He’s nearly 60, but Eric Simons looks like he could dish out a few overs of medium-fast if you threw a cricket ball to him today. Simons, who was fast-medium, when he began to play, and a serious thumper of the ball — he has 4264 first-class runs with a highest of 157 to go with 330 wickets — is express fast in his delivery when he gets excited about fast bowling. The former India bowling consultant, who also worked with the Chennai Super Kings in the same capacity, liked what he saw from India’s bowlers. Excerpts:
What do you like about this Indian fast bowling attack?
As commentators or observers, we always talk about the “what.” That is to take wickets or to score runs. But, as coaches or players, you have to work out your “how.” How am I going to do what I want to do? What I like about this Indian attack is that you can see the “how.” You can see the plan. You can see what each one is trying to do and how each one complements the other. As a grouping, not only the ones who are in the eleven, but the extension, Umesh Yadav and Ishant Sharma, they all have a role and complement each other well. There is an obvious plan in place and they are consistent and persistent.
South Africa have been guilty of bowling some loose spells. India, in contrast, have attacked the stumps and made batsmen play a lot, especially early on …
If you draw the beehive of the fast bowlers from both teams, you will see the difference. South Africa’s is quite wide and India’s is quite close. You have someone like Jasprit Bumrah who comes from wide and attacks the stumps. Mohammed Shami comes in from close to the stumps and does the same thing. Siraj is also someone who naturally attacks the stumps. That has been the difference between the two sides. Where the Proteas have occasionally been loose, India have attacked the stumps or kept the ball in that channel of uncertainty as we call it.
Does attacking the stumps more regularly come from bowling on subcontinent pitches?
Yes and no. I tended to find, when I worked with some of the Indian bowlers because they had to work so hard for wickets in India and because they didn’t bowl long spells, with the spinners coming into the game early, they were a little impatient and they tried to do too many things. But I find now they have become very clever tactically, simplified their game plan and become more patient. Yes, to the extent that they have had to work very hard for their wickets in Indian conditions, but, you can’t be lazy. In the last 3-5 years, Indian bowlers have become a lot more patient and consistent with their tactics, which is what has made them particularly good playing away.
We often say someone is an unlucky bowler, or that if he just bowled fuller, he would be more successful. This is true of Srinath, Ishant, and more recently even Shami. How difficult is it to just bowl fuller?
With batting or bowling, you can’t just sit in the commentary box and say: bowl a fuller length. It’s something you have to work on in practice, be really disciplined with. When I was with the Indian team, I used to stand on the side of the nets and work out where someone, Ishant Sharma, for example, has to bowl, to hit the top of off. In India, this was a certain length.
But, when you bowl that length in Australia or South Africa it goes straight over the stumps. To change that, what you’ve done for 15 years, to suddenly bowl fuller, is hard work. It has to be programmed in. You have to go into the nets and work on it. The other thing is you need patience from the captain. When the bowler gets driven down the ground a few times the captain has to be patient. Let the bowler feel that and make the adjustment, even when you’re under pressure.
The other thing to do is stay with your length and change your field. If you want to bowl a slightly shorter back of a length, have your mid-on and mid-off wide and your field square in general. That’s another way of combating this. Stick with your length but have more slips and a squarer field. There are many ways of achieving the same thing. But, if you want to go fuller in a Test match or series, you have to do the work in the nets. You can’t just be floating the ball at a fuller length. You’re going to be punished. You have to bowl fuller with a complete action. That can only happen if you put in the work before you play an away Test.
Jasprit Bumrah has played a leadership role with this attack, quickly assessing conditions and setting the tone. How much does it help to have a fast bowler who can do this?
He is one of the sharpest bowlers I have come across. When we play against him in the IPL, I try and have a chat to him. I don’t think people realise the maturity and cricketing nuance of someone like Bumrah, and generally of Indian bowlers. They understand the game well. In the IPL you work with bowlers from all over the world, and I find that India’s bowlers have good, clear thinking about the game. Sometimes it might be wrong and you might disagree, but, at least, they have a thought. Bumrah is an absolute leader. But you will find that all the Indian bowlers have solid plans. The conversations that are taking place within the bowling group, you will find, are very shrewd and clever, of tactics, analysing batsmen.
Speaking to one of Mohammad Shami’s early coaches recently, he told me the bowler was not keen on hitting the gym or running laps, but he did his fitness work by bowling full tilt for two hours in the nets. How important is it to allow for different approaches while trying to achieve the same goal?
That’s one of the classic points of the game. To move a group of bowlers forward, you need to move individuals forward. You can’t move them all together. They each function differently. You need to understand the motivation — is it just laziness, or is it something different a cricketer needs?
Sometimes, if you bowl too long in the nets technical problems creep in, so you need to be aware of this as well. Mohammad Shami is very lucky in that he happens to have a massive motor. I don’t think he’ll do bleep tests very well, but give him a ball and he will bowl all day. He’s blessed with that. My serious involvement in cricket began in 2009 and in the last decade and a bit fitness levels — from MS Dhoni’s leadership to Sachin Tendulkar embracing time in the gym to Virat Kohli’s attitude to fitness — generally has just grown and grown.
You need to understand players as individuals, but you need to also have a good foundation of functional fitness. I’m not a big one for gym work but functional fitness, even something like yoga can be a key component of bowling in the modern game.
It’s hard to understand how Shardul Thakur is as successful as he is. Some bowlers have pace, swing, seam movement … he doesn’t seem to have one big weapon, and yet he does well and fits into this group. What is it about him?
Touching on Bumrah, one of his biggest assets is that he is unorthodox. In the past, what typically tended to happen was that everyone was coached in the same way. Everyone built their run up the same way, loaded up the same way and did the same things. That has gone out of the game today and that is a fantastic thing. If you coached Bumrah’s idiosyncrasies or his unorthodoxness out of his game he would be less of a bowler. That’s important.
Shardul Thakur is a very interesting character. His middle name should be self-confidence. He’s one of the most confident and honest cricketers I’ve ever worked with [Simons was bowling consultant with CSK for whom Shardul played]. He’s honest in terms of his own performance, what he thinks he has done and what he hasn’t done. Players feed off his self-belief. They sense that. Sometimes, in this quartet, he feels pressure when he’s bowling. If he’s going for a few runs there’s always Bumrah or Shami or Siraj to throw the ball to. His attitude towards the game and the fact that he’s a good team man does rub off.
I was involved in the IPL final against Mumbai when he got that lbw. [Shardul was lbw Malinga off the last ball with CSK needing two runs to win] He was devastated. An incident like that either takes you into a deep hole or you say I’m never going to let that happen to me again. And look what he’s done. He becomes a decent batsman, gets the fastest fifty in England, and a fifty in Australia. That tough moment in his life drove him to be better, it didn’t drive him into a hole. That sums up who Shardul Thakur is.
How difficult is it, as a coach, to deal with some of the guys sitting out? Ishant has played a hundred Tests and yet he has to wait for his chances. Umesh Yadav is required when the ball swings but he hardly gets a chance overseas …
I don’t think people know how good a bowler Umesh is. In other countries, in other situations, handled in a certain way, I think he is a phenomenal bowler. He has been unlucky. But one of the points that make this team special is the sense of unity. Not just as a broader team, but in the bowling unit. Watching them at the Wanderers, Ishant Sharma was running out with drinks when someone needed it. This is important. As long as the communication is honest, pure and clean, it won’t matter so much to someone like Ishant that he, as a senior bowler, is missing out to someone else, based on the conditions. There’s a sense of “us” among the seven-eight fast bowlers in the squad, not just the four who are out there. This doesn’t make it any easier for those who sit out, because, truth be told, any one of them could be playing, but it keeps harmony going.
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