“Genuinely fast bowlers are born, they don’t fall off trees”
By Karthik Krishnaswamy
Last updated at 5pm on, Feb. 15, 2008
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Former fast bowler Dennis Lillee is in Chennai to coach the winners of the Gatorade Pacers talent hunt 2008.
Photo: Karthik Krishnaswamy/Digantik |
Chennai: Standing next to the nets at the MRF Pace Foundation, the legendary Dennis Lillee still looked every inch the fast bowler – despite the greying moustache, and a midsection that doesn’t quite suggest the graceful side-on leap of the glory days. Lillee was in Chennai this week to coach Shardu Thakur, Vishal Singh, Magizhendan and Deepak Chaudhry, winners of the Gatorade Pacers talent hunt 2008 as part of a three week camp. Fast bowlers from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the English academy were also at the camp. The Aussie legend shared his forthright opinions about fast bowling with Digantik’s Karthik Krishnaswamy.
What do you look for in a fast bowler in talent hunts like these? Is this an ideal way to spot talent?
In an ideal world, you’d want to see bowlers in a match situation. Unfortunately, that’s not possible. So usually, you’d look for pace. When I was approached at the inception of the MRF Pace Foundation, I was asked to look for genuine quick bowlers.
Wouldn’t that encourage one kind of fast bowler over another?
No. By pace, I mean anything above 130 km/hr. If you bowl in the low 130s, you’d need to swing the ball. If someone bowls at that pace but doesn’t swing it, we try to teach him that. If you bowl at less than 130, it’s quite likely you won’t go too far anyway.
What’s happened to the WACA wicket? Why has it slowed down so much?
It’s all in the clay content. Quick wickets, like the old ones at the WACA, have over 80 per cent clay on the top layer. It had come down to around 50 per cent. We have re-laid a couple of the wickets, and the clay content in those is now up to about 75 per cent. We used those for the Shield games, and a couple of One Day Internationals. We played the test against India on one of the old wickets. Next season, we’ll see how the new ones hold up and if they’re okay, we’ll re-lay all the strips. We can’t change all of them. If it doesn’t work, you’re left with bad wickets.
So Perth will be back to its quickest?
Let’s see. It’s not the quickest Australian wicket now, by any means.
Which one is?
The Gabba at Brisbane. Melbourne’s not quick anymore. Sydney isn’t, and neither is Adelaide. At the Gabba, they also leave some grass on top, so the ball can move around.
We hear a lot about the Fremantle Doctor in Perth. How does it help fast bowlers?
It’s a cooling afternoon breeze that blows across the ground. Swing bowlers say bowling into it aids swing, while fast bowlers from the other end always like a wind behind their backs. It’s just a breeze, though – not a hurricane. It won’t carry you in to bowl.
Fast bowlers hunting in packs, or at least in pairs – is that becoming a rare sight now? The last great fast bowling combination was perhaps Donald and Pollock, or maybe McGrath and Gillespie.
That’s right. When you have two good fast bowlers, the batsman has no respite. If you have one good bowler at one end and one not-so-good one at the other, the batsman can block the good bowler and go after the other one. But having said that, you look at the Aussie attack now, and you see Brett Lee and Mitchell Johnson. Stuart Clark isn’t quick, but you mentioned McGrath – he wasn’t either. We don’t know what’s happening with Shaun Tait, but he’s express. So is Lee.
But outside Australia, there’s a dearth of quality fast bowling.
You guys (India) have four very good ones. How many do you want? South Africa has Dale Steyn, and that other bloke who angles it in- Ntini. Andre Nel bowls at 135-140 – which is quick enough. England a couple of years back had Simon Jones and Harmison was really quick then. I guess New Zealand’s the one team that’s in some trouble. Apart from Bond, there isn’t too much to get excited about.
What role do selectors have in nurturing quick bowlers?
You can’t make genuinely fast bowlers. They are born. They don’t fall off trees. So when people say selectors aren’t picking quick bowlers, I tell them – there aren’t any, so how’ll you pick ‘em? Western Australia - where I come from - was renowned for producing really quick bowlers. In the last 20 years though, there haven’t been any.
In your early days, like in the ’71 Rest of the World Series, you were extremely quick. Then you had that back injury, and people say you came back a cleverer bowler after that. Weren’t you always a clever bowler?
No, I wasn’t. After that injury, I lost a lot of pace. Before that, I could hit the 160s. I realised I had to do other things like move the ball around, use the angles, vary my pace and come around the wicket. Not too many people were doing all that back then, so people said I was clever.
On the subject of that Rest of the World Series, Gary Sobers’s 254 – was that the best knock you ever saw?
Right up there. It was certainly one of the best I’ve seen.
Which other knocks you saw would qualify?
Look, it’s been more than 25 years since I last played. (Laughs) I don’t remember any of that now.
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