Drift, dip and spin

Those three magical words that have fuelled millions of conversations (some in hushed tones – out of respect, you know) between spin bowlers all over the world.

And we are not about to stop.

They are like a recipe with three ingredients.

On their own, individually, they are nice: a decent extra to what you serve up to the batsman.

But put them together and you bring forth a devilish concoction that should keep even the best batsman awake at night (even Sachin might twitch a little in his sleep at the memory of Warne sending down one which contains all three).

So, what is the deal here? Why are these three ingredients so important?

Flight

Flight gets the batsman moving his head (bad for him, good for you), as you toss it up above his eye level. You spin it from above his eye line.

Drift

Drift makes the ball move sideways in the air (almost like a swing bowler) and the batsman has to follow this with his head as well. You now got the batsman moving his head up and down and to the side (really not good for him). This is something both offies and leggies can do.

Dip

Dip completes the magic trio by making the ball dip short in front of the batsman. The ball falling shorter than where he thinks it will be landing. And so he gets his judgment of the length wrong.

Can you start to see why batsmen break out in a cold sweat when you start doing all three (at the same time)?

A batsman's head will be moving all over the place to follow the ball and this is what you want. A batsman moving his head, is not balanced, and makes mistakes.

How to get the ball to do all three

Teaching you how to do all three is almost impossible in a single newsletter (if it was easy then everybody will be doing it).

But, I will give you one exercise to help you with flight and dip:

This week’s homework...

Take two strings and strung them (at the batsman’s eye level height) across the nets, at about 7 yards from you and then again at 14 yards.

You try and bowl the ball over the first string and have it dip before the second string. If you flight the ball right and it dips correctly you will be able to do this.

Bowl the ball 'up' over the first string as spin it as hard as you possible. The revolutions on the ball will make it do all sorts of magic. Like dip and drift.

See you next time,

Cheers

 

PS.

 

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This lesson is the third in a course on the fundamentals of taking wickets as a spinner. It’s delivered free. Click here to subscribe — it’s free.

 

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