Gosh, a run up that…

…”might very well look like Michael Holding – who knows – no-one’s ever been filming or watching, not even batsmen bother to look until the ball is in flight”…

…sounds incredibly impressive to me. Word on the street (albeit the Bulawayo street 25 years ago) is that your bowling is/was eminently suitable, DC. Well done.

“Atherton said you were a good pace for practice.”

https://www.kingcricket.co.uk/the-awkwardest-squad-the-96-97-flippin-murdered-em-tour-of-zimbabwe-was-peak-90s-england-a-net-bowlers-story/2020/11/24/

I do not.

In my mind, I bowl medium pace with a run-up like Michael Holding. And I refuse to watch any video of me bowling. So who knows what it looks like really.

The results are usually very pleasant for batsmen, particularly a well-set batsman. I’ve been hit for sixes the size of mountains.

Personally I would recommend the Asif Masood sidle/jig for medium pace, ahead of the Tuffers skip.

It didn’t work for my slow moon balls – nothing did, but the sidle/jig was originally designed for medium pace.

I do hope you let us all know how you get on with it, DC, ideally in excruciating detail. A YouTube vid would be great – a TikTok one even better and I think the latter would be a first for this site.

The question is, do you bowl medium pace with the skip? And if not, is it worth a try?

I found his skip infectious – I didn’t mean to imitate it (despite being a right-handed wrist spinner), but one summer… 1995 I reckon when he must have played a bit for England… I found myself skipping to the crease bowling long-hops and full tosses (as opposed to passable leg breaks from my previous few seasons). It’s all his fault.

Two seasons later I’m bowling ordinary medium pace that has got more ordinary as time passes. Still going mind…

Anyway, enough of my run-up angst – great piece KC. Thank you.

But that’s the crux of it, isn’t it? These things become significant because of what ensues. We learn to pay attention to them.

Oh and I loved Dale Steyn’s run up

(Though I am finding it difficult to just look at the run up and not the consequences of that run up, so I may be biased)

While the curve is generally even more pleasing than a diagonal, I do like a good diagonal. Also a “stuttering” run/walk-up from a spinner can be fun too. I like the feeling of not being entirely sure whether the video just glitched. Do the batsmen wonder whether reality just glitched? It must surely throw their brains at least a hundredth of a second off rhythm.