Tuesday 4 August 2020

Flipper variations

If you're going to bowl the Flipper, I recommend learning how to bowl the basic 'Bog Standard' variation which is a pure back spinner. Click on the picture below for Jenner's explanation... Scroll through the video to 3.00 mins and you'll see it.












My own explanation is below - again click on the image.













If you've read the previous blog posts about the history of this delivery you'll seen that I dismiss the idea that it's a difficult ball to bowl. What I will say echo's the advice of both Jenner and Benaud... don't try and learn it if you're a kid, as I recall Benaud says don't try until you're over 18 and your bones are fully grown and developed because the stress this puts on your hand and wrist is potentially damaging. 

The spinning action is nothing like anything else in bowling and you'll need to do strength and conditioning exercises on your fingers/hand and wrist for some weeks before trying to bowl the delivery on a wicket. All this involves is doing as described in both these videos with regards to clicking a ball out of your fingers but initially with a smaller lighter ball e.g. a tennis ball. Once you've done that for a while and can spin the ball from one hand to the other accurately, move up to a heavier larger ball such as a smaller readers wind ball or similar training ball. Do that for a while (We're talking about a month of doing this regularly) and then move up to a kids cricket ball (4 1/2 oz) and repeat. You'll probably find that at some point you're going to suffer from soreness in the thumb joints (De Quervain's tenosynovitis) and possibly the fingers and the back of the hand. In which case stop for 4 or 5 days and resume once the soreness has gone. You may also find that you suffer from Medial Epicondylitis and again if you do rest for a week or so and follow guidance for the condition. The final stage is a week of flicking an adult size ball and if you're not suffering any soreness you're ready to start bowling. 

If you find you easily fall foul to the soreness - just look on Youtube for thumb joint exercises and try some of these before resuming.

So you should be able flick the full size cricket ball from hand to hand and up in front of you to catch again with full control. Now find yourself somewhere to practice where you can potentially bowl a full 22 yards. You might want to try and bowl on a good length and by all means do so, but don't get down-hearted if it's a disaster. You're probably better off bowling really slowly and getting a feel for the release point it may even be useful to do it from a stand-start... (Click image below). 



 









As I recall, I worked on getting the ball straight and at the stumps initially over a distance of about 15 yards and it got progressively better. The practice sessions each time were around 3 hours long - sometimes with another hour or two later in the day. I put so much work into this, I then suffered an over-worked Rotator cuff and then had to rest that for 4-5 days, but then resumed and over a period of intense practice lasting 2 weeks I'd nailed it. I did this in my late 40's so I'd assume that if you're younger and fitter you might be able to develop this basic back-spinning Flipper in less time. 








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