A player practicing with Mechanical Bowling Machine
A cricket bowling machine is a device that helps a batsman to practice and improve their skills. The machine can simulate various types of pace, swing, and spin bowling accurately. Cricket Bowling Machine gives a real match feel to the batsman while practicing. These machines can also be used when there is no one to bowl. There are a number of different types of bowling machine used by the cricket coaches.
Following are the types of Bowling Machines:
- Mechanical Bowling Machines
- Programmable Bowling Machines
- Pneumatic Bowling Machines
This blog gives you knowledge about the Mechanical bowling machines.
Leverage Mechanical Bowling Machine
1. Mechanical Bowling Machines
Mechanical Bowling Machine is the most commonly used machine for practicing. It is simple, strong and reliable, as well as being able to bowl a useful range of deliveries.
How does it work?
The main mechanism in a mechanical bowling machine consists of two spinning wheels, each driven by its own motor, between which the balls are fed via a chute. The device is mounted on a tripod or similar, at such a height as to simulate the delivery of a bowler of average height. The machine runs on rechargeable batteries; each charge provides between two and six hours of running time.
Stimulating different deliveries
• Fast Bowling: Fast Bowling is realized by setting both wheels to the equal speed, as fast as the batsman is able to deal with. The coach can move the machine around slightly to vary the line and length of each ball.
• Swing Bowling: Swing is produced by varying the speeds of the wheels independently using a manual controller – i.e., speeding one wheel up and slowing the other one down, which produces an effect similar to that caused when a football is kicked with the outer part of the foot. The ball swerves away from the faster wheel.
• Spin Bowling: To impart spin, in addition to having the wheels move at different speeds, the machine head is tilted and then swing rotation is put on the ball. The ball turns because the rotation is at an angle when it hits the ground.
• Seam Bowling: Seam bowling is impossible on this machine as it only takes tennis balls and cricket training balls such as Slazenger’s “Slazball”. These types of ball have no seam.
• Bouncer: To bounce a ball high or low, the surface of the machine must be set so that it is vertical. To bounce a ball higher than normal, the lower wheel should spin slightly faster than the upper. Deliveries that bounce much lower than normal are less common and are usually the result of the ball striking a broken-up patch of ground. The length of these deliveries can be adjusted by tilting the head of the machine as required.
For more information on Bowling Machines, checkout my blog on Pneumatic Bowling Machines
