I think I have mentioned this earlier, but I have a peculiar problem with my bowling action. I just cannot stick to one bowling action. I keep trying out different bowling actions and sometimes when I am tired I switch to some other action. I have a feeling that I can bowl certain types of deliveries better with certain types of bowling action. I only hope that this is not true but somehow it ends up like this. I have named the different bowling actions that I use as
- Glenn McGrath style – typical action, with ball near the chin while taking the jump
- West Indian style – like Walsh, with that high bowling arm action
- Shoaib Akthar style – typical action, side on and slingy
- Regular side-on style – nothing special nor orthodox
If I bowl in the McGrath style, I can fire in the Yorkers almost 9 times in 10 deliveries but I get tired easily and cannot hold this style of bowling action for long. Plus I become very predictable and balls that are just short of Yorker length are very very easy to whack.
If I bowl with the West Indian style, I can bowl good length deliveries with nice bounce of the pitch. But I usually lose my run up and the flaying arms interlock or hit some part of my body and I lose my rhythm. But the funny thing is that I cannot bowl any other delivery other than good length or just short of good length no matter how hard I try. And it gets very irritating when I cannot bowl Yorkers.
If I bowl in Shoaib Akthar style, I can get good pace and can even bowl awesome slower balls and bouncers occasionally. But I have not been using this style of late since its bad for the body and the arm, especially at the elbow joint. However, I have not been very successfully with the Yorkers using this style. This style however I very easy for me and I can keep good rhythm no matter how long I bowl. Again, maybe the reason why I abandoned this action is that I am just not able to bowl on the stumps when I use a regular leather cricket ball. When I play tennis ball cricket this action is brilliant, but when I play with the leather ball I end up bowling to the slips.
Finally the regular side-on style is nothing but a fall back mechanism when the first 2 styles fail me. There is nothing in particular about that style I just come in and deliver the ball without putting in any special effort. Trying to maintain or follow each style while bowling takes a lot out of me and I default to some random mixed style which is not quite consistent and changes each delivery. I have tried to bowl orthodox side-on but there is so much happing there that I am just not able to concentrate and end up splaying the ball around. The reason why I hate bowling orthodox is that I have to concentrate on
- Jumping to get completely side-on
- Raising the left arm high and looking at the batsman from the outside
- Bringing down the left arm hard and tucking it next to the body
- Giving that little flick to the ball with the fingers running straight down the seam
And I end up concentrating on none of the above.
On occasional weekends I have bowled with some new action (mostly side-on variations) that has been brilliant and I have been unplayable for more than 90% of the session, let alone someone just getting a bat to the ball. But the next weekend, I would have forgotten how I bowled the last time and again end up with some random action.
So, I am using this blog to try and think about what are my strengths and weaknesses and how I should develop my own customized action that will really help me bowl to the best of my abilities and bowl well.
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Tagged: academy, action, akram, akthar, bowling, Cricket, mcgrath