We hope you enjoyed the last post about bowling the perfect googly. From learning to bowl the leg spin and the arm ball in the last couple of blogs, today’s blog post will teach you everything you must know to perfect the flipper. Time to practise!

Let’s talk about how you can confuse the batter into going on the back foot using the flipper. The late great Shane Warne was a master of the flipper and often crippled batters with this style of spin.

The intent of bowling the flipper is to confuse the batter into getting cramped for room in terms of the batting position and stance. As the ball quickly rushes on after the first bounce, generally, the batter is caught up in two minds. This is a great opportunity for a leg before wicket or possibly a caught-and-bowled. In the previous blog posts, the idea to bowl the leg spin, the arm ball and the googly was to roll the fingers.

As for the grip, place your ring finger, index finger and the middle finger on the seam, however, spread across the seam on the top. Your thumb is below for a firm grip. Now, for the flipper, the front of your arm should ideally be facing the bowler. Next, when you are about to release the ball, push your thumb in the other direction. This helps the ball rush to the batter after the first bounce. The idea is to pitch the ball near the off stump so that the batter is confused whether to play the stroke on the front foot or the back foot. Basically, the flipper is an off spinner, however, in reverse.

Ensure you maintain a steady momentum and have a relaxed posture. Release the ball forced by your thumb and there you have it – the perfect flipper!

Practise hard as the release is a little tricky when it comes to the flipper. As for the next post, we learn to master the top spinner.