Hinders' Off Spin Masterclass With Final Word Podcast's Adam Collins

It was a pleasure to welcome Adam Collins, host of the Final Word Podcast, to the Dummer Cricket Centre for an off-spin masterclass with our Head Coach, Richard Hindley.

Collins is a former fast bowler but he fell into finger spin after suffering from a shoulder injury. He sought Hinder’s advice after watching his videos on the Serious Cricket YouTube channel.

This session was catered around Adam specifically so some things will not be relevant to every bowler but in this blog, we hope to highlight the key fundamentals.

Weighted Ball

Hinders’ session started even more basic by using a heavier ball to practice spinning the ball from hand to hand to engage your fingers and wrist in the motion.

Resistance Bands

The next item to emerge from Hinders’ coaching bag was a resistance band, which is used to make movement slightly harder and warm up the muscles you use to bowl.

There are two ways in which Hinders suggests using the bands, firstly put one end under your right foot (if you are right-handed) and grab hold of the other end, and replicate the bowling motion with your right arm by extending it above your head.

The other option is to grab one end with your non-bowling hand behind your back and then again replicate your bowling motion with the other hand.

Tennis Ball

Hinders also encourages you to use a lighter ball when you first go through your bowling action, this can be just a seam action and you can bowl it straight into the ground but it will get your shoulders moving.

The importance of using a tennis ball is the lighter weight will not put any strain on your shoulders early into your session.

Have A Bowl

The final part of the warm up will be to have a light bowl, often with a coach or teammate halfway down the wicket to catch the ball.

You do not need to run up but rather just bowl from a standing start and this will be the final part of engaging all the muscles before you bowl properly.

Focusing On A Key Area

Once the warm up is complete, you can get into bowling off a full run up which will indicate to the coach what needs to be worked on.

In Adam’s case, he was in the process of shortening and slowing down his run up so Rich asked him to do both so they could compare.

Bowling Hand To Pocket

Timing is also key to this which means finishing your bowling action with your arms before the back foot comes through. To signpost this Hinders wanted Adam to get his bowling hand to his pocket before his back foot drove through.

Follow Through Straight

The final point of coaching for Hinders was that the follow-through should be straight down the pitch and he even put two cones down to provide a point to aim for.

Simplifying The Message

It is really important that when you cover so much in a session, you can simplify the message so as not to overload information. For Adam, “relax the arms” was the easiest to relate to and helped him find a focus throughout.

Summary

Once again, we remind everyone that this session was catered specifically to Adam but we hope to have highlighted some key areas for any spinners to work on and try in their own time.

It is important to note that bits of equipment were mentioned throughout, some of which we would recommend purchasing but others will be less important. This will be based on your preferences, but you certainly do not need to buy everything we have mentioned.

If you would like to book a session with any of our experienced coaches then their availability can be found here.

Thank you to Adam Collins for coming to visit us!