HOW TO BOWL
The basic bowling grip
To get the best possible chance of any sort of movement in the air or off the pitch, a fast bowler should grip the ball "seam up".
Learning this basic grip will get your wrist behind the ball, an essential starting point for any bowler.
With the seam vertical, the ball is held in the fingers, resting on the third finger and thumb, with the middle and index fingers either side of the seam.
Try to land the seam as straight as possible on the pitch.
This will give you a much greater chance of any sort of movement, especially with a brand new cherry in your hand.
You'll find some days the ball will swing and seam almost every delivery, while on others it will do almost nothing.
This is because movement relies on four key factors:
A good side-on action will help a bowler to swing the ball away from the bat.
Bowlers can get movement off the wicket if the pitch is cracked. You may have seen cricket commentators showing cracks on Test pitches on TV.
Aiming for the cracks can help the ball move quite considerably.
As the ball gets older, it gets softer and loses its shine.
But polishing one side of the ball will help keep the ball moving in the air.
The inswinger moves in the air from the off side of a right handed batsman to the leg side.
The later the bowl swings into the batsman, the more effective it will be.
The amount of inswing a bowler can
generate depends on plenty of different factors like the weather, the
bowler's action and the condition of the ball.
But the most important factor to consider is the grip on the seam of the ball and its direction.
Another point to remember is to work on shining the ball on one side during and before each delivery.
This will help the ball to swing more in the air.
Step One
Grip the ball with the first two
fingers close together on the seam, with the seam in a vertical
position.
The thumb should be on the seam underneath.
Step Two
Angle the seam towards leg slip or, but keeping it vertical.
The shiny side of the ball should be furthest from the batsman.
Ask any batsman what delivery they hate facing and 99% of the time they'll reply the outswinger.
Bowled at its best, the outswinger is one of cricket's finest sights.
Step One
Grip the ball with the first two
fingers close together on the seam, with the seam in a vertical
position.
The thumb should be on the seam underneath.
Step Two
Unlike the inswinger, point the seam of the ball towards the slips with the shiny side of the ball nearest the batsman.
Your action will play a big role if you want the ball to swing.
If you have a side-on action when you reach the crease, you'll have a greater chance of moving the ball in the air.
Naturally, the best thing possible to use would be a radar gun - however they're not generally widely available to clubs and schools - but there is a simple way that needs just a stopwatch and a calculator (or maths geek) to provide approximate results. Start the stopwatch when the ball is released, and then stop it again when either the batsman hits (or misses) it, then divide 45 (or 72) by your answer to get your answer in miles per hour (or kilometres). For example, a delivery timed at 1 second has travelled at about 45mph (72kph). To break the magical 100mph (160kph) barrier, the clock must register at 0.45 seconds. Once you get used to working the timer, you will get surprisingly consistent results. I've found that standing at the back of the net, either directly behind or just to the side, gets the best results.
