by Osama
(Pakistan)
Hi Coach, I am fast bowler, I have a wristy action like Wahab Riaz but I can’t control the seam position.
What should I do to get the seam upright?
Hi Osama,
good question, the seam position is key for quick bowlers and an inability to control it compromises your ability to swing the ball consistently.
Some simple drills will sort this out.
Shadow Bowling: If you have a full length mirror at home, from a standing postion, hold the ball normally with your wrist cocked and locked in behind the ball pointing toward first slip … and slowly go through your action in front of the mirror.
Paying attention specifically to the seam position and focus on keeping it up and straight.
Do this slowly to start off with so you can consciously control the seam.
Do this from stationary and then step back … and step into your action and bowl normally, paying attention to seam and wrist position.
If you don’t have a mirror, do this with a partner, stand 10 metres apart and pay attention to the seam. Watch to see how the seam behaves in the air, you are going to work on a firm wrist, cocked and locked in behind the ball.
Focus on getting the seam upright, work on the degree of tension you have in your fingers so it is neither too tight or relaxed.
Practice with this will grow into your normal bowling performance in the nets, which will lead into improved performance in the middle.
best wishes Coach.
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Morne Morkel – In Full Flow
Hi Sir, I am a fast bowler, I wanted to ask how can I correct the no ball problem I have?
Thanks, please reply soon.
I’ve had a lot of requests from fast bowlers posting questions on run up and no ball problems. So here is an edited re-post of an earlier response to a question from Akram on no ball problems for fast bowlers.
Hi Akram,
The no ball problem can be caused by a number of issues, typically it is because you don’t have a set stride pattern in your run up and this leads to you jumping when you get close to the stumps.
Fast bowlers can also lose their run ups when they get tired and their stride pattern changes because of fatigue.
Ideally you want a smooth, accelerated approach to the crease, based on a set stride pattern.
A simple way of working out what is the right length run up for you is to listen to the natural subconscious timing and rhythm of your body and then build your run up on this.
This is something I learnt many years ago whilst studying fast bowling, I originally came across it in a fast bowling book by the great Dennis Lillee, I amended it and have used it ever since.
To prove its as fresh now as it was then, I used it with Morne Morkel when I first started working with him to sort out a no ball problem he had.
So how does this work?
We are going to work out the exact length of your run up and then measure it – measuring accurately with a tape measure.
To work out the correct length of your run up you will need the help of a friend or your coach.
Go to the side of the field away from the nets or middle strips so as not to be distracted by creases or stumps in your peripheral vision.
These can act as triggers for you to jump when you get near the crease, we remove these visual triggers so that you can listen and feel your bodies natural timing.
Put a marker down on the grass, this will be the marker to begin your run up. You will make sure the foot your run up starts with hits the marker.
You begin by putting your foot on the marker to start your run up.
You close your eyes and run out in a straight line and jump and bowl when it ‘feels’ right.
Do this anywhere from 6 to 12 to 18 times so your partner can see where your front foot lands consistently.
When he gets a regular front foot mark he can put the second marker down, you now have the beginning and end point of your run up.
Do this another 6 – 12 times to get a consistent feel of this and to check consistency.
Measure this, give yourself a margin of 6-12 inches on the length of this so you can you fine tune it in future sessions.
You will need to practice this regularly so that you have over-learnt it to the point where it works on automatic, without you consciously having to think about it.
Work on this over a couple of weeks, doing it 2/3 times each week for 3 to 6 overs to get it deeply imprinted into your subconscious mind.
Come back to this exercise if your run up needs tweaking in the future.
Use your tape measure at each game and practice to make sure it is measured properly.
Happy Fast Bowling ! Coach
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Cricket Bowling Tips: Fast Bowling: Balance and Control In Pace Bowling
by Khalique (Orissa, India)
Morne Morkel: Shadow Bowling
Hi Sir, I’m 6.3″ fast bowler, I weigh 62kg and I’m 18 years of age.
My coach says I have a very smooth action, but my problem is that I’m not able to increase my pace.
I actually think that I’m losing pace when I bound and land in the crease when I should be setting myself to bowl. I don’t feel stable.
Any suggestions to be stronger and more balanced in my action, my run up is 15 step and I have a quick action.
Thanks in advance. Khalique
Hi Khalique,
the pace of your run up builds momentum into the crease, as you rightly point out, you want to be able to transfer this pace from your run up, through your action, into ball speed when you bowl.
To maintain and control your pace we need to make sure you are balanced and in a stable position in your action, from your bound, to landing, to ball release and follow through.
I want you to think of your energy when your bowling (energy) moving in a straight line, like a beam of energy or light.
This beam of light goes from the top of your run up, all the way through your action and down through the completion of your follow through.
To work on your balance and control I want you to ask your coach to help you with these drills at the nets.
I want you stand in the crease to start to work on this, we are going to begin with 1 step bowling from a stationary position.
Then 3 step bowling…. working backwards through 5 steps, 7 steps, 9 steps to full run up.
Beginning with one step bowling:
I want you to stand in the crease as if you are going to bowl to the batter at the other end. Your coach is going to stand at the batters end and watch your action when you bowl.
Align your body, beginning with your feet, exactly as they land when you bowl. Now set yourself to bowl, rock back slightly and bowl the ball at off stump at the batters end.
Ask your coach to check to make sure that your body alignment is right, that you are getting your front arm up high and your front knee up, to snap them down hard when you bowl and then drive hard over your front leg.
Practice this a few times till you feel stable and have control over where the ball is going.
3 Step Bowling:
Then take two paces back, now step and jump into the crease and bowl the ball to your coach.
Again, ask him to check to make sure that your body alignment is good and that your action is strong. That you are bowling the ball straight and that you have a full and strong follow through.
5 Step Bowling:
Go back another 2 steps, continue the same drill. Lean forward into your run up:
Now your beginning to increase your run up speed and work on the transfer of pace from your run up and through your action.
Continue this, work back adding two paces at a time to your run up until you are off your full run up.
Monitor your control and accuracy, you should be much stronger in the crease now, your jump and landing ( your bound ) should be in a straight line and you should find that the ball isn’t losing pace.
See that attached picture of Morne Morkel who is doing some shadow bowling, visualizing and focusing on some check points in his action before a game.
Like the above pic, you can copy and model the fast bowler who is most like you and your action, whether its Morne Morkel, Zaheer Khan, Ishant Sharma, Dale Steyn or Brett Lee.
Looking at their action and copying them gives your Brain a picture of what your action should look like.
Copying their action allows you to train your body to get close to the bowling technique and bio-mechanal model of excellence that they have built their bowling success upon.
With regards to getting stronger for fast bowling and for filling out your growing body, see Greg King’s pages on Cricket Fitness.
Work hard and smart … Happy Fast Bowling.
best wishes Coach
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Cricket Fast Bowling Tips: Bowling like Glenn McGrath
by Visveswaran.k (Chennai)
Glenn McGrath: The Complete Fast Bowler
Hello Coach, this is Visvses, I am a 16 yr old Fast Bowler.
I am a great fan of Glenn McGrath, I would like to be able to bowl like him.
Please offer me fast bowling tips to help me take wickets.
Thank you Visvses
Hi Visvses,
Glenn McGrath, now there’s a fast bowler ! What a great choice of a bowler to emulate, he is one of my favourites too.
I was on the receiving end of some great bowling from Glenn when I was Pakistan coach. We weren’t often the ones doing the dominating either.
Lets look at what made Glenn McGrath a great bowler and you can find some tips to help you take wickets from this analysis.
McGrath was able to exert incredible pressure on batters with his fantastic control. He would literally sit on a length on off stump and just outside and suffocate the batter, waiting for the batter to commit an error of judgement.
The line that he bowled from wicket to wicket would demand the most intense focus from the batter, he would get very close to the stumps at the bowlers end and the batter would be forced to play at virtually every ball.
McGrath’s height was also critical to his success, his ability to extract bounce from his clean, economical action would often find him taking the edge. Tall fast bowlers have this advantage and it is an underestimated weapon for a bowler, but they have to have the patience to maintain their length.
His action was supreme, biomechanically efficient, an economical run-up, high front arm, still head and easy action allowed him to bowl long spells.
In combination with Warne, Gillespie and Lee, they made up an almost perfect bowling line up.
Great mental skills: The ability to hypnotise the opposition batters with his predictions and targeting of key batters.
Confident, aggressive and with a wonderful ability to maintain focus and manage his spells.
All the hallmarks of the elite performer.
Now I challenge you to summarise that and extract the key themes that I have written about and incorporate them into your own bowling.
Happy Fast Bowling … Coach
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Cricket Bowling Tips: New Ball Bowling
by Visves (Chennai, India)
Hi Coach,
how should a fast bowler open his attack with the new ball?
Hi Visves,
The new ball always offers the opportunity to take wickets.
New ball bowling is reasonably simple, you want to be hitting a length consistently on off stump and just outside.
You want to be bowling a length which gets all three key dismissals involved. Full enough to bowl the batter, get the LBW into the game and draw the batter forward to initiate the edge.
Glenn McGrath’s modus operandi of sitting in the channel of off stump and fourth stump ( one stump out from off stump)on a length and building up pressure is a simple but hugely effective strategy.
The length you bowl with the new ball is key, rather slightly fuller than shorter, I always encouraged Dale Steyn to bowl a fuller length partly through my experience with Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram.
Their stock length was always fuller, for the ‘3 in 1’dismissal, intelligently using the short ball to push the batter back to then draw him forward.
Game Strategy: It’s also important to do your homework on the opposition, know the weak areas of your opposition batters.
There is always opportunity in the first 6-18 balls you bowl to a new batter before his eyes, hands and feet link together.
Know the pattern to his dismissals, does he sit back on his stumps early on and is susceptible to LBW?
Does he play away from his body and you can pull him across the crease during the over to draw the edge?
Is he a front foot batter who you can target with the short ball?
Keep it simple and be patient, if you build up pressure you can help to take wickets at the other end as well.
Both bowlers focus on working in partnerships, handing pressure over from one bowler to another, as the game moves forward.
Good skills, Coach
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Cricket Bowling Tips: Fast Bowling / Bowling to a Left Handed Batsman
by Visves (Chennai)
Hi Coach,
This is Visves, how should a right arm fast bowler look to dismiss a left handed batsman?
Hi Visves, keys aspects to focus on when bowling to a left hand batsman are make sure you are bowling an off stump line that brings the LBW into play.
Movement off the seam to the off side can bring in the outside edge.
In my experience this line and one more stump to the offside (we call this 4th stump)is where left handers have most trouble, the lenght just needs to be full enough to draw the batter out of the crease.
If the batter is well settled and is judging and playing the off stump – 4th stump line well, then going around the wicket and attacking off stump and just outside can pull the batter across the crease.
Holding the same length, bringing an edge from changing the batters eyeline and focus point.
I hope these suggestions are useful, kind regards Coach
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Cricket Bowling Tips: How To Bowl Fast Like Brett Lee
by Aditya Singh (Bareilly, Up, India)
Brett Lee: Speed King
Hi Sir,
I want to ask how I can bowl faster, like Brett Lee ?
If I try to bowl quicker I am not constant in my line and length and bowl too wide.
My action is similar to Brett Lees.
I am 17 years old.
thank you, Aditya.
Hi Aditya,
watching Brett Lee bowl is still one of the great spectacles in world cricket and it is great that you want to copy him.
You’ll see in a lot of my responses to questions in “Cricket Tips” how I suggest the importance of role models and great players that you can copy.
So well done on choosing Brett Lee as your model of fast bowling excellence, he is one of the all time greats.
Here are a couple of pointers for you to increase your pace and control.
1. Keep Your Focus: Its important for you to keep the goal of wanting to bowl quick.
Even if you have some coaches who try to tell you to focus on line and length, keep your focus on being a fast bowler.
Its easy to train bowlers to bowl line and length,
but we want fast bowlers !
2. Training Fast to Bowl Fast:
Fast Bowlers have a specific muscle type called ‘fast twitch fibre’, this allows athletes to move their bodies quickly, running, kicking, throwing … and in cricket, fast bowling.
Part of training the fast twitch muscle fibres is to activate them … so you are going to bowl spells at cricket practice and in games when you run in and bowl flat out.
I would suggest at nets that once you have warmed up, that you bowl 12 – 18 balls (2-3 Overs) at full speed at your best batters.
In season you can look to do this once or twice a week, with a days rest in between.
This will activate these muscle fibres and get them to ‘fire’ properly.
3. Volume of Overs “In Season”:
Don’t bowl more than 4-5 overs in a spell in a game, (as you are getting stronger and your body is filling out this can be gradually increased), and not more than 12 – 14 overs in a days play.
This should safe guard against injury, we want you to stay fit and strong for your bowling as you get older.
4. Fast Bowling Technique: Control and Accuracy
Keep modelling your technique and action on Brett Lee, its great to have an elite model of excellence to copy.
I’ve pointed out before that Dale Steyn’s model of excellence when he was growing up was Brett Lee.
Regarding control, you can practice getting better control in your line and length by bowling at a target without having a batter in front of you.
Put a marker down on a length on off stump, 5 walking steps from the batsmans stumps.
Warm Up properly and then bowl 4-5 overs at your target – at your normal pace, without trying to bowl flat out,
This accuracy work combined with your speed work will allow you develop speed with control.
Make a note with a pen and notebook of your success rate and aim each week to improve on this.
Reflect on what works for you with your focus and your action, this will help you to get a better understanding of your bowling and how to improve.
5. Strength and Fitness: Check out the section on Cricket Fitness so you can begin to work on your conditioning. To bowl fast you need to be in great shape, so read the cricket fitness tips of former India and current Chennai Super Kings conditioning coach Greg King.
Because your still growing, do the exercises with your own body weight, or very light weights until you have stopped growing ( age 22 for males – 18 for women) … where possible get supervision from a conditioing coach at a gym.
Cricket Mental Toughness:
In developing cricket mental toughness you are training your subconscious mind to be able to be calm and focus on the task in front of you, with appropriate skills and cricket strategy.
Practice setting up match situations with your Coach and Captain so you can simulate pressure situations in games.
When you prepare for these, working out the right fields and the lines and lengths to bowl, it is much easier to stay calm and focused when you need it out in the middle. Pressure becomes something you enjoy rather than have to fear.
Practise acting calm, confident and composed in these match simulations… after a while it will be you, because you have practised it !
Happy Fast Bowling Aditya.
Best wishes Coach
*Note to Coaches: There are lots of medium pacers but not many genuine quick bowlers, so its important we encourage young cricketers who have the desire to bowl quick to run in and do that. Regardless if they bowl the odd wide in their pursuit of pace.
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About Richard Pybus
I'm Richard Pybus, I've coached Pakistan, Bangladesh, Middlesex, Titans and the Cape Cobras in South Africa and the goal of this site is to help you to play winning cricket.