View Full Version : The Bowling of Warne
I'm doing this oral project on share warne ('s drug issue), and need a bit of background information of him. I'm just wondering what are the deliveries he's got? and how to explain bowling a leg break using plain english? thanks.
Originally posted by cacbm
[ how to explain bowling a leg break using plain english [/B]
Good luck:D
& even better luck in explaining the flipper & the googly.;)
OK on the leg break it's his stock delivery, that is it's the delivery that he will bowl the most of & everything else is a variation.Bascially he imparts spin on the ball in the aim of making the ball move off the pitch from leg to off to the right hander, that's from right to left in plain English.The ball comes out of the front of the hand & what makes Warne's leg break so good is that firstly he was particularly accurate when compared with most leggies down the ages, he puts a trendous amount of spin on the ball (just check out the Gatting delivery in 93) & he gets a dangerous amount of drift in the air that takes the ball from off to leg (that's left to right) & then it spins off the pitch the opposite way.Even with the leg break there will be a little bit of top spin on the ball as well, this as is explained below pulls the ball down & gives it a little 'kick' off the pitch.If you imagine standing at the crease ready to bowl a leg break the spin that you impart on the ball will probably be roughly in the direction of the slips/3rd man.
The googly or wrong 'un is the delivery that spins the opposite way to the leg break, it's meant to catch the batsmen unawares, the bowler tires to disguise it & then hopefully the batter is expecting it to turn right to left but it in fact goes the opposite way.Warne's googly wasn't that good & it wasn't one of his main weapons compared with many other leggies, the googly comes out of the back of the hand & so the batsman can pick it early & be ready for it.
He bowls the top spinner as well, this is simply a delivery where the spin imparted on the ball is in the direction of the stumps(ie down the length of the pitch), it has the same effect as putting top spin on the ball in tennis, the spin will 'drag' the ball down earlier than the batsman originally thinks this means that he may not get to the pitch of the ball & then when the ball hits the pitch it will jump up higher prove difficult for the batsman to play.
Then there is the flipper, this is probably the hardest delivery for a leg spinner to bowl, basically when the ball pitches it comes through quickly & keeps low.Often it's pitched short so the batsman think he can pull the ball but it takes him by surprise to bowl him or get him LBW, England's Alec Stewart was as a sucker for it.Warne bowled some great flippers, it's not a delivery that will be used very often but it can be devastating, I've never fully understood what spin the bowler puts on the ball, maybe someone else can help with that but I guess it's back spin & that's what makes it so hard to bowl but I may be wrong.
Warne developed injuries to his shoulder & a finger on his bowling hand, he needed an operation(1998?) & it took him a while to get back to his best, it's clear that he had to get used to physical limitations within his body.He doesn't tend to spin the ball as much as he used to, the really big spinning leg breaks became much rarer & the flipper was hardly seen, he never bowled the googly much anyway.
Ironically he probably became an even better bowler, he used his experience & his stunning accuaracy to bowl sides out.Rather than bowling 6 deliveries where he was trying to put as much spin on each one as possible he'd ball a few with a bit of leg spin & then maybe he'd really let rip on one & take the batsman by surprise.
He was always keen to put doubts in the batsmen's minds by talking in the press about new deliveries that he'd perfected but really there was little truth in it, he got a lot of success in the last couple of years with a ball that he called the 'slider' but in effect this was really a delivery that didn't spin & used to beat the batsman with a little bit of drift in the air.
Maybe someone else can can clarify exactly what the slider does.
Originally posted by DIPPER
Then there is the flipper, this is probably the hardest delivery for a leg spinner to bowl, basically when the ball pitches it comes through quickly & keeps low.Often it's pitched short so the batsman think he can pull the ball but it takes him by surprise to bowl him or get him LBW, England's Alec Stewart was as a sucker for it.Warne bowled some great flippers, it's not a delivery that will be used very often but it can be devastating, I've never fully understood what spin the bowler puts on the ball, maybe someone else can help with that but I guess it's back spin & that's what makes it so hard to bowl but I may be wrong.
Fair effort, Dipper.
Warnie set up Stewart weeks before. He bowled a few flippers to him and deliberately dropped his left shoulder. Stewart said in the media he could pick it.
Come the test, Warnies left shoulder stays up and Stewart looks like a prize idiot. The only time I've seen a test batsman miss a ball by, literally, more than a foot.
Originally posted by jim440
Fair effort, Dipper.
Warnie set up Stewart weeks before. He bowled a few flippers to him and deliberately dropped his left shoulder. Stewart said in the media he could pick it.
Come the test, Warnies left shoulder stays up and Stewart looks like a prize idiot. The only time I've seen a test batsman miss a ball by, literally, more than a foot.
I never knew that, it just shows the kind of little details that Warne puts in to make himself a great bowler.
Couldn't have put it better, Stewart did look like a prize idiot, I can't help thinking that such a delivery was wasted on him, he has always been a poor player of good quality spin especially from Warne, mainly due to the fact that he pushes so hard at everything & has no concept of playing with soft hands & letting the ball come onto the bat, I would have thought the basic leggie would account for him 9 times out of 10 & the flipper could have been reserved for some like Thorpe who played Warne pretty well, who was a leftie & thus under less threat from the leggie & who liked to play off the back foot to him.
Lots of informed help, especially from Dipper. To me, the thing which distinguishes Warne from any other bowler I've ever seen is the trajectory he achieves. Most leg-spinners have a much more upright bowling action than Warne's.
Warne bowls in a more round-arm fashion. This allows him to impart more spin on the ball and also to get more drift into the pads of a right-hander. It also allows him to get lots of side spin on the ball, causing it to turn even more sharply. The difficulty of bowling round-arm is that it makes it much more difficult to put the ball on a good length. With the arm being lower the degree of difficulty in calculating at which length it will pitch is made much harder. Instead of being able to drag the ball down onto a length, as with a higher action, the ball has to be floated up. This makes his accuracy even more astonishing. IMHO, the fact he doesn't have a good wrong-un is unfortunate, but he makes up for it.
I went to the Junction Oval to see Warne play his first game for Victoria. That day, as I stood behind his arm, I realised he was going to be the best leg-spinner I'd ever seen. Never really thought he'd be the best bowler I've ever seen, but he is. The reason I say this is that not even Lillee looked as though he was about to take a wicket EVERY ball, on any surface, against any batsman.
As for the 'flipper', I've had several people try to explain this delivery to me and the best explanation I can recollect is that the ball is somehow flicked out of the hand between two fingers. I think it somehow comes out of the bottom and front of the hand, but don't hold me to that. I saw a 17 yr old bowl one in a match I umpired last season against the best bat in the competition, who also happens to be a smart A. It bowled him neck and crop, uprooting leg stump as it scooted through him just above the ground. For me, it was the highlight of the season. The batsman wasn't quite as impressed, which impressed me no end.
Leg-spin bowling has a beauty not found in many sports. It is guile, intelligence, patience, skill, incessant practice, planning and understanding your opponents, as opposed to sheer brute stength which is the hallmark of a lot of sport. Long may it flourish.
Holycrap
17 May 2003, 16:05
I think the most important ability Shane Warne has developed is his control of his ball flight. When consistent, god help the batter.
Agree with Skilts, watching Warnie 'try' and fool the batsmen with flight and spin is an art.....and he doesn't mouth off like McGrill does when he gets punished.