James Whittaker
The norm for any international cricket side is to have three or four seamers and a couple of spinners. Bermuda’s gone the opposite way. The squad for the Americas is stuffed with quality slow bowlers and only Stefan Kelly and Justin Pitcher in the pace department. It’s great that we’re producing so many decent spinners, and I understand that in Bermuda had to opt for players that were available and had been training regularly — hence the omission of Kevin Hurdle and George O’Brien. But it will be incredibly tough to win too many matches with a two-man pace attack. If one of those guys gets injured or hit out of the attack, then you could see 40-plus overs of spin. Far from an ideal situation in one-day cricket. More worrying, in the longer term, is the fact that all Bermuda’s best prospects, with the exception of Jordan DeSilva, seem to be spinners. Regino Smith, Marcus Johnson, Tre Govia – the list goes on. What we don’t seem to be able to produce consistently are quality fast bowlers.
The norm for any international cricket side is to have three or four seamers and a couple of spinners. Bermuda’s gone the opposite way. The squad for the Americas is stuffed with quality slow bowlers and only Stefan Kelly and Justin Pitcher in the pace department. It’s great that we’re producing so many decent spinners, and I understand that in Bermuda had to opt for players that were available and had been training regularly — hence the omission of Kevin Hurdle and George O’Brien. But it will be incredibly tough to win too many matches with a two-man pace attack. If one of those guys gets injured or hit out of the attack, then you could see 40-plus overs of spin. Far from an ideal situation in one-day cricket. More worrying, in the longer term, is the fact that all Bermuda’s best prospects, with the exception of Jordan DeSilva, seem to be spinners. Regino Smith, Marcus Johnson, Tre Govia – the list goes on. What we don’t seem to be able to produce consistently are quality fast bowlers.
Pace bowling has been our archilles heal for some time. One big factor is that we don't get as many West Indian pace bowling ex pats as we had some twenty years ago. Back then you had a number of fast expats combined with a number of good Bermudian fast bowlers, that in turn made the ranks look healthy. The bottom line is that pace bowling is very hard work and the generation that came along in the 90's were just not willing to do it! I also feel that placid 'batsmen' friendly pitches often discouraged fast bowlers and contributed to the demise of the Bermudian fast bowler. How do we get it back? I can't say I have the answer. It is a hard sell to get youngsters committed to mereley play the game, much less take on the daunting physical challenges of Pace bowling. Maybe Police recruiters can look for more pace bowlers and cricketers in their search for officers, otherwise we got to put th 'perfume on the pig' and make pace bowling attractive to youngsters!!! Good Luck !!!!
Posted by: Jermaine Postlethwaite | November 21, 2008 at 10:27 AM
It's pretty hard to develop a quality pace bowler these days. Those that emerge are then subject to injuries. Look at Hurdle and Ryan Steede for immediate examples. Overseas, Brett Lee, Shoaib Ahktar, Darren Gough come to mind. Also Ravi Rampaul from the Windies. The toil they place on their bodies running at top speed and sending the ball as hard as they can. It sure keeps the physios busy. Makes you admire guys like Courtney Walsh who to my knowledge never had any serious injuries over his long career.
Unfortunately, you aren't going to be successful in cricket if you have nothing but some placid medium pacers and a few spinners.
The good news is that this disadvantage can be slightly negated by good choices in fielding settings and tight bowling that puts the pressure on the batsman and induces mistakes. We should be able to see where Logie's squad stands after this tournament concludes.
Posted by: Tryangle | November 21, 2008 at 10:38 AM
I would think that pace bowling is still sexy, so to speak. Lasinth Malinga became an overnight sensation in the World Cup with his wild hair and unorthodox bowling motion.
Everybody loves to see a batsman beaten by sheer pace. Young kids playing cricket love to come with big runups and try to break the stumps down.
Perhaps we do a poor job of getting the young fast bowlers to bowl straight, so they become worse off for it, while medium pacers who naturally would have better execution, are more successful.
BCB could probably do with bringing in Garner or Walsh to host some fast bowling clinics for those in the 13-17 year old bracket, to start.
Posted by: Tryangle | November 25, 2008 at 03:48 PM