Coaching all rounders

[Tall Bear View Profile Find User's Posts Find User's Threads PM User E-Mail User]

Children behave. Whats a mere 0.02% among friends!
Note I said friends, so certain very annoying and offensive poster is definitely not included.

[ddb View Profile Find User's Posts Find User's Threads PM User E-Mail User]

(11-01-2010 11:27 AM)Paul Wrote:  There certain people on this forum (not mentioning any names) who keep quoting stats. Do modern day players look at stats like we do, because if I was a player that would drive me nuts....or do they just forget about them and just concentrate on their game?

Stats do define certain careers though.

If Bradman had an average of 30, would we discuss him...

[boltonboy View Profile Find User's Posts Find User's Threads PM User E-Mail User]

Answer for Paul –

Re the pace in our attack - I reckon at times Gladstone Small bowled
spells as quick as anything I saw or faced throughout my career -
Obviously Allan Donald bowled like the wind. Me? That’s best answered
by opponent batsmen as we didn’t have the use of speed guns when games
were televised. Geoff Humpage, who obviously kept wicket to all 3 of
us early in our careers, is a fair judge. He said I could I hit his
gloves harder that AD. I take it as a compliment and a more accurate
indication of my role with the ball, than say, wishing I’d ended a
career with a bowling average of .248 per wicket less.

I recall a time when the three of us (GCS / PAS / AD) were filmed and
timed but not solely for speed, more so we could gauge the positions
our bodies got into at the time of delivery. On that occasion we
registered high eighties and that was in a centre wicket practice
session. Obviously in match situations, when the adrenalin is flowing,
might add a bit to those figures. I think the attack varied so much in
its style that when we all played in the same championship side it was
the drastic variation which may have brought success.

Overall though, the game isn’t just about speed, I’d say its about
making a batsmen unsure as to what is coming next, an example being
when Warwickshire played Somerset at Taunton. During warm-ups we saw
that if the ball was bowled very slowly in the seam up style it hooped
(excessive swing). At 11am, when we took the field, I told Andy Lloyd
our skipper I’d bowl at least an over or two in slow style, only I’d
bowl around the wicket and aim as far down the leg side as possible,
and have the keeper stand up. Soon afterwards Lloydie threw me the
ball. Within a few minutes, Lathwell, a batsmen who favoured pace on
the ball, was on his way. Maybe it was the Monty Python style attitude
I periodically brought to play that undid Mark. Within a split second
our attack was back on full throttle trying to knock batsman’s heads
off! On a funny note, at the end of day’s play, Paul Bolton, a local
journalist, awarded me a promotional sticker for a local ale called
"Dobs Bitter". Bolton’s act was genuinely funny, because it was
unexpected from a normally dour, insipid character.

Maybe the questions you ask about how quick I bowled is best answered
by saying that those who we played against all said they didn’t know
what was coming and that fear worked to Warwickshire’s advantage. So I
can’t answer your question, but it would’ve been interesting to have
had timed a spell I bowled from the pavilion end @ Edgbaston against
Kent in the NW 2nd round in 94!

[Paul View Profile Find User's Posts Find User's Threads PM User E-Mail User]

Thanks Paul, what a great bowling attack we had then.