Spin Bowling - Flight, Turn, Bounce, Drift, Dip

Flight, Turn, Bounce, Drift, Dip

It is customary among cricket commentators to describe and judge the quality of spin bowling in terms of the so-called Flight, Turn, Bounce, Drift, and Dip. All these are arts to deceive the batsman and require lots of practice. A basic trajectory of spin bowling is two-lines-at-an-angle, but these aforementioned arts modify this 'normal' trajectory to more complex shapes.

Turn: How much the ball turns after pitching (e.g. 5 degree deviation after meeting the ground). It depends on amount and direction of revolutions of the ball. Depending on the position of the wrist and the finger movement and rotation the spin varies.Straight ball can be used rarely to deceive batsman.spin variation must be used to deceive batsman and take wickets.

Bounce: Getting the ball to bounce more than normal, so that the ball meets the batsman at a greater height than expected.Some times,for the bounce,if it spins horizontally like a slider,the batsman will not be able to contact with the ball and it may hit the stumps before the second bounce.

Drift: Getting the ball to move sideways while in air. Late drift causes the batsman to cover the wrong line and the ball gets the chance to catch the edge of the bat.

Dip: Getting the ball to pitch(meet the ground) at a shorter distance than normal. Late dip causes the batsman to misjudge the length of the ball.

Flight: throwing the ball up bit more than normal, so that its time in air before pitching is more.If bowling the slow ball,the flight is needed and though slow,it may go a bit faster and is very effective for offspinners. Usually a spin bowler relies on tricks during flight to produce any or combinations of turn, bounce, drift and dip.