Commence your starting motion. Do it! This should be done at training and in a game.

Do it, Feel it, See it

From the starting motion until you have completed your follow through you will receive information. Was your run up smooth and in rhythm, did your action feel right, how did it feel at point of release, did you follow through well. All these provide you with feedback. This feedback comes from feeling or sensing what you have done, you can’t see it, especially during a game. Once the ball has been released you begin to see it, you will see it in flight you will see the ball rotate, you will see the angle of the seem, you will see it land, its line and length, you will see it spin. This feedback is visual. How does this relate to what you planned to do, what you felt you did and what you saw happen? Was it what you attempted to do or was it different? If different why?

Evaluate

Your delivery demands a response from the batter. What was your delivery and what was the batters response? Was his response appropriate to the delivery you bowled? Did he move his feet, did he judge the pace, flight, length and line, did he pick the delivery, did his bat swing move through the ball or across the ball?

Think

Based on what you did and how the batter responded what is your next move. Is it the same or is it different. What changes will you make to what you just did? The delivery position on crease, the pace of your delivery, the flight of your delivery, the type of the delivery, i.e. a variation of spin, leg spin to top spin. And if you are to make a change why? What are you trying to do? To keep it tight, to get the batter to hit in the air, trying to catch the batter on the crease, to draw the batter down the wicket, to take the outside edge of the bat, to take the inside edge of the bat, to bowl him around his legs, to keep him on the front or back foot. Once you have your decision on what you are to bowl be positive that is what you are to bowl. Focus on that and nothing else.

Areas To Focus On


Assess Wicket
From your observations pre-match and during the game and possibly from past experience does the pitch turn, does it turn quickly or does it turn slowly? This has a bearing on how you bowl. If it turns quickly then many and varied ranges of deliveries and dismissal come into play. If it turns slowly then length of delivery becomes a major issue and your big turning deliveries may be kept on the shelf with more over spin coming into play. Your ability to hurry the batter will be reliant on pace through the air. If there is no turn then pace and flight and the use of over spin become major factors, your best wicket taking delivery may well become your quicker straight ball, a flipper or back spinner or arm ball.

Analyse Batter

From your observations pre-match and during the game and possibly from past experience what are the strengths and weakness’s of the batter. Does he drive, play of the back foot, sweep, play to leg. How will you find the edge of his bat or beat him in flight? How can you hit his stumps or pads? Some clues are his grip, his backlift, his foot work, his eyes. Where is he looking to score from your deliveries. Is there a delivery you can bowl that he is less likely to score from? Is there a weakness and can you exploit it, is there a strength and can you starve him of it?

Plan

You should have an over hanging strategy for each player, a likely way of dismissing him. This strategy can bend as the battle unfolds but if you know a player or have assessed him to a point you believe there is a weakness then you must believe that this is the likely outcome if you bowl well and to your plan.

Set Field

Your over hanging plan for each batsman should set your field. You may have a preferred starting field for your early overs but because of your strategy to the batsman you may have the field strengthened on one side of the wicket or one portion of the field. Your tactics may be to provide some encouragement for a player to hit to a gap and then bowl a line that does not allow the batsman to hit to that gap. Strategy, you may flight a ball that is deceptive, which the batter believes is his opportunity to hit to the gap, his scoring opportunity, but through angles created at the crease and point of release in your action he is deceived and drawn into a shot that isn’t quite there. Control, strategy, understand the batter, good field placement, captain and team support, the recipe for success.

Assess

Tactics and strategies may not work the first time or even the second time, the batter may win the battle and find the boundary, your challenge is to assess the cost against the reward, ie the runs against the likelihood of a wicket. You must talk to your captain, he will have the game context in his mind, you will have the focus of dismissing the batter. He may decide the risk of runs is too great and we will ask you to change your tactics. You must react or you will be watching. Assess your options, there’s two batsman to get out at anyone time, should you be conservative to one player and attacking to the other, should you look to change the way you are trying to dismiss the batsman?

Re-Assess

With a change of strategy there is a change in your plan, your field settings, your tactics, take the time to make the changes, take the time to focus on the types of deliveries that you are now combining to achieve your aim. Believe in it.

Issues to Consider When Bowling on Match Days



Field Placement


For me the field would pulsate from its starting position as set out below. It would move inward if I was on top of the batters and it would move outward if batter was slightly on top of me. It may pulsate in and out dependant who is on strike.
My field placement would go with the flow of my spell and may vary dependant on the strengths/weaknesses of the batsman.






Line & Length Effects on the Batsman




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