by Karan Kashyap
(Bangalore, Karnataka, India)
Murali Kartik: Beautiful Flight And Subtle Changes Of Pace ( Photo: Harry Engels/Getty Images Europe)
Hello Coach,
This is Karan From India, I am an aspiring young cricketer and I am a batting all-rounder, my question is how do I bowl flighted deliveries, pace off the ball?
And also please share a few tips on bowling in the death overs.
Thanking You, Yours Sincerely Karan
Hi Karan, great to hear from a young spinner looking to bowl with changes of pace, particularly taking pace off, rather than speeding up the delivery, which is a common mistake made by experienced and inexperienced spinners alike.
I’ve been very fortunate to work with some wonderful spinners and Murali Kartik, the Indian left arm spinner is one who springs to mind when you ask about changes of pace.
Kartik has a simple, flowing approach into the crease, it is a gentle run up which allows him to be balanced going into his action. It also carries enough pace so that he doesn’t have to force or ‘muscle’ the delivery to generate drift, dip and spin.
So, you want to change pace by taking pace off the ball, lets look at some subtle, simple variations around this.
I learnt alot from Kartik, a couple of pointers from him for you:
As you go into the crease and raise your front arm, think ‘slow’ front arm as you bring it up to its highest point.
This allows you to hold the front side of the body in position and set up your release point, from here you can drive through your action with your bowling arm.
When your front arm is ‘slow’ you can pause at the top of your action and play with how quickly you drive through, this allows you to make very subtle changes in pace, especially if a batter commits too soon to the shot.
Using the crease to create variation … you can bowl the same ball from close to the stumps, mid crease and wide in the crease, now you have three variations laterally to go with the changes of pace you will generate by altering your bowling arm speed.
Kartik is superb at playing with a batter in this way.
A couple of other variations for you …
1. Put the ball slightly deeper in your hand, this will impart less revolutions on the ball, flight it a little more, but bring your length back a foot. The goal is to have the batter caught misreading the flight.
For death bowling, you need a positive, aggressive mindset, your going to get hit for runs, accept it, engage in the battle with the batter.
Work on landing a stock ball which is shorter than a normal length by about 12-18 inches, you don’t want to allow the batter to hit you off your length.
Work on a consistent yorker, an arm ball that drifts and arm ball that is straight and quicker. These variations need to be nailed down and consistent so you can trust them under pressure.
Look to change pace during the over so the batter can’t line you up, also watch the batters movement in the crease so you can close down his hitting space.
Marlon Samuels isn’t going to get any awards for ‘pretty’ slow bowling, but he landed his yorkers in the World Cup T20 when he was under pressure. Make sure you can do this in practice so you can take it out into the middle in games.
Look to bowl into a long boundary if there is one and put your fastest boundary rider out there so that you force the batter to hit the sweepers rather than target the shorter boundary.
Check out this recent post for spin bowling tips on controlling line and length which may also help.
Cricket Coaching Spin Bowling Tips/ Controlling Line And Length
Best Wishes Coach
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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.