Josh Kennedy: [00:00:00] Welcome back to the Cricket Matters podcast, and today's topic is Why Club Cricketers Struggle Against Spin. And apparently, according to, uh, my co-host James b Breeze, it isn't what you think. So if it isn't what I think, although I don't know what I think, uh, what is it? Who knows. Knows, is big Mystery.
Mystery. Okay. Just a quick question for you. So in seriously, in your opinion as a, uh, you're middle, you're middle order batsman, right? I'm an open Batman pretty much. Oh my God, how can I forget that? Sorry. As an opening batsman, my apologies. Terrible taking you down the order there. Mm-hmm. Would you say it's harder to face fast bowlers or spin bowlers, or obviously they both have their challenges, but what would you rather face?
James Breese: Great question. Um, fast bowlers being above 80 miles an hour. Uh, let's, let's categorize that. Yeah. I think that's, that's an important thing. Uh, it's a different. Game altogether. Yeah, it is. It's, [00:01:00] it's two separate games. So as an opening batsman, I predominantly faced fast ballman, right? Yeah. And in club cricket, you're not really facing that many ballers above 80 miles an hour.
Right? Unless you're playing high level Premier League cricket, uh, and going into second 11 county and going to county cricket, that's, I think that's a really important distinction. However, funnily enough. I'm facing more and more 80 mile an hour bowlers at the moment, so I'm gonna change my game and work according accordingly to it because it's a different style.
I personally enjoy playing spin bowling. I really enjoy it. Because I've worked on it hard last two to three years because it was, when I came back into cricket looking at club level, the big thing I noticed was the vast majority of club cricketers struggle against spin the topic of this podcast. Yeah.
And what I found was actually, yeah, I'm, I, I need to relearn how to play spin. So I spent really two to three years really honing that tactic and the technique and working with Steve and working with on my [00:02:00] game around different players because there's a lot of spin bowlers. Good club spin bowlers at, at a better level.
Um, there's some, you know, let's take the, you know, like in South Wales Premier League and Diviv one Cricket, you get two, maybe three scene bowlers. Then it's dominated by good spin bowlers. Okay, so there's a high proportion of spinball getting involved quickly.
Josh Kennedy: They generally face more spin then do they than uh,
James Breese: well, the lower down tends more face, more seam, but then the spin has come on.
So it's, it's, it's a balance between the two. The higher up the ranks, you go in club level cricket, the more spin balling you face, and that's what people get unstuck. So it's uh, it's a roundabout way. It's, um, to answer your question. I enjoy facing spin bowling now because I'm, it's a game plan. I've got to it, but I have to earn the right as an opening Batman to get to the spin bowling to face through the fast bowling.
So I need, I need to play both essentially, uh, if I wanna score runs and get forward. Tan
Josh Kennedy: question, so, yeah. Yeah. No, good. So [00:03:00] let's go into it then. Why do you think club cricketers struggle against spin? Yeah. So.
James Breese: Most of the club cookers will think it's technique. Mm. What they don't have is a game plan and a set of processes to understand what spin balling is.
So the very most important concept you have to understand, the better the spin bowler. The more you can go into your box a toolbox and come out with all the tricks to deal with it, okay? Mm-hmm. The weaker the spin bowler, the simpler the game plan has to be. Now, what I mean by this, let's take a division eight bowler, right?
Spin bowler, okay? Mm-hmm. More often than not, they're gonna bowl two bad balls and over. Therefore your game plan becomes very simple. Wait for the bad ball, make sure you punish the bad ball. Either be a full toss [00:04:00] or be a short, long, long hop you can put to the boundary. Right? Yeah. That is as simple as it needs to be.
You don't need to go into your box of tricks of coming down the wicket of sweeping, reverse, sweeping, changing positions, changing angles, stepping out, in and out. Mm-hmm. You don't need to do that because. You have no idea where the ball is gonna be bowled. Essentially. You don't, 'cause the bowler has no idea where he's gonna bowl the ball.
Right? Yeah. I'll give you a classic example. I broke my rule the other week. I was fuming with this. I scored 55, right? And a bowler came on and he wasn't the best spin bowler. Right? And I've just been sweeping in. Completely because that's just my simple game. I'm just gonna sweep them any, any angle, short, long, full toss without, I'm gonna sweep him.
So they changed the field, ended up becoming a six three field on my leg side because I was sweeping there. And then I thought, do you know what? I'm gonna just reverse sweep him now. He bowled a rank long hop and I got out LBW 'cause I just couldn't deal. It wasn't, I, I wasn't set up to deal [00:05:00] with a reverse sweep with a crap rank.
A long hop. Right. It wasn't that, it was embarrassing. It was ridiculous. I looked like a dick. But
Josh Kennedy: basically you should
James Breese: never have done that 'cause you should have just defended it easily. Right. Exact not defended it or defend it or waited for it and just played the actual bad or played it on its merit, right?
Yeah. So a lot of club cricketers, try and learn how to sweep, reverse sweep, come down the wicked when basically. The lower standards, they don't do need to because yeah, the lower the quality of the bowler, the less you need to go into your box of tricks and just wait for the bad ball. So that's the first mistake.
They try and do shots that are too ambitious for the level of the bowler they're facing. Okay. So
Josh Kennedy: basically, as you say, you were, you were sweeping in, then you decided to reverse sweep rather than just watch the ball and go, oh, I can just, you know, knock it to the boundary or essentially in complete layman's terms.
Yeah, because it's. Yeah. Not consistent.
James Breese: They're not boring. Consistent, yeah, exactly. Now I was sweeping just because it was the easiest way for doing I, I'm comfortable with doing that. [00:06:00] Yeah. Right. I could've just stood there and blocked it and play off the back foot, whatever I wanna do, but I just, just wanted to sweep him.
I just like, that's my easiest go-to shot for dealing with any ball. Because you can premeditate that. Mm-hmm.
Josh Kennedy: At
James Breese: a higher level of thinking. Okay. Yeah. So that was not my game plan. So I got out stupidly by going into my box of tricks by being too ambitious for the level of the bowl that it was. So that is lesson number one for club cricketers.
The lesser the quality of the bowler, right? The less you need to go into your toolbox to deal with that spinner.
Josh Kennedy: Okay. Mm-hmm.
James Breese: That's the figs and big mistake. Second mistake, lack of patience, right? Mm-hmm. A lack of understanding, even lack of understanding what the pitch is. Yeah. So. When a spin baller comes on, let's just take, let's, let's now assume they're a good spin bowler.
Okay? Right. So you understand when we're dealing with terrible spin bowlers, we now wanna understand what do we do with good spin balls? Let's just assume they're all putting on the same length each and every ball, which is what a good spinner left arm spin, or off spinner can do. Okay? [00:07:00] First thing you're gonna determine is what is the pitch doing?
Is it a raving bunts and burner, which means it's turning and bouncing all over the place, right? Or is it a hard and fast? There's not much spin, but the ball's coming onto the bat. 'cause how you deal with those two incidents is completely different. If it's turning miles, then. You are less likely to come running down the pitch, try and knock the ball back over the head.
All along the ground, you're less likely to use your feet. Mm-hmm. Your option becomes a sweep. Okay. Essentially, if you're gonna start to do the sweeping it being a tacky option, or even to rotate the strike option or play the ball on merit. Right. It's really important to understand that if it's a fast pitch where it's not turning that much, then well you can get down the wicket 'cause it's less likely to turn past the bat, right?
Either into you or away from you so you can knock it down for singles. It's a clear distinction. You're determining now what your game plan is to spin. Is it to sweep more? Or is [00:08:00] it to come down the wicket more, right? Yeah. Technically even good enough. You can do both. But the point is you need to start thinking about this in the back of your mind, the psychology of playing spin baller.
Right? But we do those two things coming down the wickets or sweeping, because the idea with playing against spin is to do something. Absolutely do something. Most club batters of batsman bats, women batters, however we wanna say it these days. Mm-hmm. They do this. Block, block, block, swing, hit and hope. Hmm.
Block, block, block swing hit and hope they don't have a game plan. So you determine what the pi, the, the, the pitch will tell you what you need to be doing, as will the quality of the bowler. If it's a good bowl of putting on the spot. Now your next option is to decide what is the pitch doing coming onto the bat, or is it turning like a raving buns and burner.
Alright. That allows you to decide what to do next. Mm-hmm. Alright, decide what your game [00:09:00] plan is. That is, in a nutshell, the simplest way to deal with spin bowling, right? Right. You determine those two things. Then the idea is then is do something. Because if you're just gonna block it out, block it out, block it out, then you are always gonna be.
You know, in the pocket of the spin bowl because that's what they want to do. They're gonna weigh you down just through patience. They're on the spot. On the spot. I see it week in, week out, right? Batters get bored, frustrated. They need to score runs. They try and hit out hoping that's the way the score runs.
But that is not the game plan to play against spin, you know, game plan play against me to put them off their line length when they're a good bowler, right? Yeah. Bad balls. Wait for the bad ball. Good bowlers, you gotta put them off their line length. Do something right. That do something even means using your feet to get to the pitch of the ball or starting to sweep, to try and put them off their line of length and just infu, infuriate the crap outta them, right?
That is the key thing. But staying around this area of just [00:10:00] defending four defensive is not the right play to play. If it's a sort of a length SU back, you need to be back, foot and punch it. But the idea is we're trying to create gaps in the field, push the fielders back so that we can start to get the singles.
That is essentially the the game plan we need to do and wait for the bad ball and put the bad balls away. 'cause they will do bad balls. But club cricketers don't play spin well 'cause they haven't got a game plan to playing against spin. Right? Mm-hmm. But therefore also they try and practice their sweeps and reverse sweeps, but they do it to shit bowlers.
Mm-hmm. It doesn't work. Two shit bowlers. Unless you have a plan, you just have to wait for the ball. But the idea is, is then you, then you come into this idea of a game plan of what you do. That is determined by the level of the bowler and the quality of the pitch. Is it turning, is it not really? Does
Josh Kennedy: that giving
James Breese: insight Josh, into like not being a batter?
Yeah, it
Josh Kennedy: has. Yeah. Yeah. It's all about, uh, all about having a game plan basically.
James Breese: And this is, this is absolute basic game plan strategies. Okay. [00:11:00] Absolute game plan strategies. And it has to come under a foundation of good technique. Right. And we can talk about different things.
Josh Kennedy: Yeah. Obviously against spin bowlers, you've got to be more patient.
And try not to get frustrated.
James Breese: Well, in all it's psychological as well. Right. There was a great comment yesterday, and I'll tell you what, there's a book, Josh, I'm gonna recommend to you. It's coming out next month. It's by the mental skills coach from the All Blacks. Right? Oh, nice. Really interesting.
There's a podcast about it and he talks about how patience is the key to winning games. Even here, anyone who rushes is going to, is gonna, it's, you know, it's gonna impact their game performance. And then batting is Game of Patience essentially. I'm being cool and calm under, under pressure, making the right decision at the right time, particularly batting, and that's exactly the spin ball.
You know, if you know who the spinner is, then you can make, you can start being more proactive straight away, wanting to assess the level of the pitch, right? However, you've never seen a spinner before. Yes, you can have a look at him for an over, you gotta determine [00:12:00] whether he's a good bowl or a bad bowl, right?
Yeah. Before you start looking at things, you can't just go actively attacking him, right. In a middle overs scenario, a bit different in, in latter overs when you're trying to push the one rate and score ones the highest level. But you know, we've gotta understand what's the quality of the bowler like.
That determines the type of shots and the game plan we have to have. The weaker the bowler, the more simple the plan is. The more advanced the bowler is, the more we have to adapt our game plan to it to make a decision and just do something. And in simplest form is using your feet to get to the bowl or sweeper, you know, whether it's conventional or reverse Sweeper.
In the terms of in the world, the sweeps, there are multiple different types of sweeps. You've got lap sweep, reverse sweep, you know, slog, sweep in the air, slogs, sweep in the ground. There's different styles that play your game according to the fielders, but your job, if it's a good spinner to begin with, is to put the field.
Back or send them out to create gaps [00:13:00] to then allow you to hit singles. See Clean can't even speak simply and cleanly to then rotate the strike easily and then wait for the bad balls to come. Because when you rotate the strike, spin balls get pissed off. They then start to ball a bad ball, and then you can put that away as well.
So suddenly threes, fours no. Become sixes sevens eight. No. Whew. That's a very easy theory's all easy, it's pr it actually put it into practical application. That's hard. And there's lots more to spin balling here, but that's to give something a simple game plan for club cricketers who struggle against, spin an idea or to think differently in how to play it.
And we'll come up with loads of videos around this. Mm-hmm. Uh, to help you think about it in, in the future on YouTube. So it'll make more sense when we do that.
Josh Kennedy: Brilliant. That was good. Uh, I think I've learned some things there. Thank you very much, James. Uh, that is it for today. Please don't forget to rate to review and subscribe.
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