Caring for Young Quicks
Mon, Jul 24, '06
After what must have seemed an eternity on the sidelines, young fast bowler Ravi Rampaul enters a positive episode in his cricket career. He is to train at the Australian Cricket Academy in Brisbane for a month as part of the Australian Sport Outreach Programme.
For Rampaul, who came on the scene a couple years ago and aroused interest with his passion and performance, the shin injuries that afflicted him repeatedly were a dreadful blow. Forced to sit and squirm while the West Indies continued searching for quick bowlers, he must have felt like Ian Bishop did when he too spent an agonisingly long period wondering if he would ever play cricket again.
Rampaul is young, and although he has a more stocky build than most of the current pacers, he is obviously as prone to injury. Why?
It seems the average age of the West Indian cricketer has dropped, so we have had several making their debuts on the cusp of their 20s. Without precise calculations, the impression is that previously the age of Test debut hovered more closely around 24.
While one imagines that a teenager or someone closer to that invincible age comes equipped with boundless energy, raging confidence and a supple body, the reality is that unless that package is prepared to face the rigours of athletics, it is going to be strained and possibly hurt quickly.
Without the right approach to nutrition, fitness and training these are raw bodies, and the demands of Test cricket, even on a seasoned bowler, put enormous strain on backs, legs and shoulders. Imagine what must have been going on in the frames of giants like Garner, Hall, Bishop and Roberts.
Today's bowlers are smaller in stature, so the pounding might be reduced, but they are also younger and less fit, thus their bones and muscles may not be developed enough to consistently deliver what is necessary.
Take Jerome Taylor in St Kitts, for instance. Taylor got three Test wickets in under an hour, enough to send the adrenaline pumping. But at the end of the day, the 22-year-old said that after bowling fewer than 25 overs, he was too tired to want to go back to bowl.
When you recall that in 1984 at Headingley Malcolm Marshall double-fractured his left thumb in the field, and no one thought he could continue but he did, taking seven for 53, including a catch off his own bowling, you see the stark difference in the composition of the bowlers. Young cricketers may be criticised for lacking stamina, strength and commitment, but they can be instilled through nurturing.
Ravi Rampaul is not the only one who needs this kind of support. Taylor, Fidel Edwards, Jermaine Lawson and Tino Best are just the quick names to call, but all players need programmes that help to build their muscular strength and mental stamina.
Australian Sport Outreach Programme is only a part of an extensive development plan by Cricket Australia. There is also an annual youth programme for cricketers from Under-15 to Under-19 levels that takes them to the Commonwealth Bank Cricket Academy for skill and fitness training. Scholarships like that given to Rampaul are awarded to the youngsters.
We have to begin at the beginning. Offer this kind of nurturing from early, not as rehabilitative measures after players have broken down, but while they are fit and whole, and can learn how to take proper care of themselves, and our cricket.
For as long as the relationship between cricketer and administrator remains a confrontational one, the care component can never be a major element of cricket development and the breakdowns will continue, on and off the field.
Serving no one's interests.
* This column is republished with permission from the NATION newspaper in Barbados where it first appeared.