CRICKET This practice area is huge. Six bays of
nets, each with a 70m bowler’s run up, and a preparation area at the back. Each practice surface is supplied by synthetic grass manufacturer Supergrass. The grass pile in each bay is produced differently to offer fast, turning and seaming surfaces – replicating surfaces that England crick- eters will face around the world. There’s additional cushioning on the bowler’s ap- proach to the wicket and follow through areas, but wear and tear is part of the job. Dr Nick Pierce and his team of
medical advisers offer rehab assistance to players, using the on-site fitness suite and the players are offered a hydro- bath with cold and hot settings in their changing room to aid post-activity recovery if needed.
ON-SITE TRAINING Kent County Cricket Club’s (KCCC) Adam Ball is one of a group of players who are about to start an eight-minute run, be- fore going into bat. During their indoor net, EDP head coach Tim Boon makes Ball and the other batters perform two or three bursts of star jumps. “No one en- joys this sort of work, but we see how it will benefit us in the long run,” Ball says. Boon isn’t looking to prepare the Kent
all-rounder to hold up an end for KCCC’s Geraint Jones or Darren Stevens in a
county championship game, nor does he believe that putting his captain under pressure physically will help Ball smash a quick 50 runs in the Under-19 World Cup this August. Instead, Boon is look- ing forward to a time when Ball, batting seven for England, is 90 not out in the midday heat at Melbourne, Australia or Colombo, Sri Lanka. Should he make 150, England’s chances of winning a game ob- viously increase.
ECB staff collaborate with top groundsmen, sports scientists, nutritionists,
physiotherapists and fitness coaches to give England players the best support
“England’s head coach, Andy Flower,
and his team tell us what they want from a player and we work with the best 16-, 17- and 18-year-olds over a four to six- year period to help them achieve their objective,” says Dr Guy Jackson, opera- tions manager at the performance centre. On top of expert coaching from the likes of Boon and elite player
development manager John Abrahams, as well as Kevin Shine and Graham Thor- pe, the ECB’s lead bowling and batting coaches, the players use the same state- of-the-art technology as that used by the first team, to improve their game.
COACHING TECHNOLOGY Pro-Batter is a programmable bowling machine, developed for baseball, which can mimic the style of any bowler. A 3D screen, attached to the machine, might show video footage of South Africa’s fast bowler, Dayle Steyn, charging in. When Steyn delivers the ball on the screen, the bowling machine spits out an 88mph away swinger. As England prepare for summer
matches against South Africa and the West Indies, it will no doubt also imitate Morne Morkel’s steepling bounce, Ver- non Philander’s unrelenting accuracy and Fidel Edwards’ erratic thunderbolts. The ECB also offer the Merlyn by BOLA
spin-bowling machine at Loughborough, which delivers programmable, spinning balls of every variety – replicating the deliveries of the leading spinners. Merlyn can even vary the pace from one ball to the next. Commenting on the Merlyn, Notting-
hamshire’s England Lions batsman, James Taylor, says: “You’d love to have ‘him’
Nathan Buck of England, in action during an ECB training session
52 Read Sports Management online
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