How to Bowl the Googly in Club Cricket (2026 Guide)

What the googly actually is

A googly is a delivery bowled with a leg-spinner's action that spins from off to leg to a right-handed batsman — the opposite of a leg-break. It's achieved by rotating the wrist further so the back of the hand faces the batsman at release.

Because the action looks identical to a leg-break, the batsman reads the wrong direction of spin and plays inside the line — which is why it gets so many lbws and bowleds.

The grip

Use the same two-finger grip as your leg-break: index and middle fingers across the seam, ring finger bent and tucked alongside the seam, thumb resting lightly on the side.

The grip does not change for the googly. What changes is the wrist. Anyone who tells you to change grip is teaching you a third ball, not a googly.

Wrist position — the key to everything

For a leg-break, the back of your hand faces your face at release. For a googly, you rotate the wrist further so the back of your hand faces the batsman.

Practise this without a ball first: stand still, raise your bowling arm, and rotate the wrist so the palm faces the sky and then faces backwards. That extra rotation is the googly.

The release

At the point of release, the ball comes out over the ring finger and the third knuckle, not the index finger. The wrist snaps downward and inward, imparting topspin and side spin in the opposite direction of a leg-break.

You should feel the ball roll out over the back of the hand. If it slips out the front like a normal leg-break, your wrist hasn't rotated enough.

Progression drills to build the googly

1) Tennis-ball flicks from 5 metres: just flick the ball with the googly wrist position. Get the rotation right before you worry about length.

2) One-step run-up at 10 metres: bowl 20 googlies focusing only on the seam coming out the back of the hand. Don't care about line yet.

3) Full run-up against a single stump: bowl six leg-breaks then one googly. The contrast trains your disguise and helps the batsman simulation.

Disguising the googly

Disguise comes from a repeatable action. Bowl your leg-break and googly with the exact same approach, jump, and arm speed. The only difference is the wrist rotation, which the batsman cannot see at club-cricket distance.

Don't grunt extra, don't pull a face, don't slow your arm down. Any tell will be picked up by senior club batsmen within two overs.

When to bowl it in a match

Bowl it sparingly — once or twice an over at most. Save it for set batsmen, players who are sweeping you, and right-handers playing too far across their stumps.

Always have a leg-slip or short leg in mind when you bowl one — that's where the leading edges and the missed sweep deflections go.