David Lloyd: 'Kookaburra' gives Australia the last laugh (21 December 1998)

21 December 1998

David Lloyd: 'Kookaburra' gives Australia the last laugh

By England coach, David Lloyd

STATHAM and Trueman, Lindwall and Miller, Lillee and Thomson, Ambrose and Walsh, Wasim and Waqar, Botham and Willis. Great fast bowlers hunting in pairs, which brings me to Australia's latest twosome of Damien Fleming and Glenn McGrath, a pairing that is just developing and one that could serve their country for years to come.

Pardon me for my parochialism, but they do remind me of a Lancastrian pairing, Brian Statham and Ken Higgs. McGrath is Statham, unerring accuracy at a decent pace, with the ability to nip the ball back and keep the batsman playing all the time. Both have a good engine too, allowing them to bowl for long periods.

Fleming, like Higgs, has an economical run-up, hits the pitch and the bat hard on a strict off-stump line, and, again, keeps going for long periods. This type of bowling partnership puts batsmen under pressure if they are unable to rotate the strike and this stifling of the run flow has real potential for taking wickets. It also allows the captain to deploy fieldsmen in catching positions for long periods, which in international cricket is crucial to the plan of taking 20 wickets in a game.

There is no great mystery to it either. Aggressive, accurate bowling round about the off-stump line on a length that just brings the batsmen forward, or tentatively forward, is common fare for the great quick bowlers. Keep them playing all the time, looking for the edge and knowing that sometimes the ball will pitch and nip back with the potential for either striking the pads or the stumps. All basic stuff with the message "Keep it simple".

I had occasion not long ago to interview Statham for a video about Lancashire cricket legends. We were both in position and the cameras were rolling as I tossed him a cricket ball and began by saying: "Well, Brian, 2,260 wickets at 16, including 252 Test match wickets. Show us how you did it."

Brian's response was interesting. "I've no idea," he said. "I used to hold it like that, with my index and middle fingers either side of the seam, and sometimes it nipped back and sometimes it didn't. I reasoned that if I didn't know, the fellow at the other end didn't either [long pause]. . . but I did know where it was going." End of interview.

We had a similar conversation with Courtney Walsh and Curtly Ambrose during our tour of the West Indies earlier this year when Angus Fraser and I asked the famous twosome: "Do you ever change your grip, and where do you aim?"

Both gave the same answer: "I don't change the grip and I aim at the wicketkeeper. Sometimes it nips back at the batsman and sometimes it goes straight on. My own natural variation in delivery takes care of the rest."

You can imagine at the pace they bowl, with such a simple philosophy, what a handful it can be for a batsman. And you can well understand how they were and are so successful.

Getting back to Fleming and McGrath, by sticking to these basic principles they will keep control of the scoring rate for most of the time, allowing Mark Taylor to have fielders in catching positions for long periods. Their runs per over ratio will be between 2.2 and 2.5, which in a 90-over day converts to a score of around 225 if everyone else is doing their job. The objective is, of course, to take wickets, but it is also to control the scoring rate.

Another factor in Australia's success has been the way they have been brought up using the A A Thompson Kookaburra ball. The make-up of this ball is that it has a very flat seam, the potential to swing when new and goes soft quite quickly, with the seam almost non-existent or perished after about 35 overs.

This means that the quicker bowlers have no margin for error. I mention this point because our quicks have obviously been practising with the Kookaburra ball throughout our time in Australia and have been going through them at a fair rate of knots. I have also had in our kit bag an English ball that has also been used during daily practice either for fielding or in the nets. The seam on that ball is still in remarkably good condition and stands proud of the ball itself. In England in a game situation, the seam, when a ball is delivered correctly, will be the first point of contact with the pitch, causing movement. This movement tends to keep the seam bowler in the game for long periods at the expense of the spinner. In Australia, on the other hand, after an initial burst by the quicker bowlers, the spinners (and especially wrist spinners) are introduced early into the attack. So, here we have two different plans or strategies in two different countries.

As I have mentioned before, in international cricket, England are confronted by big pace with a strict line and length, and wrist spin. In fact, it appears to be the normal attack worldwide. Waqar, Wasim and Mushtaq; McGrath, Fleming and MacGill/Warne; Brandes, Streak and Strang; Donald, Pollock and Adams; Srinath, Prasad and Kumble. Even the West Indies now have Ambrose, Walsh and either Lewis or Ramnarine. I wonder, therefore, if the time is not right for a uniform ball to be used in cricket worldwide, or for there to be a different make of cricket ball but with the same "flat" seam.

To conclude, and moving back to our domestic structure, with the advent of two-divisional county cricket, discussions about pitch preparation are obviously crucial. We must play on the best possible surfaces, in other words a dry pitch with pace, even bounce and an even covering of grass. This should provide the opportunity for the cream of our young talent to rise to the top. We must not get sucked into preparing indifferent pitches that facilitate ill-disciplined bowling. To produce the likes of Trueman, Marshall, McGrath and others, who became greats bowling on Test match pitches, we must ensure that all our bowlers operate to a minimal margin of error - like McGrath and Fleming.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)