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.
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