Know your Fast Bowling ActionType

Aaron Lewis | May 29, 2024

Fast bowling is one sport related skill that leaves many coaches parents and players dumbfounded. There are so many different techniques and styles that the mind boggles of what to do with a young (or old) bowler when they run in do some funky jump with arms everywhere and hurl a ball down towards a batter and expect to land it, at pace and then do something to trick the batter. And repeat.

I have seen many bowlers and different styles, techniques and coaching cues. I hear many coaches say "all bowlers are different" but I still tend to see many coaches doing the same cues and trying to arrive with very similar techniques. To be honest I don't think any cue I have ever heard is out and out wrong but whether it is the right one for a particular bowler is ultimately left to trial and error. Unfortunately the error - from what I see with my physio hat on - can result in many injuries including the dreaded "stressie". The question remains on what cue is right for what bowler and what is the overall impact.

In understanding what bowlers have what demands and what these differences are there has been attempt to categorise them. Traditionally we have had the action classification including the use of terms still in the vernacular of front-on, side-on, in between and mixed action. For some this applies to the foot, the pelvis and/or the shoulders and their respective positions usually at back foot contact. Recently differentiation of knee dominant v hip dominant bowler, led by Steffan Jones, has added a new dimension to the classification and with it new debate and new awareness. It also started to provide a new understanding of how different fast bowlers bowl differently and should train differently.

For me my understanding needed to go deeper and look at many other factors that are related or not covered with these two classification systems and start to understand what bowlers adopt which technique and why and how do different styles emerge. Some intricacies resulting in technical and stylist variability I see in fast bowlers include

• Running in on angles
• Front arm being bent or straight, open or across body, pulled forward or down?
• Back foot drift, front leg splaying out, front foot crossover, back foot drag
• Front leg kick out and cycle back, kick out wide or slam down (or not really do much at all)
• Load up to the front, side or across body
• Pull back with a tuck or straight arm and bowl with a sling, round arm or high arm with varying degrees of bending from different parts of the back
• Bowl off the wrong foot

I simply ask when given a ball and 2 sets of stumps and asked to bowl (with the main constraint of not bending the arm) why do they do it they way they do.

What made one of the greatest fast bowlers of all time Malcolm Marshall decide to bowl with such a large run-up angle. Picture courtesy of Lords Cricket Ground YouTube channel

Can fast bowling be a Nature v Nurture thing??

ENTER ACTION TYPES APPROACH

My curiosity led me to engage with Prashant Patel - an (now) ECB level 4 coach in the Middlesex schools systems, and Steve Janssen, a baseball coach, who have studied and educated in the Action Types Approach (ATA) founded by Bertrand Theralaux a volleyball coach and biologist from Switzerland. I had the pleasure of attending a course in London with Bertrand to become an Action Types Practitioner and true to the personality traits related to my Action Type put in place the learnings to solve the aforementioned problem of understanding fast bowlers. The foundation of Action Types is the understanding of how one uses natural preferences, forged through early development, to perform motor skills including fast bowling.

Having now profiled well over 120 bowlers from 9 year olds (including my son) to professional cricketers I have now correlated the 16 ATA motor profiles into 32 different types of fast bowling actions (16 each for left and right hand bowlers) with their own peculiarities', training systems, cuing systems and language, communication and personality profiles.

WHAT MOTOR PREFERENCES CAN BE IDENTIFIED IN A FAST BOWLER

The parts of the action related to individual motor preferences in fast bowling include

• Hip dominant (posterior chain / top mover) v Knee dominant (anterior chain / bottom mover)
• High mobile point (separates the shoulder girdle form the pelvic girdle) v low mobile point (keep shoulder girdle and pelvic girdle together)
• Horizontal v Vertical alignment preferences, which helps determine the way the body and especially the arms align to their bowling targets - THIS ONE IS MASSIVE!!!!
• Left v right motor shoulder and motor hip, which allows us to identify how a bowler aims and then initiates their movement towards the target - for fast bowlers this is where we begin the cuing into the delivery stride. Bowling arm v front arm v back foot v front foot. Everyone has a preferential order to execute effectively.
• Left v Right motor eye which assists in determining which eye can track moving objects (like batters feet) better and how to position it (and we can explain the benefit of sometimes bowling with your eyes closed or not looking at your target)
• High v Low frequency which allows us to understand how a bowler can process perceived information and its associated spinal postures (flexed v extended spines), self-talk and visual focus strategies (focus on one spot like a specific target or more generally through a tunnel or broad area)
• Supination v pronation preferences which assist in understanding how the feet should land and how the forearms / wrist action on the ball during gather and pullback phases.

To identify your preferences a fast bowler can be profiled using direct techniques and indirect observations. Direct profiling can be affected by the relationship you have with the fast bowler, plus fatigue and mood and how you as a profiler perform the movements. Observation of the skill of fast bowling alone is not reliable as many players have been coached or cued and therefore execute the skill accordingly as opposed to naturally. Often I will observe unskilled movements to assess what preferences a bowler has and then relate them back to their direct profiling and performance of the skill. One trick I have learnt is to try and get videos from the "BC - Before coaching" phase and relate to the "AD - after damaging" phase. Do bowlers need to be coached? Well yes as many factors still take bowlers away from their natural preference but more on that later.

HOW DO WE CLASSIFY THEM?

Many of these preferences overlap or become dependent on each other. The ActionTypes Approach breaks down the movement patterns into 4 different families which have specific movement traits. Every person and hence every fast bowler fits into one of these.

1. Distals - Bottom mover / high mobile point / high frequency
2. Globals - Bottom mover / low mobile point / low frequency
3. Rhythmicals - Top mover / high mobile point / low frequency
4. Conceptuals - Top mover / low mobile point / high frequency

Using traditional and contemporary classification terms we see consistencies in various bowlers related to this classification.

1. Distals are knee dominant at back foot contact (BFC) with shoulder-hip separation required at front foot contact (FFC). They can fit any of the front-on, side-on or inbetween at the foot / ankle and often exhibit mixed characteristics between the pelvis and shoulders.
2. Global bowlers are very knee dominant, often fully side-on to ultra side-on at the foot/ankle at BFC and at FFC require their shoulders and hips to be associated and hence should never be a mixed action - pelvis and shoulders always working in unison.
3. Rhythmicals are very hip dominant at BFC with more front-on characteristics with shoulder hip separation required at FFC. They require the shoulder girdle to get more 45 to side-on but the pelvis and feet to stay front-on to inbetween
4. Conceptuals are hip dominant bowlers at BFC that can have a front on to side on back foot but the pelvis and shoulders must stay associated meaning no shoulder hip separation at front foot contact. To do this they may have anything from a fully side-on or front-on pelvis and shoulder girdle with a front on or side-on back foot / ankle.

A quick note on Shoulder hip separation / association definition. We refer to the alignment of the shoulder blades (girdle) to the pelvic girdle. The limbs can be rotated outside the girdle (eg arm hyperextending backwards or leg rotating inwards) to facilitate the bowling action. It can seem the limbs can create a sense of shoulder hip separation when it is not there and likewise can make it look like there is no shoulder hip separation when there is.

Once classified as above we then identify their alignment preferences as being horizontal or vertical. In combination with their motor family this assists us in determining

• Optimal gather load direction. A horizontal can go across the body or out wide (elbow towards umpire) while a vertical will point their elbow or arm towards their target
• Front arm alignment can have the forearm upward in a vertical to the forearm being perpendicular in a horizontal.
• Optimal release point relative to the body. The arm can be anywhere from 90 degrees to the shoulder girdle (next to the ear) in a vertical to in line with the shoulders as we see with a horizontal
• Tolerable levels of lateral flexion and where it should come from. A horizontal with a low mobile point can tolerate laterally flexing significantly more at ball release from the lower part of the back / pelvis whereas a vertical high mobile point should only have a small amount of lateral flexion and it should come from the top part of the spine.

We also use this to determine the motor shoulder and motor hip which are used to target the direction of the ball and initiate the cued movement and subsequent timing patterns.

The motor shoulder / hip can be the front arm / leg or the bowling arm / leg and is dependent on the movement family above:

1. Horizontal with rear side motor (right motor shoulder / hip for a right arm bowler)
2. Horizontal with front side motor (left motor shoulder / hip for a right arm bowler)
3. Vertical with rear side motor (right motor shoulder / hip for a right arm bowler)
4. Vertical with front side motor (left motor motor shoulder / hip for a right arm bowler)

We then end up with left and right hand bowler variations of

• Vertical distal with left motor shoulder
• Horizontal distal with right motor shoulder
• Vertical global with right motor shoulder
• Horizontal global with left motor shoulder
• Vertical rhythmical with right motor shoulder
• Horizontal rhythmical with left motor shoulder
• Vertical conceptual with left motor shoulder
• Horizontal conceptual with right motor shoulder

Horizontal load up and release from a right motor shoulder. Right elbow faces away from the target and initiates movement through the action and then the right load up elbow is "replaced" at point of release with the right bowling elbow at release.

The final differentiation to create 32 profiles is the motor eye with each of the above 16 variations having a left or right motor eye preference. This influences things like the position of the head / eye at their final conscious cue (or final perception) and the position of the head at ball release. It also assist with understanding some ways of communicating and cuing particular athletes.

HOW DOES THIS IMPACT COACHING A FAST BOWLER?

It is important to recognise that just because you have identified their natural patterns that they will naturally work with a simple cue or drill. There are many reasons why a young or older bowler will deviate from what comes naturally. This includes

• Coaching - being told innocently to get the front arm higher, run in straighter etc can have a massive impact on the whole skill and create conflicts between natural and coached patterns beyond the area being cued
• Imitation - trying to bowl like their childhood hero or because someone said this is what you need to do to bowl fast or to swing the ball
• Constraints - this includes the size and width of the nets or areas around where they play or train which limit or compromise their action
• Tactically - including changing a cue in the action to effect the outcome of the ball
• Physical capacity (Injury / fatigue / strength / endurance etc) - these all impact the ability to bowl in your natural preference.

The body will find compensations, adaptations and strategies to manage the task under set circumstances be it subconsciously (for example to avoid pain) or through conscious cuing. Some of these are manageable and can be encouraged or trained for and some of these are not. The key is understanding when and why a bowler deviates from their natural action and whether it required intervention or not and ultimately what is the consequence or risk.

As an example a hip dominant bowler that is tired can utilise a knee dominant strategy. A left motor shoulder bowler can use a right motor hip cue. But not all compensations / adaptations are equal or desired. Which options a fast bowler have and can utilise effectively and safely will be covered in due course BUT with some certainty I can see the relationship between compromising certain parts of the ActionTypes Approach traits and injury and decrease in performance.

The ActionTypes Approach in my opinion was built for understanding fast bowlers physical and mental demands as well as assisting the coaches in understanding why they bowl the way they do and how to cue and coach them. Some bowlers will have very unique actions that do not fit the biomechanical optimal model and changing them to suit can be devastating.

Over the coming weeks I will endeavour to highlight how different bowlers have different strategies to be able to bowl and how we best cue them, coach them and physically train them.