Bowl faster within five minutes

1 Using your legs
Most amateur bowlers lose pace and power by not using their knees as much as they should. If you consider yourself a conventional side-on bowler, you need to jump at the crease to get into position to bowl. Most amateur bowlers fail to make the most of the jump and instead of adding momentum to their delivery, take it away.
As you hit the crease, you should be lifting your knees three times – each time to at least level with your hip. (I’m assuming here that you are a right-handed bowler).

1) As you push off your left foot, lift your right knee up to the same level as your right hip. This will help give you forward as well as upwards momentum.
2) When your back foot has landed, your front foot – your left foot – should then come up, lifting your knee to level with your left hip.
3) After dragging your back foot until the point of release, lift your right leg, so the knee comes up to hip level to drive you through the crease and towards the stumps at the other end.

Don’t at any stage think you should be leaning back. Don’t ‘bend your back’. If anything you should be leaning forwards, into your action.
Practise this sequence on its own, making sure your knees come up to the right level. This will guarantee an increase in power through the crease – and additional speed. If you work on the three-knees drill and lean into your action, then you will also have to work on your run-up. Attacking the crease more will mean there’s a chance of bowling more and bigger no-balls in the short term. But the instant increase in pace is absolutely worth it.

A second way to improve your speed is by making sure you don’t lift your back foot off the ground before you let the ball go. That’s the surefire way to lose all your power and speed. But a lot of amateur bowlers do it. To get maximum pace, drag your back foot along the ground, keeping it grounded until you release the ball.

Think about pushing a wall over: put both hands on the wall and push. You’ll naturally have one foot about three feet in front of the other. If you take the front foot off the ground, it won’t make much difference to your push. If you take the back foot off the ground, the whole thing falls apart.

Dale Steyn, Brett Lee and Shoaib Akhtar (see picture 1, right) all drag their back foot before they let the ball go. They happen to be the three fastest bowlers in the world. It’s not a coincidence. At the point of release, their back foot is still grounded. Bowlers without that extreme pace – Matthew Hoggard (see picture 2, right) and Ryan Sidebottom, say – often already have their back foot off the ground at the point of release. All their weight is on the front foot.

Having their back foot off the ground at point of release has not stopped either being a highly successful Test bowler, of course. But it does mean they aren’t bowling at the maximum speed possible – which is what’s under discussion here.

Dimitri Mascarenhas is a fine bowler, who reaches speeds of 75-80 mph. Look at his action and, again, you’ll see that his back foot is off the ground at point of delivery. His footwork is not built for pure speed. Again, this doesn’t diminish him as a successful bowler. But he is less likely to get up from the medium pace category to fast or fast-medium.

I’d say most fast bowlers in first-class cricket are lifting their back foot too early – and the vast majority of club cricketers, too. Working on this aspect of your action will give you a massive head start on all of them.

Practice it by: as your back foot hits the ground, imagine you’re taking a penalty in football but you’re not allowed to take your foot off the ground.

SPIN’s fast bowling guru Ian Pont has worked with top players including Dale Steyn and Darren Gough. He is available for group and one-to-one coaching. More info: maverickscricket.com