An interview with Tony Palladino - part 1

The word 'legend' is overused in the modern era,sometimes attributed to a player who scores a couple of fine goals in a football match, or take a few wickets at cricket.

For me, the word 'legend' should be used in the same breath as 'loyalty' and I would be wary of using it for anyone who didn't give a good chunk of their career to a particular club. In an era when players move around with nigh the regularity of a new ball, the word is rarely correctly used as far as I am concerned.

The true legends for Derbyshire are the long career men. Bestwick, Copson. Mitchell, the Popes, Rhodes (senior and junior) Hamer, Edwin Smith – it is a long and illustrious list.

Of the current squad, Wayne Madsen has achieved and justifies such a status for duration and deeds, while Billy Godleman is getting there. Tony Palladino is up there and deserving too.

Next year will be his tenth for the county. Players have come and gone in that period, but Tony has stayed fit, run in hard (usually from the Racecourse End at Derby) and remained one of the more affable players in county cricket.

I have known him for many of those summers and recall a long chat in the pavilion after we won the second division title in 2012. His open demeanour and ready smile are gifts not given to all, but they have been appreciated by Derbyshire supporters in particular.

I caught up with him at Derby, back in September. We sat in front of the Gateway building and chatted as Billy Godleman and Luis Reece went out to bat at the start of what proved a monumental stand against Sussex. My request for an interview had received a quick and positive reply and his easy conversational style prompted a few additional questions to those I had prepared.

He is a fine man and a fine cricketer, one to enjoy while we have the chance to do so.

So Tony, you're a London boy. Where did you start playing your cricket? At school or at a club?

I played for Tower Hamlets and played just one game of cricket for my school. But that game was seen by a chap who was involved in the London Schools set up and my first game for them was for the under-elevens at Arundel!

I played for them until under-15 level and then my Mum and Dad, who realised I had a bit of talent, enrolled me in Wanstead Cricket Club, where there was a good junior section. I played there until my late teens, but I didn't have a county at that time.

I was picked up by Essex at an indoor tournament where I was playing. It's funny, because I was born and bred in East London and so Middlesex was my county. I had one trial and game for them, but that was it. So I played for Essex Academy and it went on from there.

A lot of people don't realise how tough it really is to get into county cricket. As a young bowler, what demands did you face?

The step up in standard is massive, from even good club cricket. My second team debut was in 1999, when I was sixteen or seventeen. It was at New Road, Worcester and the wicket was so different. In club cricket you can often get away with half volleys, because they are so slow, but I was bowling what I thought was a good length and getting hit around the park. It was a steep learning curve.

There's also the demands on the body. You play club cricket once a week and bowl maybe twelve overs, then nothing until the next weekend, apart from a few in the nets. In my first-class debut I bowled the whole of the first day, then we were bowled out quickly and I was bowling again on the second afternoon, when I was still stiff from the previous day.

I think that is one of the problems with modern bowlers. There are all these restrictions on what they can bowl at fourteen, fifteen,sixteen, but if they are good enough they get to first-class level and are suddenly expected to bowl twenty overs in a day, when they are only used to ten!

And that's when the body starts to rebel...

Yeah. When I was captain of London Schools I bowled a lot. In one fifty-over game I bowled throughout at one end, as a stock bowler, keeping it tight. It didn't affect me and I don't think I have ever had a stress fracture. I may have done, but I played through the odd sore back and I think it stood me in good stead when there was a greater expectation of me bowling for a long time.

Sure, I had injuries, as all seamers do, as it isn't a natural thing to do. I feel really sorry for Olly Stone, who has been really unlucky with repeated stress fractures and I never had that. So I was able to bowl a lot and I guess be noticed as a result.

That's been a problem for a few at Derbyshire, of course?

That's right. The likes of Sam (Conners) and Alfie (Gleadall) have had back issues and it has hampered their development. You lose rhythm when you stop playing, then have to start again and all the while you still have to make that step up.

Today, for example, I bowled four overs before we started today, to get loose and get my rhythm. So the overs soon mount up and there's no getting around that. If you bowl a lot of overs one day, and your captain decides to enforce the follow-on, you have to get yourself mentally and physically ready to bowling the same number of overs with the same level of intensity on the following day.

The quicker a young bowler learns what they need to do to be able to do that, the better they will be. We all have our own routines – but you see some bowlers go and bowl a few overs around nine o'clock, then more in the pre-match warm up. If you then have to bowl twenty in the innings, you have bowled thirty in the day!

I don't bowl until the warm up. I go out in my whites around 10.45am, bowl a few balls in my whites and then I am ready to go. You have to manage your work load and your energy levels.

Especially for the T20, of course. I have spoken to a lot of old Derbyshire players and while they bowled a lot of overs, there was no real expectation that they threw themselves around in the field...

Oh that's right and you also have your fielding drills to do and you are expected to go and have a knock in the nets, because tail enders are few and far between now. You look at people like Jonathan Agnew and plenty closer to home, and they would rarely do much in the nets with a bat in their hand.

There's the story about the legendary Hampshire bowler, Derek Shackleton, whose pre-match warm-up was allegedly to comb his hair and have a fag. Yet he still took over two thousand wickets for them....

(Laughs) Yes and it didn't do him much harm! Again, it is what works for the individual that matters.

To be continued...