I'm a leg-spinner, and I tend to get more overspin than sidespin - for this reason I always have a short extra cover and a short fine leg, for the miscued cover drive and sweep respectively. In these positions you can both save runs and get catches. They're great for overspun balls that pitch shorter than expected and consequently bounce higher; less useful for the big lateral turners though...

I'm a leg-spinner put i can only get Top-Spin on the ball it's annoying me

I'm a legspinner and can vary my legspins woth more sidespin or overspin the only advice I can say chris is that try and position your wrist in a cocked position (you wrist bent inwards) and as you bring your arm up "flick" your wrist from right to left this may be uncomfortable at first but hopefully you'll be able to do it with practise.

I am a leg spin bowler and I always have a "45" to protect the singles behind square on the leg side. Also, I wouldn't have mid wicket and deep mid wicket.

iam a leg spiner: what is a flipper? what is a top spin?

thanks....i am my schools cricekt captain and off spinner. my main concern is that when i bowl to a batman, he either slog sweeps me even if i bowl outside the off stump. but if i pitch it short, he goes on the backfoot and drivesme....i have tried many times to bowl faster ones to him but he is quick....wat should i do? and can u also tell me where i should bowl on the pitch basically? 1m away from the batsman or 2m?
thanks once again

I bowl Chinaman's but there doesn't seem to be any feild set above except for the first under 'slow left arm', but that seems to be for left arm orthodox, anyone care to help.

David thanks but I think you may be confused i spin the ball into the right-hander...

I honestly donn't have a great feild, infact I'd say it's pretty poor. I find it fairly easy to bowl to lefty's, just pitching it outside off spinning away seems to annoy them, but for right-handers I have no clue.

Everywhere... I don't know there doesn't seem to be an exact area. It depends how I'm bowling, but it usually goes around covers/point, or if I'm not bowling on line anywhere on the boundary on leg .

Sounds good, but by sweep shot do you mean reverse? and what type of slip? backwards of the keeper, how far? or a wider gullyish slip?
also, I usually have to bowl outside off as i get a fair bit of bounce and even a good length ball will pop up and anything not on off stump our outside will get hit onto the leg.

Also I've been thinking of a field with a short cover, cover (different angle), extra cover, forward point and mid off. On the on side, short backward square (for the small shots they usually play around the corner), mid wicket and mid on.
This leaves me with two fielders, one I would most likey put deep at square and the other as another cover (possibly deep, sweeping) or as a slip.

i am a good spinner, but i can get so much spin it goes outside the square sometimes what do i do.

If the ball goes there then you would be a fool not to.

I would suggest posing a question like that on the forum Luke.

thnx............................................a................................lot........................

It depends a great deal on the situation. To right handers the ball will turn in so you need to defend the leg side like an off spinner. However, if you are using your variations effectively you also need cover on the off side. A 5/4 leg side split would work well as a starting point.

Don't bowl short!

Yes there are other back-spinning deliveries - The Flipper. With regards the question about side spin it's both the wrist position and the 3rd finger that help to impart side-spin.

Suraj I take it you bowl Leg Spin (Wrist Spin) and that you're right handed? If so that means you're bowling Googly's which in the short term is a problem. You need to bowl the Leg Break which turns the other way towards the off-side. What you need to do is concentrate on where your wrist is facing as your arm comes over your head to release the ball. The wrist and the palm of your hand need to be facing the batsman as you release the ball. If you've been bowling Googly's for a long time this is going to feel really wrong and it may take you months of doing this before it feels right and the ball turns the other way. If you need more help search the internet using the phrase 'Googly Syndrome' and you should find more details about how to correct this. But in the long term if you manage to get the Leg Break you'll always retain the ability to bowl your Googly. The key to getting wickets is to bowl an accurate Leg Break ball.

i am a leg spineer i dont ha ve consistency in my line what should ido

i find jumping higher during the fast bowl to correct its length problems and usualy the batsman rarly picks up that give away fast enought befor getting out

Praveen,
this is a normal problem...you are probably tensing up in a match situation and not getting into rhythm. Then you bowl a couple of full tosses, get hit for boundaries, and then you only get more tense and the bowling gets worse. Another thing that can happen in a match situation is that you are stopping early in your follow-through instead of taking an extra step or two after you go through your bowling action - this will also cause you to lose rhythm.
The solution is this: Set a strong off-side field, including a sweeper point on the boundary, a slip, an extra-cover saving the single, and a long-off. Start your spell by bowling a foot and a half outside off-stump for the entire first over until you get the length/flight right, and with this strong off-side field you won't concede boundaries. For a wrist spinner, it takes about 7-8 balls to get into rhythm, and if you don't get hit in this time then you will grow in confidence. Once you get into the rhythm and the ball is coming with a nice high action, then slowly move the line and start attacking the stumps. You can start this by bowling your googly in the second over third/fourth ball, and hopefully you will put it on length outside off, and the batsman won't expect it at all because you just bowled 8 balls going away.
Good luck!

At the other chinaman. Im not trying to be rude but the field that was suggested is not right at all. You are spinning into the batsman and as Terry Jenner says attack with the ball defend with the field. You should have a 5 legsde 4 offside field. Usualy on leg you would have mid on, a patrolling midwicket, a deep backwards sqaure leg (MUST HAVE), deep midwicket (if not needed put him in the midwicket region) and a 45. On the off I would have a mid off cover, extra cover and point. There is no need for a slip and definately no need for a third man if he reverse sweeps its a good shot but you are close to a wicket

What field do you normally set, and where are the runs getting hit?

It sounds like you are bowling too short which is the biggest problem. Do target practice and and you should see your run rate improve. Get the batter playing forward and get your dismissals with bowled through the gate or caught at slip from the one that goes with the arm.

As to the field, It is fairly sound although it's unusual to have a short leg and then 2 deep men in school cricket. I would say lose the short leg (unless he is taking catches for you) or bring in the deep midwicket (if your short leg is getting catches the ball shouldn't be heading out to cow much).

You certainly need an extra cover too. 5/4 leg side split is good.

Don't be afraid to leak runs if you are getting the batsman to play forward. If he is driving or sweeping you have a chance of getting him out. However if he is playing back and hitting square you are bowling badly and you can't set a field to that.

Yes - if the batsman is cutting and pulling you are bowling too short Dave. Even playing back foot drives is not ideal. The point is - you have to get the batsman playing forward.

Jack, Dip's a pretty easy one to suss, especially if you're able to get in the nets and bowl at a batsman. The secret to dip is to get your top-spinner working, if you don't already bowl a top-spinner I would advise that you look to having it as your first and possibly only other variation because it enhances your Leg Break. You need to bring your wrist round in the delivery so that your thumb is aimed at the batsman as your arm comes over the top in your delivery. If you were to look up at that point you'd be looking at the back of your hand. The important thing is to still be giving the ball a big flick off the 3rd finger using the wrist, getting maximum rotation. The top-spin will then cause the ball to dip - the more spin the more dramatic the dip. If you practice it, you're quite likely to be able to see the effect and you might think that you're bowling short - but you just need to adapt your length slightly to accomodate the dip. But if you get a chance once you're getting it sussed bowl with a batsman - bowl your normal stuff and the put in the Top-Spinners without saying anything and if he's playing through the shot - ask him - did it dip, see if he notices the difference.

Drift: Bob Woolmer has made some interesting comments in his book 'The Art and Science of Cricket', looking at Warne's 'Ball of the Century' Woolmer comments....

"If the axis of rotation of the delivery is the same direction as the direction of the forward movement of the delivery, then the delivery will not drift. Thus to bowl his ‘Ball from Hell’, Warne had to have the axis of the rotation of the delivery at an angle to its direction of movement. Most likely, the seam was tilted slightly backwards from vertical (When seen from above), with the seam on the left side of the ball slightly ahead. In this position, the axis of rotation (seen from behind the ball) is upwards and to the leg side".
Art & Science of Cricket; Bob Woolmer; New Holland Publishers; London; 2008.

If you can get your head round that, if you're looking to get maximum drift you need to be flighting the ball with the seam almost spinning at 90 degrees to the direction of flight (Big Leg Break), but the seam needs to tilted backwards rather than just straight up and down as it spins through the air. I find that the levels of awareness required to be in control of your fine motor skills in what is essentially quite a violent action (Explosion through the crease) are acute. It takes years and years of practice to be able to think - 'Right - this one's going to have loads of drift on because I'm going to do this.......' To be able to bowl with that kind of accuracy is a long term objective or something that perhaps some people do naturally?

But a simple answer is in there somewhere because lots of Leg-Spinners do get lots of drift.
1. Get the seam spinning so that you're trying to turn it big.
2. Get your wrist right over the ball trying to put lots of top spin on the ball as well as releasing it with the seam pointed 45 degrees or more to its flight direction.
3. If you can get your head round the idea of tilting the axis try it. But a combination of good top-spin and angle will produce drift.

Hope that helps

Have a look at my blog it's being re-constructed at the moment, but the images are still there and the text is still fairly 'Sound'. If you fish around it, you'll also find stuff about leg breaks and drift. http://legspinbowling.blogspot.com/2009/03/big-leg-break.html

For an offspinner you're looking to beat the inside edge of the bat with your stock delivery and the outside edge with your variation balls. You should be looking to pitch the ball just outside offstump so that your stock ball spins back to hit middle stump. You should be physically twisting the ball as you release it to get as many revolutions as you can on it. This will create drift and turn. If you manage to get an element of topspin onto the ball, then you will also get dip. The ideal stock delivery will be bowled at your natural pace, with 50% sidespin and 50% topspin. This will give you dip, drift and turn. It's hard to help you any more than this without seeing your bowling action.

A few more pointers:

Experiment bowling round the wicket, to both left handers and right handers. This increases the chance of getting both an lbw and an outside edge. From round the wicket you should be pitching the ball on middle stump to lefthanders and off stump to right handers. I bowl finger spin and I only ever bowl round the wicket.

Make sure you pitch the ball up - ask your captain to set mid on and mid off quite deep so that you are not afraid of being driven - you want your opponent driving, this is where the majority of your wickets will come from. You should be bowling a "short half-volley".

Always spin the ball as hard as you can. The slower you bowl, the more effort you will need to make to physically spin the bowl as you let go of it. Sometimes in trying to spin the ball hard you will drag it short. Your captain should give you a deep square leg to protect you. Without this protection, spinners are often reluctant to really try and spin the ball and instead focus on not getting hit for four.

Once you have mastered a good stock ball, learn a couple of simple variations, but only bowl one variation ball an over. Which ones suit you will depend on your action. The main options are the arm-ball, the undercutter, the backspinner, the topspinner, or the legcutter. All of these balls will attack the opposite edge of the bat to your stock delivery. Its wise to bowl them a fraction quicker that your stock ball, as this adds to the element of surprise.

hello, i am an off spinner and i play under 15s cricket (20 overs) and i am one of the younger ones and i have an iconsitant line and lengh when i am not in form. i do get turn but i have a basic off spinning action so i cannot discise my variations well. i need a defensive field what should i do

i bowl leg spin around the wicket. What is the best field set up with more on the off side for right handers?

4/5 field is the best Ifeel even today two catches went in that area. In the radio commentary days we used to hear frequently of backward short leg, forward shortleg, short square leg, a silly mid on and so for Prasanna, Venkat & co. The fielders excelled in these positions were like Solkar Abid ali and co.

Im interested...where do u play cricket? England?

I play in Australia... In queensland, if it matters