How to bowl faster: a simple guide to building pace

Cricket performance · 5 min read

Every quick bowler wants a few extra yards of pace. Most go looking for it in the wrong place, running in harder and muscling the ball down, which usually costs them accuracy without adding much speed at all.

Real pace comes from a combination of technique, strength and how well you manage your bowling load over a season. Get those three working together and the speed follows. Here is how we break it down with our players.

Where bowling speed actually comes from

Pace is not one ingredient, it is a chain. Break down any genuinely fast bowler and you will see the same links: a strong run-up that builds momentum, a front leg that blocks and converts that momentum upward, hips and shoulders that separate and then fire through in sequence, and a tall arm that finishes with real speed. Weaken any link and you lose pace, no matter how hard you try in the others.

The technique fixes that give you free pace

• A firm front leg block. If your front leg collapses at the crease, your run-up momentum leaks into the ground instead of driving up through your body and into the ball.
• Hip-shoulder separation. Fast bowlers turn their hips before their shoulders, creating a stretch through the torso that whips the arm through faster. Rushing this sequence is one of the most common speed leaks we see.
• A tall, strong front arm. Pulling the front arm down hard and early helps rotate the trunk and drives the bowling arm through with more speed.

The strength work that supports pace

Technique gives you the sequence, strength gives you the power to fill it. Three areas matter most for bowlers specifically:

• Lower body power. Squats, split squats and jump variations build the drive you need out of your run-up and through your front leg block.
• Rotational power. Medicine ball throws and rotational cable work train your body to create and transfer force through the trunk, exactly what hip-shoulder separation demands.
• Posterior chain strength. Deadlift variations build the hips and hamstrings that power your run-up and protect your lower back under repeated bowling loads.

For the full picture on building a strength base as a cricketer, see our guide to strength training for cricketers.

Pace is not one thing you fix. It is technique and strength arriving together, and neither one alone gets you there.

Bowling load: the part quick bowlers skip

More bowling does not automatically mean more pace, and too much too soon is one of the most common causes of bowling injuries, especially in juniors whose bodies are still developing. Build your bowling volume gradually across a pre-season, respect rest between spells, and treat a sudden spike in overs as a warning sign rather than a badge of honour. A bowler who stays fit all season out-bowls one who is quick for three matches and then injured for six.

How we coach it

In 1-to-1 cricket coaching we work through your action piece by piece, and in Combined Performance we pair that technical work with the strength and conditioning that lets it hold up spell after spell, match after match. You can see some of this technique work up close in our coaching clips.