How a Simple Trick Helped Me Get My Best Season Ever
This article is a story of fast bowling success from a young reader who emailed in to PitchVision Academy.
I’m a 13 year-old fast bowler. Last season I learned a trick which helped me turn a season around.
We had played four games and I had managed only one wicket. The problem was that since the beginning of the season I couldn’t get my rhythm in. Perhaps I had relaxed extra during the off time and couldn’t get my body to perform the way I wanted it. In every game I would loosely warm up, bowl few overs rather ineffectively and then got tired. During my spells I bowled ridiculous number of no-balls as well.
After one such game, I went home and my uncle started comparing fast bowlers of his youth with the ones of day. Then out of nowhere he said something I will never forget:
“You know why Imran Khan and Dennis Lillee were so accurate right from the start? That was because before they bowled their first over of the game, they had already warmed up by bowling at least three to five overs in the net”.
He said this and started eating the biscuits.
For me it was like the time stopped for a few seconds. I just knew what I had to do. I then made myself a warming up routine which looked something like this:
- Arrive at the ground early
- I would do some basic movements at stretches.
- Then I would bowl a few balls from a couple of paces on my own on the outfield.
- I’d slowly increase my run up to a jog.
- I’d finish with at least 3 overs off my full run up.
This gave my game a new level. I felt better and started taking wickets again. My confidence soared and my season become a success. In fact, after I found this useful I shared it with my coach and team mates. Our coach decided to make this a standard procedure for the team. This helped us not only in gaining momentum it also allowed us to get accustomed to the bowling conditions before we even bowled a ball in the game.
Coaches note: This may seem a stupidly simple way to change a season around, but the simple things work. In this case the player established a pre-game routine that set him up both physically and mentally for play. For more tips like this, get the PitchVision Academy newsletter.
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Comments
Ha, couldn't agree more! Took me a bit over two seasons to realise why my practices were so different to my games! Difficult to do much bowling on a large flat field, so it's good if you can convince the keeper to get some practice in before the game too if there's not net - which there usually isn't with my games.
Baseball pitchers throw 40-50 pitches in the nets before pitching, including a full run-through of how they're going to attack each batsman, followed by 8 warm-up pitches out on the field. I've often wondered why bowlers don't do this kind of thing more often.
This is hardly new, everyone should know the benefits of a decent warm up, yet most don't bother. Its mind baffling. Infact this chap should be dirty at his coach for not getting his team to do warm ups beforehand.
Everyone probably does understand the benefits of a warm up but as you say, how many actually bother? The club I used to play for thought they had a revelation after they warmed up and then won easily. Sadly, it wasn't enough to convince them continue it long term.
It's getting better. I often tell the story of the Aussie professional my club shipped in during the early 90s. His warm up was a jog round the outfield and a few minutes of stretching and every other first team player thought he was insane. He batted number 4 all season, scored a shedload of runs, kept wicket like a demon, got naked at the drop of a hat in the bar and transformed the culture of the club.
Lets face it, if this sort of approach i.e warm ups, isn't enforced from the top, i.e captain and the most senior players, it wont get done. Most club cricketers are there on a Saturday for a day out and if they see the captain pissing about, they get the impression that this sort of attitude is acceptable and wont give a rats arse. Our team has a captain that turns up 15 mins before start time, hardly setting an example. I do my warm up, try to lead by example, but if the captain doesn't give an eff, blokes won't bother. And the main thing that gets a bee up my bonnet is that blokes have no bloody initiative. You have to drag by the ears to get them to do something that in the end is in their own benefit
The stupid thing is that if they warmed up they would have better days out!
Spot on. And as we spoke on an earlier thread, its also about psyching out the opposition and creating the impression that we are here to play. When the opposition are sitting down and talking about how much beers they had last night, and all of a sudden your team comes out together for their warm up, the opposition starts thinking "shit, these guys are keen" and you have already drawn first blood.
At the club level, most of the teams know each other, at least in the league where I am playing. So chances of scaring the other team with a surprise "warming up" tactics are rather low.
But that doesnt reduce the value of warm ups though. For sure, it helps to improve the on field performance. As one gentelman said, its difficult to change the culture of the team when the captain and the senior players are the ones least interested.