Which is more difficult to bowl - pace or spin?

[adharcric]

In your opinion, is it more difficult to bowl pace or spin? Within spin, how would you compare leg-break and off-break?

Take into consideration wicket-taking difficulty, work required in the action, line and length, ability to get into rhythm quickly, the mental aspect, stamina, natural ability, how far you can get through pure practice and anything else you can think of.

Let's get some discussion going here.

 

[adharcric]

For those of you who have bowled both pace and spin before, which did you find more exciting?
Personally, I've been an opening bowler, first-change bowler, part-time seamer and recently an off-break and leg-break bowler.

 

[Dravid]

I bowl spin, but seriously, there isnt one that is difficult. I'm sure of Glen McGrath started bowling spin, he wouldnt even be half as good as he is as a pace bowler, and we also saw how good Warne is bowling pace. It's just which one suits who better. In my life I never felt like bowling pace, and my cousin who is a pace bowler, can never bowl spin.

 

[NZTailender]

Depends on the pace that you're bowling at really. I find I can get some swing and seam from bowling pace quite easily...

I used to bowl leg spin for about a season with some success,, but didn't get too much turn. To me, bowling spin to try and get lots of turn was harder than bowling pace to get movement.

But as far as physical energy is concerned, bowling spin is easier. Especially in backyard cricket. Usually on a hot day we'd simply all be bowling spin to conserve energy and jsut for the general fun of trying to fool each other with wrong'uns, top spinners, etc.

 

[oz_fan]

IMO it is more difficult to bowl pace. When your bowling at a much faster speed with pace it is easier to make a mistake, lose your line and length and get hit for four. It also takes far more stamina. If you struggle to swing the ball then it is very hard to get wickets. I think spinners get a lot more cheap wickets as well because they are the bowlers that batsman try to attack (although they may have more runs taken off them, the batsmen are taking more risks and are more likely to get out). Pace bowlers also face the top-order batsmen where as spinners often face the lower order/tail. I personally find it more exciting to bowl pace.

 

[C_C]

I cant speak for others but i can speak for myself.
In my time, i've tried bowling a bit of everything (though i used to bowl primarily seam).
Now, i cant bowl some exotic deliveries like the doosra or the wrong un, reverse swing etc etc. But bowling off spin was heck of a lot easier than bowling leg spin. When bowling off-breaks, i found that it was a lot easier to get consistent with it (ie, line and length) but spinning the ball a lot is a challenge (there was some spin but not boatloads of it).
Legspin i found precisely the opposite - its a lot easier to get considerable spin and extremely hard to control accuracy.
While bowling pace, i found that bowling bouncers was very hard because though i could crank it fairly fast, i cant get much bounce (maybe because i am around 170cm).
Pace bowling is a lot more dependent on freshness factor too - while tired, as a spinner i could bowl a couple of overs that arnt much shabbier than when i am fresh but as a pacer, when i got tired, everything went to pieces- not only pace but also control.
Bowling technique, i found, was far more important while bowling pace than spin ( it hardly ever mattered if i came a bit more chest on or side on as a spinner but as a pacer everything, including how much i jumped and how big a stride i took mattered).
Overall, at club levels, its easier to be a pacer than a spinner, simply because pace intimidates a lot of people and even a little bit of seam movement and decent line is good enough to bag most ( the occasional really fast one peppered in to keep em off guard). Bowling spin is a lot harder because you gotto be very accurate- for while the pace or bounce of a speedster might cover up a bad delivery at lower level, even a club batsman is good enough to club a six off a long hop, doesnt matter if your name is Warney.

Thats my two cents.

 

[cameeel]

I can bowl off-spin and pace (it's very mediocre), but as Oz said, a mistake will often get you carted. Personally I find pace harder just because the line is less forgiving when the ball isn't moving towards (or away from) the batsman.

 

[silentstriker]

IMO bowling spin is 'harder'. Bowling pace requires natural athleticism that spin doesn't need, but in terms of 'learning the craft', its harder to learn how to bowl spin because its more about out thinking the batsman and controlling your craft to perfection.

Unlike pace bowling, you will be immediately punished if you lose your line or length just a little bit. Whereas, if you bowl with enough pace, sometimes you can get away with it.

 

[Dravid]

IMO it is more difficult to bowl pace. When your bowling at a much faster speed with pace it is easier to make a mistake, lose your line and length and get hit for four. It also takes far more stamina. If you struggle to swing the ball then it is very hard to get wickets. I think spinners get a lot more cheap wickets as well because they are the bowlers that batsman try to attack (although they may have more runs taken off them, the batsmen are taking more risks and are more likely to get out). Pace bowlers also face the top-order batsmen where as spinners often face the lower order/tail. I personally find it more exciting to bowl pace.

Not really. There are so many bowlers that don't swing the ball a lot but still get lots of wickets. It's more about line and length. Same thing with spin, you don't have to be a big spinner of the ball to get wickets.

 

[Slow Love™]

I guess it depends on what skill level we're talking. I generally think it's easier to get to a level of adequate competency with spin than it is pace (witness how many part-timers can look quite tricky given the right conditions), but on the other hand, mastering the art of spin at a very high level would seem extremely difficult.

 

[Burpey]

My up and down meds are far superior to any sort of 'spin' that I try to bowl.

 

[shortpitched713]

I guess it depends on what skill level we're talking. I generally think it's easier to get to a level of adequate competency with spin than it is pace (witness how many part-timers can look quite tricky given the right conditions), but on the other hand, mastering the art of spin at a very high level would seem extremely difficult.

I'd tend to agree. In general, I'd say that spin is easier to learn, but harder to master.

 

[Langeveldt]

Ive bowled leg spin and FM, depending on who for and what they want from me..

IMO Pace bowling is more exciting, and easier to grasp than spin bowling, but harder to master..

 

[aussie]

It depends i guess, some may stay fast bowling due to stamina required, but bowling spin especially leg-spin is difficult since its to easy to bowl those special deliveries with control and accuracy.

 

[FRAZ]

The days when I used to play my club coach had a theory that a messed up fasty eventualy becomes an off spinner. IMHO bowling at a decent pace regularly is a tough job !!!

 

[adharcric]

Right on the money FRAZ. I used to open the bowling but then lost pace and accuracy and my captain told me to try my hand at spin.
Off-spin seems easier but now I'm bowling leg-spin and it seems pretty exciting. Still, nothing is quite as exciting as bowling pace.

 

[adharcric]

Unlike pace bowling, you will be immediately punished if you lose your line or length just a little bit. Whereas, if you bowl with enough pace, sometimes you can get away with it.

Not necessarily. When you're facing quality batsmen and you stray in line or length as a seamer, you'll get killed.
I guess having pace helps overcome that on the rare occasion, but you would need to be express and also hope that you're facing a poor batsman.

 

[Son Of Coco]

I think bowling leg spin is the hardest.

 

[Matt79]

Skill wise, wrist spin seems to be the hardest, acknowledging that to be really good at any style involves significant skill.

Fitness wise, obviously fast bowling, as evidence by the relative lack of quicks who have played at competitive levels in comparison to spinners...

 

[silentstriker]

Not necessarily. When you're facing quality batsmen and you stray in line or length as a seamer, you'll get killed.
I guess having pace helps overcome that on the rare occasion, but you would need to be express and also hope that you're facing a poor batsman.

I am not so sure about that. Obviously, at the international level, you can't stray too far...but compared to the spinners the pacemen usually aren't as accurate ball after ball and tend to get away with it. Pacers like McGrath are the obvious exceptions, and you know how well they do because of that.