Pushers: Difficulties with the Backswing When Using the Cradle Grip

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The other day I was helping my coach to supervise the first lessons of new bowlers and I met a beginner who could not use her thumb in opposition to her other fingers to hold the bowl, as is required in the variations of the claw grip. She was already using a 0-0 size bowl. This lady explained her difficulty and showed me her hand. Apparently, because of arthritis, her thumb was effectively confined to the plane of her palm. The thumb was not immobile but even when it was assisted to take an out-of-plane position it had no strength to hold a bowl.  For this reason, she had to palm the bowl in what is called the cradle grip with all her fingers and her thumb on the same side of the bowl. 

It seems to me that people with this slight disability cannot dependably use the standard delivery, because they cannot grasp their bowl sufficiently tightly for a standard backswing. My pedagogical comments to her had been all, not exactly wrong but just useless. It seems to me that bowlers who use a cradle grip for whatever reason must employ a very modest to non-existent backswing; must step forward with an exaggerated long stride; and must accompany it with a matching long follow-through. The power required to reach long jacks needs to come from the acceleration in the push they apply to the bowl since they cannot use the energy (called potential energy by physicists) gained by elevating the bowl in the backswing. ‘Pushers’, as they are called, very often also begin their delivery arm motion from a stance with their foot opposite slightly ahead of the nearer foot. Push bowlers can be very good bowlers. There is no automatic impediment to their estimation of line and weight derived from the grip and delivery. I warn you from experience not to underestimate these people. If you wish to explore a related weakness, I sense that bowling to long jacks could more easily tire them on heavy greens.