CONTENTS
Foreword by Richie Benaud
Bob Woolmer (1948 – 2007): a memorial
PART I: DISCOVERING CRICKET
CHAPTER 1: The challenge of cricket
CHAPTER 2: The mind game
PART II: CRICKET TECHNIQUES
CHAPTER 3: Batting
CHAPTER 4: Vision and batting
CHAPTER 5: Bowling
CHAPTER 6: Fielding and wicket-keeping
PART III: THINKING CRICKET
CHAPTER 7: Strategy and captaincy
CHAPTER 8: Statistics: a view of the future?
CHAPTER 9: Coaching
PART IV: CRICKET SCIENCE
CHAPTER 10: Physiology and fitness
CHAPTER 11: Whither cricket? The future of the game
Select bibliography
Index
Acknowledgements
FOREWORD
I had my first proper sighting of Bob in the early 1970s, when he was starting to make an impression in the Kent team, and I was working with BBC Television. He was an elegant player, under the influence of Colin Cowdrey, and he impressed me as being a good thinker on the game. There was no better example of this than in 1974, when, in the semi-final of the Gillette Cup, he bowled his 12 overs for 22, and then steered Kent to victory with 18 not out in a pulsating finish. In the final at Lord’s three weeks later, it was Bob who bowled magnificently, and then shared the tense winning partnership with Alan Knott.
He confirmed my impression of his ability and his thinking in the years that followed, and when he played for the World XI in World Series Cricket, he was already thinking ahead into the area of coaching. Captains and coaches, good ones that is, are always a couple of overs ahead of the play; otherwise they find themselves trailing the opposition. Bob’s habit of ‘thinking cricket’ is one of the reasons this is a coaching book different from all others.
It is essential to play your cricket in common-sense fashion. It follows that using a common-sense approach to coaching will provide a wonderful combination. On my first tour of England in 1953, I received the best simple advice from Bill O’Reilly as to the manner in which I should completely revise my bowling technique. It successfully changed my bowling career. So I believe that in the teaching of players, the key lies in watching a man play, detecting his mistakes, and having the ability to correct those mistakes, one at a time. Never forget the simple things.
In Bob’s book there is much to ponder about mental skills and strengths, and it comes across that a player must use, rather than waste, his talent. To have a talent that is rarely used is a sad legacy in life; fortunately this was not true of Bob Woolmer’s life. He was able to use his cricketing talents to the full, and his book is proof of this.
I hope it is a great success.
Richie Benaud
Coogee, New South Wales, Australia, January 2008
Extract from Part Two - CRICKET TECHNIQUES
What does it take to become a great cricketer? Simply stated, it involves a high level of skill, as well as all of the attributes that go into the making of any great athlete, such as a natural flair for the game, a good eye and quick reflexes, as well as the willingness and patience to persevere.
A great deal of athletic ability is now also an essential component for success, as is the ability to maintain fierce, unbroken concentration for hours at a stretch. Finally, enjoyment and love of the game, the ability to perform both as an individual and in a team context, and a hunger for success are all essential parts of the mental make-up of a potentially great cricketer.
If all these qualities are present in the young cricketer, what he (and, increasingly, she) will need to learn are the technical rudiments and necessary skills of the game, how and when to use those skills, and – obviously – the rules of the game.
All aspiring cricketers need to learn how to field, but in modern cricket it is essential that players also master the basics of bowling, whether pace or spin, and perhaps even learn rudimentary wicket-keeping skills. Due to the increasing demands of the one-day game, the modern cricketer needs to be adept in at least two of three disciplines. We see time and again how players with two strings to their bows are invaluable to their teams.
Whether they are bowlers who are able to perform heroics with the bat, such as Wasim Akram, Andy Flintoff or Shaun Pollock, or wicket-keepers who average over 40, such as Adam Gilchrist, they are crucial if a team is to be successful. One need only point to South Africa’s Pollock, Lance Klusener and Jacques Kallis, a line-up of all-rounders who dominated in the late 1990s, to underscore this point. South Africa also fielded Mark Boucher (equally tenacious as a wicket-keeper and batter), and Jonty Rhodes, a hard-working batsman who raised standards of fielding to a new high in the last decade of the twentieth century. Australia’s Michael Bevan was rated the world’s top one-day batsman in the mid-1990s, but he was probably also the most useful. He was not only a sparkling, fastscoring finisher and comfortably the best fielder in the Australian side, but he was adept at getting breakthroughs as a change bowler.
In the four chapters that follow, we intend to deal with those elements of cricket that can be learnt, practised, and hopefully mastered – the techniques of the game. However, we want to stress that there are many interpretations of correct technique and how it should be taught: different coaches may demonstrate or describe a certain skill differently. The techniques described here are tried and tested, based on many years of experience. They worked for Bob Woolmer, first as an all-rounder who played for Kent and England (and the Wisden Player of the Year for 1976); and then as a coach for Warwickshire, South Africa and Pakistan.
His exceptional coaching abilities were recognized by the International Cricket Council, which appointed him their High Performance Manager, responsible for bringing affiliate members up to international standards.
In terms of the successes that first Warwickshire and then South Africa and Pakistan achieved under Woolmer’s tutelage, his methods have proved their value. We hope you will benefit from them as well.
The Last Word
“Bob Woolmer believed passionately that he had a responsibility to pass on all that he had been taught or had gleaned from great players and teachers who went before him; at the same time, he remained acutely aware of the almost daily evolution of the game. Because of this, he felt that regardless of his vast experience – nothing less than a life spent playing and coaching cricket at the highest levels of the game – he remained a student of the game. In the decade that he laboured on this book, he continually revisited and updated his ideas with characteristic enthusiasm and humility. In his original conclusion he wrote, ‘We do not feel that this is a final imprimatur, or that we have all the answers. We hope to continue to learn, research and explore the multiple aspects of this most fascinating and rewarding game, and we have no doubt that the game of cricket has more to teach us.’”
