becoming a faster bowler

both.

make sure u are running at ur full pace when you hit the crease, have a long enough run up to build momentum. snap or flex your wrist though at the point of delivery. fast arm action.

hi, i am a fast bowler who is currently training with Yorkshire CCC first team, i have been clocked at 78mph but i really want to become quicker. the run-up is fine, delivery and follow through is fine, my coaches can only really offer me practice, but is there any advice you could offer me to hit that 80mph mark.

thanks inswinger, thats really helpful

130 km/h at 13 is physically impossible unless you are an absolute genetic freak who is huge.

Don't know what he's on about but I've seen McGrath live from the stands and I can tell you, he's much faster off the pitch than those speed guns say! Mitchell Johnson on the other hand is bloody fast through the air!

the speed gun measures out of the hand....

So back to topic. The runup is also an essential part of bowling quicker, a good runup will get you through the crease a lot better and will get you more pace.

I've been bowling fairly quickly by my standards recently and I think its mainly down to just being relaxed and not trying to overcomplicate things as i'm bowling.  I pretty much gave up on bowling quick, previously I was straining every muscle in my body and trying various different actions to try and get extra speed although now i'm bowling faster then I was pretty much jogging to the crease and going through the action.

Admittedly I'm a pretty strong guy, spend quite alot of time in the gym so the strength is there, was obviously just counter productive for me to have been trying so hard. Lets hope that some accuracy comes with the pace in time for when nets start.

right. my action is pretty good but my front knee is never straight. it used to be but it isn't anymore. im bowling faster because i am using much better biomechanics in my action but this has caused my front knee to be bent.
would i be even faster if it wasnt? and how important to my bowling is it?

You should also remember that feeling "loose" when you bowl will help you bowl quicker too, if you run in looking really tight it looks really bad, but instead you should just run in forget about the runup and how you run in but just run in and bowl and the speed will come.

Feeling loose and natural will also brace that front knee of yours without actually thinking about bracing it. I learnt that a few months ago but I'm still coming in abit tight.

That day at training with grade cricketers a few months ago was the best, it really standed out to all my other ones, I was relaxed, loose, didn't care about anything ( ). Just ran in naturally and bowled naturally and I reckon I was bowling a lot quicker to my current pace then later that session I started thinking about my runup and I lost it and my knee wasn't bracing, and I was back to bowling a lot slower. With that quicker pace I was getting a lot more carry, more bounce, more pace, more everything and I reckon if I put more effort in the follow-through, it could've been abit quicker. Now, I'm slowly learning from the mistakes and gradually getting it back.

My advice, don't overcomplicate it like I did.



Edited by RightHandBat - 21 December 2007 at 4:33am

Hi, thanks for the replies, the advice was gold dust, thanks. I was just wandering if any of you recommend Sprinting at 100m will benefit the run-up at all. And also would training Anaerobically benefit fast bowling?

just to say thanks for the help chin music, sorry bout the non-reply. i am at uni now where guys are a fair bit quicker and sometimes i can't even see it! but thanks anyway.

Edited by Alfie103 - 28 January 2008 at 1:04pm

Where did that come from?

to be honest its pretty much all in the action. i dont want to sound to up myself but im probably the quickest bowler in my pretty successful team and i just womble up to the wicket before i bowl. as an opposing batsman put it to his partner: "hes quicker than he looks"