In about 2003 the Crap Cricketer was slightly less crap than he is now. The people at the club he played at all rather liked his bowling, rather than his batting. The thing was - and it feels ridiculous to type this now - he was quite quick.
If you ask most cricketers what they want, it's that extra yard of pace. It's slightly tragic, because however much they train and attempt to refine their action, it's mostly a question of natural physique. The most you can increase your speed by is really a yard or two. If there was a way we could bowl 90mph just through training, there'd be a lot fewer batsmen out there.
Of course, in describing the Crap Cricketer's halcyon days we're not talking fast-fast. We're not even talking fast medium. We're talking medium by professional standards, somewhere in the mid-70mphs, a good pace for a club bowler and the basis for lesser bits-and-pieces professional journeyman. The Crap Cricketer would lope in, flat footed, off a 12-pace-run up; then everything happened with a slingy shoulder action. Ping! On a hard enough pitch, he could bang it in and make the batsman smell de leather. If everything was in order, even on a slow track the keeper would take the good length ball with his gloves pointing to the sky. The words 'sharp' and 'nippy' were bandied about by club colleagues, perhaps a little recklessly.
Now the important point is that just because the Crap Cricketer reached the dizzy heights of Dimitri Mascarenhas on a bad day, he was still, by any reasonable measure, shit. He sprayed it around like Peter North after a six-month vow of celibacy. Long hop followed full toss followed long hop. He might grab you wickets, but if he went at 6 an over, he'd had a good spell.
Those days are long gone. Right now the Crap Cricketer would struggle to keep up with a quicker ball from Monty Panesar. Last season the keeper stood up to him on a particularly slow wicket. And you know what? The Crap Cricketer's cool with that.
It's hard to say where those crucial 10mph went. A strong commitment to boozing and smoking in adulthood must have accounted for at least five of them. But there's more to it: as the Crap Cricketer played increasingly worse levels of cricket, pace just didn't seem to be the done thing. That was kind of ok because he's always been attracted to the cerebral bit of the game. It takes a certain unreconstructed mentality to be fast. You have to be prepared to bowl like this at a man with no helmet on:
No, give the Crap Cricketer Praveen Kumar with the new ball or Martin Bicknell dismantling Jaques Rudolph at the Oval over Holding or Thomson any day.
Last season he nipped out two of the best batsmen playing London friendly cricket (hell yeah) with some proper bowling - the first with a lifter and slower ball one/two, the other with an inswinger from over the wicket followed by a leg cutter from round it. Getting a wicket these days is a lot more satisfying than slamming it down the other end and seeing what happens.
Of course it's no good when he bowls to someone properly good, because they've got all the time in the world to pick whatever variation he's trying, but that's fine because he hardly ever comes up against them these days. That said, it would have been nice if someone had pointed out that once your whole mindset changes, that's it for bowling fast. The Crap Cricketer couldn't send a quick ball down now even if he wanted to.
There are plenty of other players still striving for that extra yard of pace, and more fool them. Because they'll never win. They don't want much, they just want to get it down at same speed as Iain O'Brien. But what would Iain O'Brien like? As he's said on his blog, he'd absolutely love to bowl as quick as Shaun Tait. And what would Shaun Tait like? To get more than half his ludicrously pacy thunderbolts to land on the cut strip. Like the Crap Cricketer and several thousand other bog standard club players do every weekend. How many individuals in the world find that happy balance between nuance and extreme pace? Very, very few; that's how many. If they do, they're almost uniquely blessed.
If you ask most cricketers what they want, it's that extra yard of pace. It's slightly tragic, because however much they train and attempt to refine their action, it's mostly a question of natural physique. The most you can increase your speed by is really a yard or two. If there was a way we could bowl 90mph just through training, there'd be a lot fewer batsmen out there.
Of course, in describing the Crap Cricketer's halcyon days we're not talking fast-fast. We're not even talking fast medium. We're talking medium by professional standards, somewhere in the mid-70mphs, a good pace for a club bowler and the basis for lesser bits-and-pieces professional journeyman. The Crap Cricketer would lope in, flat footed, off a 12-pace-run up; then everything happened with a slingy shoulder action. Ping! On a hard enough pitch, he could bang it in and make the batsman smell de leather. If everything was in order, even on a slow track the keeper would take the good length ball with his gloves pointing to the sky. The words 'sharp' and 'nippy' were bandied about by club colleagues, perhaps a little recklessly.
Now the important point is that just because the Crap Cricketer reached the dizzy heights of Dimitri Mascarenhas on a bad day, he was still, by any reasonable measure, shit. He sprayed it around like Peter North after a six-month vow of celibacy. Long hop followed full toss followed long hop. He might grab you wickets, but if he went at 6 an over, he'd had a good spell.
Those days are long gone. Right now the Crap Cricketer would struggle to keep up with a quicker ball from Monty Panesar. Last season the keeper stood up to him on a particularly slow wicket. And you know what? The Crap Cricketer's cool with that.
It's hard to say where those crucial 10mph went. A strong commitment to boozing and smoking in adulthood must have accounted for at least five of them. But there's more to it: as the Crap Cricketer played increasingly worse levels of cricket, pace just didn't seem to be the done thing. That was kind of ok because he's always been attracted to the cerebral bit of the game. It takes a certain unreconstructed mentality to be fast. You have to be prepared to bowl like this at a man with no helmet on:
No, give the Crap Cricketer Praveen Kumar with the new ball or Martin Bicknell dismantling Jaques Rudolph at the Oval over Holding or Thomson any day.
Last season he nipped out two of the best batsmen playing London friendly cricket (hell yeah) with some proper bowling - the first with a lifter and slower ball one/two, the other with an inswinger from over the wicket followed by a leg cutter from round it. Getting a wicket these days is a lot more satisfying than slamming it down the other end and seeing what happens.
Of course it's no good when he bowls to someone properly good, because they've got all the time in the world to pick whatever variation he's trying, but that's fine because he hardly ever comes up against them these days. That said, it would have been nice if someone had pointed out that once your whole mindset changes, that's it for bowling fast. The Crap Cricketer couldn't send a quick ball down now even if he wanted to.
There are plenty of other players still striving for that extra yard of pace, and more fool them. Because they'll never win. They don't want much, they just want to get it down at same speed as Iain O'Brien. But what would Iain O'Brien like? As he's said on his blog, he'd absolutely love to bowl as quick as Shaun Tait. And what would Shaun Tait like? To get more than half his ludicrously pacy thunderbolts to land on the cut strip. Like the Crap Cricketer and several thousand other bog standard club players do every weekend. How many individuals in the world find that happy balance between nuance and extreme pace? Very, very few; that's how many. If they do, they're almost uniquely blessed.
Where do you stand on people who grunt when they bowl?
ReplyDeleteIt's an extremely subtle way of making the batsman think you're faster than you are. See also: 'angry face' when running in to bowl a slower one.
ReplyDeleteWhere do you stand on the Looney Tunes grinning face when running in to deliver even slower one?
ReplyDelete