An interview with Tony Palladino part 2

You made your Essex debut in 2003. Who were the players and coaches who helped you at that stage?

Geoff Arnold and Neil Foster were two of my early mentors. They were both outstanding bowlers and helped me a lot.

It's funny, I have always been a big student of the game and yet today you get a lot of young players and they don't know who their coaches are, and what good players they were in their own time. I knew all about mine and what they had done in the game.

Having said that, I never needed a lot of work, because I had a natural 'clean' action. I got crossed over a bit when I was younger, but a lot of their advice was on how to get batters out. They told me to look at his grip, watch his hands, his feet, how he stands at the crease.

Real attention to detail!

It was. You'd learn that if a batsman held the bat high on the handle he would wanting to drive you, but lower down he was a puller and cutter. Little things, that meant a lot and you could adjust your length for them accordingly.

Nowadays we have analysts, of course, who can tell you how they score their runs, but back then it made a difference. The quicker you can work a batsman out, the quicker you can get him out!

I used to keep a notebook of how and where I bowled to specific batsmen, how I got them out and it was all very useful, before it was done for us. When I signed for Derbyshire I had a long chat with Chris Silverwood about that and he encouraged it, especially for players you had played against rarely, or perhaps hadn't played before.

It's interesting though, because you could have success against a player one year with them nicking off, but then the next year they would be further across, having worked hard on their footwork over the winter. So then you would perhaps look for a leg before, if they got too far across.

You have to be prepared to adapt!

Do the umpires say much? There used to be stories that they would sometimes offer advice, especially if they had been bowlers too?

Yeah, sometimes. I have a good relationship with the umpires, especially the former bowlers like Neil Mallender and Dave Millns. Pete Hartley is another; he's told me in the past that perhaps I needed to get my wrist stronger, if the seam was wobbling on the way down to the batsman.

It is all very cordial. You can learn from them. Neil Mallender has played a lot of cricket, not just in England, but in New Zealand and he will tell you how he adapted his bowling around the country and between countries.

He told me that when he had the successful Test at Headingley against Pakistan he completely changed his bowling style. He was previously a 'hit the deck' bowler, but made sure he pitched it up and swung it there.

I guess that was as challenge for Logan (van Beek) this year?

Yes, he had to learn to bowl a different length and with a different ball. It was a steep learning curve for him, but then every day is a school day!

Your time at Essex is best remembered, of course, for your exposing the match-fixing scandal that involved Danish Kaneria and Mervyn Westfield. That must have been a hard time for you?

It was. It was a very tough time and it could have ended much better. I was encouraged to report what I had seen but there was no real support from the club. Of course, all the anti-corruption protocols came after that, so things have improved, but I felt that I was in trouble myself, because we were all interviewed by the Metropolitan Police. Merv and I ended up playing in the same second team, which wasn't easy, and it all dragged on pretty horribly.

It all worked out very well of course, when I got to sign for Derbyshire.

How did that come about?

Well, I knew someone who had John Morris' number and he came to see me at Billericay. I did well in the match and he had a word afterwards and said that he would be in touch.

I signed in November, a deal that was less than half what I was on at Essex – and I wasn't on a lot there!

I lived in a room above a pub that year, because it was all I could afford, but the club got good value out of that first summer...

So much for the exotic lifestyle of the professional sportsman!

Yeah! But you know, I knew that if I stayed fit I would play. At Essex, I only got a game if there were injuries and as soon as the player was fit I was dropped again, no matter what I had done. One year I took sixteen wickets in four games, but still got dropped - or 'rested' as they called it, when someone was fit.

The second year I was on the same money I was on at Essex, so that was OK.

And that was the promotion year, of course

Yeah that was my favourite year in the game. I got a hundred, a hat-trick, fifty wickets, we won promotion. It was a great summer, we had a really good dressing room, and I just revelled in being a key part of the side. Karl Krikken made me feel welcome and treated me well. If he rested me he made it clear that he really needed me for the game after that. Hearing that from a coach was great, and feeling wanted made a huge difference to my performances.