Monday 17 December 2012

Ashes campaign will hinge on survival of the fittest fast bowlers


Ashes campaign will hinge on survival of the fittest fast bowlers

IF ENGLAND thinks that 2012 has been an intensive year then the next 12 months will be even more demanding.
With 10 Ashes Tests alone scheduled in back-to-back series between July 10 and January 7, 2014, the fast bowlers especially are facing gruelling demands on their bodies.
The onus will be on both sides to try to keep their pace attacks fit. There are ominous signs in the early departure from India of Stuart Broad with yet another injury, this time to his left heel, and Steven Finn because of a strain in his lower back, a problem that tends to set alarm bells ringing.
Ian Pont, who has worked extensively as a bowling coach and is the author of The Fast Bowler's Bible, believes that the strains imposed on ankles, knees and backs in particular mean that England will need six pace bowlers over the course of the Australian matches.
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"We have the talent in England," Pont said. "It is a question of whether we can keep our best bowlers on the field.
"We are still to find the right balance between the technical and the strength and conditioning sides of bowling. England and Australia are more advanced than other countries, but we do still seem to get injuries."
Broad's trouble can be traced to a knee problem in September 2009. Before the end of that year, he firstly tore a buttock muscle, then jarred a shoulder in South Africa. A back spasm punctuated his tour of Bangladesh the following March. Although England took him out of cricket in the summer of 2010 to build up core strength, the unhappy run was about to get worse.
A torn stomach muscle forced him to miss the last three Tests of the 2010-11 Ashes plus the subsequent one-day series, and a side strain meant he also left the 2011 World Cup early. When he tore his shoulder muscle towards the end of the season it meant a third serious injury in less than a year.
The worrying trend of leaving tours early has continued this year. A calf injury cut short his series in Sri Lanka in March, with Andy Flower, the team director, admitting concern at a recurring issue. Now Broad is home again, the curtailed, wicketless India trip a nadir in his career when, at 26, he ought to be approaching his peak.
"He has one of the better actions, technically," Pont said. "If you have an area of weakness in the body I guess it follows logically that you become more susceptible there. Also, if a bowler has a problem, he might compensate and that causes a problem in another area. I do not know if that is the case with Broad, but his pace has dropped and he is nothing like as potent as he was."
Finn, 23, does not have the same catalogue of setbacks. England has been careful to introduce him gradually through one-day internationals into what will, fitness permitting, be regular Test action. He missed the first two Tests in India because of a thigh injury from fielding, but had already suffered back soreness in September before the latest trouble.
Pont has identified a technical issue with Finn's action.
"He falls a bit to the off-side and his arm comes down slightly from behind the umpire rather than straight," he said. "It may not be causing the injury, but people can slightly misalign an action and when that is repeated hundreds of times it can cause a weakness in the body."
Problems are far from unique to England. Australia has suffered even worse of late. It went into the final Test against South Africa recently without its entire first-choice attack of Peter Siddle, Ben Hilfenhaus, and James Pattinson. Ryan Harris and Pat Cummins were also unavailable. On Sunday, Hilfenhaus pulled up against Sri Lanka in Hobart with a side strain.
Studies from the National Performance Centre in Loughborough have shown that stress fractures affect up to 50 per cent of young fast bowlers, so everything begins from ensuring that bowlers can stand up to the rigours of such an unnatural job.
The importance of strength and conditioning work has filtered to the counties with ECB grants for specialist coaches.
England rests and rotates bowlers, but that has not prevented Broad or Finn from being injured.
"Since 2005 the strength and conditioning work has improved," Pont said. "The challenge is to bowl enough overs to make sure they are fit for purpose. It is difficult because they do not bowl a lot of overs in the nets, but then might bowl 25 in an innings and field for three days."
Jock Campbell, an expert in strength and conditioning and former physical performance manager to the Australia team, recently quoted from a study in Australia that showed to reduce risk of injury, bowlers should regularly send down no more than 30 overs per week. But guidelines go out of the window when a Test match is there to be won.
The Ashes matches will not just be won by pace, hostility and skill. Results will also come down to an old-fashioned Darwinian survival of the fittest.
THE TIMES

Friday 9 November 2012

The Socialism Of Fast Bowling

I hate to be an old git about this, when I'm actually not. But I hanker after the 'old' days when the West Indies had 4, 5 maybe 6 genuine quick bowlers and scared the complete **** out of batsmen around the world.

Watching fast bowling today reminds me of watching something sanitised and put into boxes. It reeks of a standardising of quality and a multiplicity of sameness.

In political terms, this is a socialism of fast bowling where everyone must have the same, all should be the same and even look the same. "Get the wrist strong, shape the ball away, hit the right areas, pitch the ball up"... if you simply say this over and over, you may even end up as a bowling coach yourself. 

But bowling fast isn't about any of those things. That's because they are outcomes and not processes. And the truth is, we have lost the ability to actually coach speed - or at least understand the process that makes a fast bowler bowl fast in the first place.

Bowling fast is what the West Indies had. No one ever said to the West Indies "Get the wrist strong, shape the ball away, hit the right areas, pitch the ball up"... instead their mantra was bowl at 100mph and let the batsman negotiate the ball.

Watching Day 1 of the Aus v SA Test series showed exactly what I am talking about with pace bowling and where it has got to. However, the socialism of fast bowling starts way, way before this level and runs deep into junior coaching psyche. Is it any wonder that the robotic, repetitive averageness of fast-medium bowling is winning through? 

I have spent the past 18 months coaching on and off in India. I have seen bowlers with the passion to bowl fast being actively discouraged from trying to. The coaches instead preferring the socialism of fast bowling where no actual coaching needs to be done.

And this for me, is at the heart of it all.

If we can tick boxes, repeat mantras, pass coaching over to strength & conditioning, measure and manage players in the gym, focus on diets and nutrition, pay more interest in the mental side of the game, and lay out hundreds of cones, ski poles, gadgets and targets INSTEAD OF coaching speed into pace bowlers, then all is good with the game.

But the truth is all of that must be done ALONG SIDE coaching speed. Otherwise we have all the trimmings, but no turkey. We have all the tinsel but no Xmas tree. We have all the box ticking, but no fast bowlers.

Day 1 of the Test match showed a peppering of mid-130s kph (84 mph) deliveries. What's happened to the 150-155 kph (mid 90 mph) bowlers? 

For all the technology, training, props and gadgets, gym work, S&C, mantras and "get the wrist strong, shape the ball away, hit the right areas, pitch the ball up".... we have a complete levelling of the playing field in speed terms. And that is the problem.

Sanitisation or the socialism of fast bowling is now endemic. Coaches are being groomed to continue down this path. Educators actively pass on the methodology of blandness, mistakenly believing it to be excellence.

It would be time, before pace bowling is a lost art, to have a moratorium on speed and open the minds up to the truth that you can and you must coach the processes of fast bowling. It starts with understanding. It begins with knowing how to coach speed into bowlers and not out of them, as we appear to be witnessing in world cricket right now.

It's why I wrote Ultimate Pace Secrets https://shop.maverickscricket.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=BOOK003 and it's why I watch Test cricket with a sense of depression that fast bowling is starting to look like it's consigned to an earlier age when speed, and scaring the batsman, used to be part of a bowler's weaponry.

Speed and control are not exclusive. You can have both. The West Indies did. And you can coach both side by side. 

Let's start teaching speed. For the sake of mediocrity if nothing else and end this socialism of fast bowling that is a disservice to a whole generation.




Thursday 8 November 2012

No Good Knocking If No One's Home

I read today that Craig McDermott is going to take the 'injury prevention' video analysis around Australia to help identify potential issues in fast bowlers.

I saw this and thought that as obvious as this should be anyway, why is it that Cricket Australia isn't educating coaches in the first place? But I don't really want to single CA out to be fair to them. Even though the issues over Cummins have been well documented, and even though CA appeared to have left Cummins alone without correcting his lateral flexion and misalignment until it has finally caused a major problem, it still doesn't make them unique.

In fact, it simply makes them part of the vast majority who coach fast bowling, yet do not come to grips with teaching speed correctly or work out how to avoid injury properly.

The list is long. And the list is accepted as the 'norm'.

The Fast Bowler's Bible in 2006 and Ultimate Pace Secrets in 2012, explain and show how all of this is done correctly. Perhaps the international boards should read this stuff, buy a copy for every coach in their land, and thus educate on teaching fast bowling the right way. It would be far cheaper and less hassle than to go around correcting mistakes being made and having to restructure, rehab and redevelop bowlers AFTER they have had issues.

I think that one day, the penny will drop, but I might have a big beard by then.


Sunday 28 October 2012

ULTIMATE PACE SECRETS

One of the hardest things is convincing people they might have things wrong.

For years now we have taught fast bowling a certain way and those in authority have sought to develop that. The problem is that the way pace bowling is actually coached is possibly the least technically advanced in any comparable sports specialisation.

As sports use technology, sports science and analysis to obtain an extra 1%, 3% or 10% improvement, cricket - with fast bowling in particular - bumps along the bottom. Coach educators and therefore coaches and fast bowlers, find themselves unable to take fast bowling forward. 

We had many 90 mph bowlers in the 1940s, 50s, 60s and 70s. But we don't have huge numbers more in 2012. And neither are they faster than bowlers like Tyson, Griffith, Thompson, Holding, Trueman plus hoardes of others who bowled with heavy boots, trained far less than modern cricketers and had no access to the advantages or technology.

That's because the technical aspect of coaching fast bowling has simply not moved on.

My first book, The Fast Bowler's Bible, was ground-breaking in 2006 as it identified 10 key indicator points in bowling that all coaches and potential quicks could focus on. Many thousands of coaches are using the methodology on this book to begin the process of shaping and developing talented fast bowlers for the future.

My latest book, Ultimate Pace Secrets, takes this concept MUCH FURTHER and FASTER. It contains the fabled Four Tent Pegs, which are the heart of any action. Master these and you are on your way to pace bowling 'gold'. The book explains how the drop step and front foot block, increase pace using the legs, hips and core of the action. The stretch reflex shows how shoulder hip separation works to power the ball faster than ever towards the batsman.

These gems have been committed to paper for the very first time. They are explained in an easy to understand way that doesn't use 'jargon' and avoids the coaching trap of confusing any player with contradictory information.

Ultimate Pace Secrets reveals the correct skill drills with each position so that any fast bowler or coach, can get results right away. By practicing and becoming an expert in the correct positions, any bowler can maximise their speed and accuracy. 

I have been coaching pace for more than 20 years with great results. I wanted to share with others what I know, what I have discovered and what works. I also wanted to dispel many myths around fast bowling that simply are not true yet some hold very dear. 

In other words, I wanted to offer a blueprint for success. I recommend it to all fans who love fast bowling, all cricket boards who work with fast bowling coaching, all coach educators, all coaches and all fast bowlers themselves. 

If I sell one book or a million books, it almost doesn't matter. What matters is that for the first time you can finally discover the ultimate pace secrets. And that is worth any price.

The book is only £9.99 and you can get it exclusively here: https://shop.maverickscricket.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=BOOK003

Friday 26 October 2012

Does Reputation Means More Than Results?

It must be very hard for cricket teams to appoint the right coaches. 

With so many ex-players now going into coaching and ever-increasing roles to be filled, there is sometimes a tendency for too few quality coaches but a large number of first-timers, chasing too many coaching jobs. The names go round and round sometimes, often without a deeper probing into whether the name concerned is actually suitable for that role.

On the one side there are the cricket authorities and teams who are dazzled somewhat by a reputation. On the other side there are coaches, many recently retired, who played but may not understand what the day to day role involves in developing talented players.

If I hold a specific coaching badge it doesn't mean I am the right choice. It should be about seniority of coaching, experience... and dare I say it... good old fashioned results. If you are going to work in the sub continent, it might help to have experience of expectations, boards, fans and players so you are not surprised. Equally, those appointing coaches to teams should have a deeper insight into who they appoint rather than a cursory glance at a CV - or where a coach comes from.

If you are a coach from Australia your stock has been very much elevated during the past 10 years. The green and gold passport carries a premium - particularly for the IPL, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh coaching assignments. Rightly or wrongly "all that glitters is green & gold" and the methodology of Cricket Australia is being widely exported around certain parts of the globe almost exclusively. It looks unlikely to change sometime soon.

But world-best practice involves taking things from different areas and blending them into something greater than a sum of its parts. It requires an understanding that there is always something better and always something to be made a higher quality. "Don't let success get in the way of improvement" and when you stop learning, you cease being an educator yourself.

The hardest thing to define is how a coach man-manages and understands the technical aspects of his chosen skill. If you are able to handle people from a variety of different backgrounds and then are adept at developing their skill levels, you have all the assets you'll ever need as a coach. Get that wrong and your CV will be quickly filled with either unsuccessful long stays or if the team is good, moderately successful short ones.

People often confuse experience with results, and reputation with ability. And that, is also likely to continue. 

Message to boards and team owners: delve deeper than a CV, passport and playing record

Message to coaches: keep open to new ideas, developing your skills and the possibility of getting an Aussie passport