Cricket Coaching Fast Bowling Tips: How To Bowl Like My Hero: Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Mitchell Starc

by Richard Pybus
(From Sandeep, Kutch, Gujrat, India and Gourav Sharma, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India)

Hi, like all young cricketers we want to emulate our heroes and the best way to learn is by copying them. We certainly don’t learn how to bat, bowl and wicket keep by reading a book.

Here are two requests from young quick bowlers who want to bowl like their heroes. I’ve spoken about this before here, Cricket Coaching Fast Bowling Tips/How To Bowl Like Brett Lee so I’m not going to repeat the previous advice other than to make a couple of key points.

Here are the requests … and observations below.

Hello Sir, I am Sandeep, I am 15 years old and a left arm pacer. I want to bowl like Bhuvi, my bowling action is the same as him, he can swing the ball both ways, please help me.

… and from Gourav Sharma who is a Mitchell Starc fan,

Sir, please watch my video ( not included ) and improve my bowling action, I am trying to bowl like Mitchel Starc, please tell me what to do. Thanks.

It is important to mention again though, we learn through watching and copying, so it is essential that we pay attention to elite bowlers with great actions and who were, or are injury free.

That is not to say don’t copy Mitchell or Bhuvi, they are exciting young bowlers, do chose bowlers who have injury free, repeatable actions.

Glenn McGrath, Malcolm Marshall, Morne Morkel, Jimmy Anderson and Dale Steyn are great examples of this, great bowlers whose success is built on being on the field bowling, rather than on the physio table being treated.

For the young bowler who has not yet finished growing, ( male bone growth finishes 21-22) functional strength exercises are important to strengthen the body for the workload of bowling, see Greg King’s Cricket Fitness Programs to begin the process of getting in shape for your cricket or consolidating your current conditioning.

To both young bowlers, use youtube and watch your favourite quicks, get a mental picture, a movie of their actions in your memory and copy their actions.

Use a mirror or a reflection to practice in front of, see yourself replicating their actions. This is why dancers use mirrors in their dance studios, so they can see, feel and learn the movements of a dance. Learing to replicate movement in cricket is no different.

Gourav, thanks for sending the video, it was great and you have a good action, my one observation is that your front foot opens up and points to fine leg if you’re bowling to the right hand batter.

It will be better for you if you straighten your front foot to point to first slip or off stump, line up your front arm action to this angle as well to make sure the bottom and top half of your body are working in unison. See the picture I have included of Mitchell to see his body angle.

Two options to correct this, I worked out this first one with Wasim Akram who had opened up his front foot to bowl across the right hander and lost his inswinger.

On the bowlers crease, put a cone down in the middle of the crease and another one on the line of off stump, you are going to plant your front foot down in this space. Wasim jogged this through a few times to get a feel for it and then bowled, aiming toward first slip to swing the ball back in.

This will close your action a little and align you to bowl closer to the stumps and wicket to wicket.

You can try Wasim’s jog through and see how it goes.

Or if it doesn’t correct the body angle and front foot, try this … the one step – three step – five step drill I outline below.

We do it slowly to start off with so you can control the movement and then slowly speed it up and put it under pressure.

See the other tips on the page link above to make adjustments to your action, specifically to do with shadow bowling where I talk about how Morne Morkel corrected his action when he had a similar problem.

You may want to save the changes for the off season so it doesn’t interfere with your bowling at the moment, sometimes making technical changes in season can disrupt focus and technique.

‘I want you to stand in the crease with the one step drill to start to work on this, we are going to begin with 1 step bowling from a stationary position so you can get your foot and body angle right.

Then 3 step bowling…. working backwards through 5 steps, 7 steps, 9 steps to full run up.

Beginning with one step bowling:

I want you to stand in the crease as if you are going to bowl to the batter at the other end. Ask your coach or training partner to stand at the batters end and watch your action when you bowl and make sure your foot and body angle are accurate.

Align your body, beginning with your feet, to make sure they are aligned with off stump or first slip. This is for the left hand bowler bowling to the right hand bat, over the wicket.

Now set yourself to bowl, rock back slightly and bowl the ball at off stump at the batters end.

Ask your coach to check to make sure that your body alignment is right, that you are getting your front arm up high, it cuts out to off stump (batters end ) and your front knee up, to snap them down hard when you bowl and then drive hard over your front leg.

Practice this a few times till you feel stable and have control over where the ball is going.

3 Step Bowling:

Then take two paces back, now step and jump into the crease and bowl the ball to your coach.

Again, ask him to check to make sure that your body alignment is good and that your action is strong. That you are bowling the ball straight and that you have a full and strong follow through.

5 Step Bowling:

Go back another 2 steps, continue the same drill. Lean forward into your run up:

Now your beginning to increase your run up speed and work on the transfer of pace from your run up and through your action.

Continue this, work back adding two paces at a time to your run up until you are off your full run up.

Monitor your control and accuracy, you should be much stronger in the crease now, your jump and landing ( your bound ) should be in a straight line and you should find that the ball isn’t losing pace.

Be patient, build this up over a period of weeks, do the 1-3-5 step work over a perod of four weeks, 3 times a week, then in week five begin to introduce the 7 step work and so on … so your body can learn what to do, work hard and smart … Happy Fast Bowling.

best wishes Coach

About Richard Pybus

I'm Richard Pybus, I've coached Pakistan, Bangladesh, Middlesex, Titans and the Cape Cobras in South Africa and the goal of this site is to help you to play winning cricket.