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The swing (dip’n'curve) of spinning balls

By Will 3 years ago, at the end of January Leave a comment on this post

This year, I want to get back to playing cricket. I haven’t played in anger for 9 years (when I was 13), and was [if I do say so myself] a decent leggie and was being pushed for trials with Middlesex Colts. My new school didn’t take sport seriously, and as such I got lazy and turned into a spotty and rebelious teenager.

Anyway - all that baffle and waffle was a precursor to my main point; how does a spinning ball dip and curve? We all know, or pretend to understand, how a conventional seam-up swinging ball works. Shiny-side nearest the batsman for an outswinger, and opposite for the indipper. This all makes sense - the rough side (the left side for an outswinger) prevents the ideal aerodynamics, and the air-flow is more obstructed on that side of the ball than the other (shiny) side.

But spinners hold the seam across the palm/knuckles - the seam is horizontal instead of vertical, if you like - so how can the ball dip in towards the pads (for a leggie) and curvee away from the bat (for an offie)? One thought I’ve just had is quite often, decent leggies like Warne tend to slant the seam towards the slips at a diagonal (meaning it’ll turn and kick on - on flat wickets it’s likely to bounce a lot)…so this would give the ball more chance, through the air, of swinging. It’s a phenomenon I encountered when I bowled (luckily! I’d aim for middle-n-off, the ball would dip towards leg and would often end up bowling them middle stump, so long as it turned enough), but I’ve never had it explained

Sorry to go all technical and anorakish, but let’s face it - if you’re reading this, you’re bound to be a real cricket nut like me :)

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3 Responses to “The swing (dip’n'curve) of spinning balls”

  • Dave wrote:
    January 31st, 2005 at 8.38 am

    Hope that you get back into the game. I started playing this season and I am loving it.

    I am a leggie as well, but I am not sure why it dips the way it does, but I think it has something to do with the spin. Another factor is the same thing that makes the ball swing, the difference in air resistance on the shiny side of the ball to the rough. If you bowl with the shiny side towards leg it will dip a bit more. Or, so I’ve heard :p

  • Will wrote:
    January 31st, 2005 at 12.28 pm

    It’s so weird though Dave - the ball is turning anti-clockwise, from leg to off, in the air…yet it dips in the opposite direction. And decent offies can get it to dip away from the batsman, then turn it back in. Never seen Murali do this, incidentally…

  • Scott Wickstein wrote:
    February 3rd, 2005 at 10.48 am

    I did a post roughly tangential to this the other day- basically, a legspinner uses ‘drift’, and an offie uses ‘flight’. They are quite different but both rely on bowling into the breeze- so it’s a complex and dodgy ‘art’.


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