How to analyse your bowling action

What is a bowling action?

It's everything you do from the start of your run-up to the end of your follow-through. Your run-up builds momentum, your action turns it into the ball's pace, line and length, and your follow-through lets you slow down safely. Each part depends on the one before it.

Bowling action analysis simply means watching that sequence closely enough to see what you actually do, rather than what you think you do. Most bowlers are surprised the first time they see themselves on video. A jump that feels big looks small, a front arm that feels high has dropped, or the last two strides shorten without you noticing.

You don't need special kit to start. A phone on a tripod, a net, and the habit of watching your clips after each set will show you more than any amount of guessing.

What are the phases of a bowling action?

Six, in order: the run-up, the gather and jump, back-foot contact, front-foot contact, release, and the follow-through. Splitting your action into these makes it easier to watch, because you can look at one moment at a time instead of trying to take in the whole thing at once.

• Run-up. The approach from your mark. Look for a steady build of speed and the same number of strides every ball.
• Gather and jump. The last stride or two before the crease, where you collect yourself and leave the ground. Look at how high and how far you travel.
• Back-foot contact. The moment your back foot lands. Look at where it lands and which way your hips and chest are facing.
• Front-foot contact. The moment your front foot lands. Look at where it lands relative to your back foot and to the crease, and how firm your front leg is.
• Release. The ball leaving your hand. Look at your head, your front arm and how tall you are at that moment.
• Follow-through. Everything after release. Look at whether you carry on towards the target or fall away to one side.

When you watch a clip, pause at each of these moments in turn. The same six pauses, every time, make one ball easy to compare with the next.

Side-on, front-on or mixed: what's the difference?

It describes which way your hips and chest face when your back foot lands. Side-on means they point across the pitch and you look at the batter over your front shoulder. Front-on means they face the batter. Mixed means your hips and chest point in different directions.

You don't need to change your type of action to improve. Plenty of bowlers do well with each one. What helps is knowing which one you have, so you can check it stays the same from ball to ball. If your hips and chest line up one way on your good balls and another way on your bad ones, that's worth showing a coach.

Look at back-foot contact on a clip filmed from behind the bowler's end and from the side. One view alone can make it hard to tell where your hips and chest are pointing.

How do you film your bowling action?

Put your phone on a tripod behind the bowler's end, in line with the stumps, and film in portrait so your last strides and both sets of stumps fit in the frame. For a closer look at your action, add a second clip from side-on, level with the crease.

• Steady phone. A tripod, not a hand. A moving picture hides small differences between balls.
• Same place every session. Mark where the tripod stands so this week's clips match last week's.
• Good light. Blur hides your arm and the ball. Indoors, stand where the lights are brightest.
• Slow motion for technique. Slow motion makes each phase easier to see, but it needs more light.

For tripod height, distance and the mistakes that spoil footage, see the phone tripod setup guide.

What should you look for frame by frame?

Consistency more than any one position. Pause at the same six moments on several balls and look for what changes. Where your feet land, which way your chest faces, where your head is at release and which way you fall away should look much the same on every ball.

• Your feet. Do your back foot and front foot land in the same places each ball? A foot landing wider or narrower changes everything above it.
• Your head. Is it steady and upright at release, with your eyes on the target? A head that drops away often drags the ball with it.
• Your front arm. Does it do the same thing each ball? A front arm that flies out to the side often goes with a follow-through that falls away.
• Your height at release. Are you as tall as you were on your best balls, or are you collapsing at the front?
• Your follow-through. Do you carry on towards the batter, or turn away early?

Watch with the sound off and without judging. Write down what you see on three or four balls before you decide what any of it means.

How do you compare your good balls with your bad ones?

Sort the session first, then watch. Pull out the balls that hit your length at your best bowling speed and the ones that didn't, and watch the two sets side by side. Whatever is different in your action between them is the thing to work on next.

Compare like with like. Balls from the start of a session, when you're fresh, can look different from balls at the end, when you're tired. If tiredness is the difference, that's useful to know too: it tells you how long your sets should be.

How do you know if a change to your action worked?

Measure what the ball did before and after. Bowl a few sessions the old way and a few the new way, then compare your typical bowling speed, how often you hit your length, and your release height. A change that feels better but scores worse isn't better.

• Bowling speed. Compare the session average, not your quickest ball. One quick ball can be a one-off.
• Length. Count how many balls landed where you aimed. A quicker action that sprays the ball isn't progress yet.
• Release height. A steady release height from ball to ball is a sign of a repeatable action. If it jumps around, so will your length.

Change one thing at a time and give it a few sessions. If you change your run-up and your front arm in the same week, you won't know which one made the difference. There's more on this in how to bowl fast.

When should you bring in a coach?

Before you change anything big. Watching your own action is the best way to understand it, but rebuilding it is a job for a qualified coach, especially for junior bowlers. Take your clips and your numbers to them, so the conversation starts from what actually happened in the net.

A coach can see things you can't, and knows which changes are safe to make and in what order. Your part is to bring good evidence: clips from the same angle each session, and the bowling speed, line and length of each ball.

In YORKER AI you can share a session with your coach in a Huddle, so they can watch the balls you picked out without standing in the net with you.