He’s almost 60, but Eric Simmons looks like he can finish a few overs of medium-fast if you bowl a cricket ball today. Simmons, who was fast-medium when he started playing, and a serious thumper of the ball – he has 4264 first-class runs with a high of 157 to go with 330 wickets – in his deliveries when he is excited. Expresses fast About fast bowling The former India bowling consultant, who also worked with Chennai Super Kings in the same capacity, liked what he saw from India’s bowlers. Part:
What do you like about this Indian fast bowling attack?
As commentators or observers, we always talk about “what”. That is, taking wickets or scoring runs. But, as the coach or player, you have to work out your “how”. How am I going to do what I want to do? What I love about this Indian attack is the “how” you can see. You can see the plan. You can see what each is trying to do and how each complements the other. As a group, not only are there eleven, but Vistaar, Umesh Yadav and Ishant Sharma, they all have a role to play and complement each other. There is a clear plan in place and they are consistent and consistent.
South Africa have been guilty of casting some loose spells. In contrast, India have attacked the stumps and pushed the batsmen to play a lot, especially in the beginning…
If you draw a hive of fast bowlers from both the teams, you will see the difference. South Africa is very wide and India is very close. You have someone like Jasprit Bumrah who comes from wide and strikes the stumps. Mohammed Shami comes close to the stumps and does the same. Siraj is also someone who attacks the stumps naturally. That has been the difference between the two sides. Where the Proteas are sometimes loose, India attacking the stumps or keeping the ball in that channel of uncertainty as we say it.
Does bowling on subcontinental pitches regularly result in attacking the stumps?
Yes and no. When I worked with some Indian bowlers because they had to work so hard for wickets in India and because they didn’t bowl long spells, because of the spinners coming early in the game, they were a bit impatient. He tried to do many things. But I think now they’ve gotten a lot smarter, simplified their game plan and become more patient. Yes, they have had to work so hard for their wickets in Indian conditions, but, you can’t be lazy. In the last 3-5 years, Indian bowlers have become a lot more patient and consistent with their strategy, which has made them stop playing particularly well.
We often say that someone is an unlucky bowler, or that if he just bowls fuller, he will be more successful. The same is true of Srinath, Ishant and more recently Shami. Just how difficult is it to bowl fuller?
With batting or bowling, you can’t just sit in the commentary box and say: bowl a full length. This is something you have to work on in practice, be really disciplined. When I was with the Indian team, I used to stand at the edge of the nets and work, for example, Ishant Sharma has to bowl to hit the top. In India, it was a fixed length.
But, when you bowl that length in Australia or South Africa, it goes straight over the stumps. To change that, what you have done for 15 years, suddenly bowling fuller, is hard work. It has to be programmed. You have to go to the net and work on it. Secondly, you need patience from the captain. When the bowler takes the field several times, the captain has to be patient. Let the bowler feel it and make adjustments even when you are under pressure.
The second thing is to stick with your length and change your area. If you want to bowl a slightly shorter back of length, keep your mid-on and mid-off wide and your field square as usual. This is another way to combat it. Stick with your length but have more slips and a square area. There are many ways to achieve the same thing. But, if you want to go fuller in a Test match or series, you have to work in the nets. You cannot see the ball floating at full length. You are being punished. You have to bowl fuller with full action. This can happen only if you put in the work before playing an outside Test.
Jasprit Bumrah has taken the leadership role with this attack, quickly assessing the conditions and setting the tone. How much does it help to have a fast bowler who can do that?
He is one of the fastest bowlers I have come across. When we play against him in IPL, I try to talk to him. I don’t think people understand the maturity of Bumrah and the Indian bowlers in general and the nuances of cricket. He understands the game very well. In the IPL, you work with bowlers from all over the world and I think the Indian bowlers have a good, clear vision of the game. Sometimes it may be wrong and you may disagree, but, at least, they have an idea. Bumrah is an ultimate leader. But you will find that all the Indian bowlers have a solid plan. You will find that the conversations that are taking place within the bowling group are very clever and clever, of strategy, analyzing the batsmen.
Speaking to one of Mohammed Shami’s early coaches recently, he told me that the bowler was not keen on going to the gym or running laps, but he worked up his fitness by bowling full tilt for two hours in the nets. How important is it to allow for different perspectives when trying to achieve the same goal?
This is one of the classic points of the game. To advance a group of bowlers, you need to advance the individuals. You can’t take them all at once. They each function differently. You need to understand the motivation – is it just laziness, or is it something different that a cricketer needs?
Sometimes, if you bowl too long in the nets, technical issues crop up, so you should be aware of that as well. Mohammed Shami is very lucky that he has a big motor. I don’t think he will do the bleep test very well, but give him a ball and he will bowl all day. He is blessed with this. My serious involvement in cricket began in 2009 and over the past decade and a bit fitness levels – from the time spent in the gym under MS Dhoni to Sachin Tendulkar to the fitness attitude of Virat Kohli – have generally just grown and grown.
You need to understand the players individually, but you also need to have a good foundation of functional fitness. I’m not big on gym work, but functional fitness, even something like yoga, can be a major component of bowling in the modern sport.
It is difficult to understand how successful Shardul Thakur is. Some bowlers have the pace, the swing, the seam pace… They don’t seem to have a single big weapon, and yet they do well and fit into this group. what about that?
Touching Bumrah, one of his biggest assets is that he is unconventional. In the past, it was usually the case that everyone was trained in the same way. Everyone built their run ups the same way, loaded the same way and did the same things. He’s out of the game today and that’s a great thing. If you train Bumrah’s idiosyncrasies or his unconventionality out of his game then he will be nothing less than a bowler. that’s important.
Shardul Thakur is a very interesting character. Her middle name should be Confidence. He is one of the most dependable and honest cricketers I have ever worked with [Simons was bowling consultant with CSK for whom Shardul played], He is honest in terms of his own performance, what he thinks he has done and what he hasn’t. Players feed off his self-confidence. They are aware of this. Sometimes, in this quartet, he feels the pressure while bowling. If he is going for some runs always Bumrah or Shami or Siraj bowls the ball. His attitude towards the game and the fact that he is a good team man sucks.
I was involved in the IPL final against Mumbai when he got lbw. [Shardul was lbw Malinga off the last ball with CSK needing two runs to win] He was devastated. This kind of incident either takes you deep into the pit or you say that I will never let this happen to me. And look what he has done. He becomes a good batsman, achieving the fastest fifty in England and a fifty in Australia. That difficult moment in her life inspired her to become better, it didn’t put her in the hole. This shows who is Shardul Thakur.
How difficult is it to deal with a few people sitting outside as a coach? Ishant has played a hundred Tests and still he has to wait for his chance. Umesh Yadav is needed when the ball is swinging but he hardly gets a chance abroad…
I don’t think people know what a good bowler Umesh is. In other countries, in other situations, handled a certain way, I think he is an exceptional bowler. He has been unlucky. But one thing that makes this team special is the sense of unity. Not only as a comprehensive team, but in the bowling unit as well. Seeing him at the Wanderers, Ishant Sharma was running out with a drink when someone needed it. it’s important. As long as the dialogue is honest, pure and clear, it won’t matter so much to someone like Ishant that he, as a senior bowler, is missing someone else depending on the circumstances. There is a “we” spirit in the seven-eight fast bowlers in the team, not just the four who are out. It doesn’t make it easier for those who sit outside, because truth be told, any one of them can play, but it keeps the harmony going.
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