The Journey of Steve Finn: From Unselectable to Unstoppable

In this episode, the hosts delve into the journey of cricketer Steve Finn, focusing on his challenges and the coaching methods used to help him regain his form. They discuss the importance of video analysis, rebuilding confidence, and the gradual process of restoring technique and rhythm in fast bowling. The conversation highlights the significance of focusing on technical aspects before transitioning to advanced skills like swing bowling. This conversation delves into the intricate process of coaching a fast bowler, focusing on the recovery journey of a player named Finney. The speakers discuss the importance of support, skill development, and building confidence through layered pressure. They emphasize the need for patience, adaptability, and the significance of technique in achieving success in fast bowling. The dialogue highlights the challenges faced during the coaching process and the strategies employed to overcome them, ultimately leading to the player's return to form and performance.

Transcript

Introduction to the Journey of Steve Finn

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Hi everyone and welcome to Science and Shiny with me, Shiny and John O. Unfortunately, Feltz can't be with us. He's off on a uh conference with a lot of really, really clever people. He's probably just getting arrested from having to talk to two fast bowlers. Um, but hopefully he'll be back in the future. Um, so what we're gonna do with this podcast is we're gonna break down the the Steve Finn podcast that we did recently because hopefully there's going to be some useful um information for people who may have bowlers that have just dropped a little bit of form at some point. Um, obviously, with Finney's, it was very well documented and it was over a long period of time. But in there, hopefully, John O's gonna take you through the process that he went through to get him from unselectable to playing back in the ashes and having a fantastic, almost you'd say, re-debut when he took his wickets and just looked like an absolute world-class bowler. So, what we're gonna do is do that as a timeline. So, the first thing we're just gonna refresh with what happened. So, John O, you know, you obviously are working with Finney very closely because he was a Middlesex bowler at the time, and you worked with him obviously from a young bowler through to getting into Middlesex's side, then England Lions. So, what actually did you notice had happened?

SPEAKER_01 1:22

It it's quite difficult with um your England players uh who are integral to the England side. So he was playing all formats, and he wasn't actually around the Middlesex team that much for that period of time. Um, you you stayed in contact with him via phone a lot of the time, he'd pop in now and again, but you didn't have a like a massive handle on that. The England sort of coaching team sort of led his um performances and technical stuff, etc. etc. So it was more about watching from afar and seeing things uh happen. And I remember having obviously phone calls with you when you know he decided to shorten his run-up, and he talks about it in the podcast, doesn't he? About how the reason why he shortened it. And the reason he puts it down to is the fact that because he was hitting the stumps, he was it was suggested to him that if he shortened his run-up and ran quicker, the momentum would take him straighter and he wouldn't smash into the stumps, which you know from afar it looked like it had worked. He wasn't bowling that that no ball uh with his knee touching the stumps. But we saw quite quickly that um his attributes, the bits that made him good, the flow to his run-up, the long levers that he had. You know, we talk about these long levers. When you're six foot seven, you've got this massive wingspan and long legs. You want to be using those to your advantage, and it looked like everything was just starting to shut down a little bit with that short run-up. And I remember having you know conversations with you and Angus Fraser, who look,

Understanding the Challenges of Fast Bowlers

SPEAKER_01 2:51

he he references Gus a lot in the in the podcast. And and Gus is one of those guys who he'll he'll openly admit, not massively technically minded, but understands bowling as well as as anyone uh from a practical point of view, and he could see how you know his stride pattern was starting to shut down, his arms were starting to shut down. So these conversations had started even though he was still performing and doing okay. So it was quite a long process uh to go from that to actually where he ended up, I would say.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

Yeah, so when we look at the characteristics of faster bowlers, and remember when Finney went into the side, he was he was a 90 plus mile an hour bowler. Um he was the youngest fastest bowler to 50 wickets, um test match wickets. Um and we had uh we had video of him, didn't we? When when he went on he was on his final one-day tour in the OAE against Pakistan, and there was a beautiful bit of footage that we kept referencing. And you and I are big believers in keeping your technical best piece of footage so that you've got something to go back to. And you know, but that that's probably the first port of call because when players do lose form, you've got to have something to reference, haven't you? So, John, what was your method when when Finney actually became unselectable? What was your method to try and build his confidence?

SPEAKER_01 4:20

Just firstly, on that bit you've just said about that one clip. What fascinated me after that was the amount of conversations and interviews I I I did where people felt that uh Steve was someone who you know tinkered all the time and and tried new things and that he was overcoached, you know, and I kept hearing this thing, overcoached, overcoached. And I was sitting there thinking, overcoached. I've all I've ever done, what all you've ever done, is take him back to that um one clip of him as a as a natural source of beautiful long levers and bowling the ball at 93 miles an hour. So if that's overcoached, then we've got we've got issues because all we were doing was taking him back to that one clip. But yeah, so um, so he comes back and obviously, you know, it's the lowest of low. I mean, that's a huge, huge story, you know, a young fast bowler being um so-called you know, unselectable coming back to the to the country. So um look, the first port of call really was me and you uh talking, and then you putting us together with Andy Flough, who was obviously in charge at the time with England, and having that conversation around what we'd seen and what our plan was moving forward about how we were gonna help Finney, and we sat down to try and agree that round a table. Um, and you were there with your with your England fast bowling hat on, weren't you, Shiny?

SPEAKER_02 5:43

Yeah, so I obviously was a lead fast bowling coach at that point, and and my last contact really with Finney was when he left to go and play for England because he stayed with England for a fairly lengthy amount of time, quite rightly so. 90 plus miles an hour bowler, he had a natural away swinger, which we'll obviously touch on a little bit later, and he got incredible bounce, and he was aggressive, wasn't he? He had that um real ability to be aggressive and very competitive. And

Rebuilding Confidence and Technique

SPEAKER_02 6:12

I I do remember that that meeting, and obviously, we had Andy Flower, who was the head coach and was obviously very concerned about Finney at the time. He wanted you know a player of that ability back in the side. So you and I had to put together a lot of evidence based on the shorter run-up, what had started to happen. And because you and I are pretty much cut from the same cloth, we use a lot of video, but we use video generally to just make sure that we protect players and technique and game, um, and and just for everybody out there, obviously, there was some great um research that was being done at the time, and it was from a PhD by a guy called Peter Worthington, and it was a characteristics of the fastest bowlers and the the biggest um factor that Finney was losing was his bowling arm delay. Now there were other points on the characteristics of fast bowling here, so his release position was starting to change as well. But the the biggest headline that John and I definitely noticed was at front foot contact, he was losing his bowling arm delay, so he was losing that ability to get his body to drive his bowling arm. This in turn, there's always a cascade in that.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

And just just quickly, that's sorry, that and and just for people who don't know, the delay is as your front foot lands, if you drew a line across your shoulders, it would be your bowling arm being lower than the line of the shoulders, yeah?

SPEAKER_02 7:39

Yeah, correct, correct. And if you think of there being a massive lag, and your body's able to stay in a position where it can strongly drive, yeah, drive forward, and it will then really sort of power your arm, your bowling arm through. You know, we know that's a stretch shortening cycle, you know, and you're using masses of attributes that lead to free energy, and yeah, but that just to lose that, you can lose many miles an hour, many miles an hour, but you also lose feel, don't you? Because your whole timing, and we talked about a cascading effect, the timing effect is changing through all of your bowling. And remember, the most important thing about bowling fast is can you get to the release point so you've got maximum feel, so you can produce fantastic skill because you've got to, you choose you produce enough pace, and in Finney's case, that's high, high pace, yeah, and you have control, and these are all super strengths of Finney. So go going back to your method, Johnno, to once again rebuild his belief. How did you start?

The Role of Video Analysis in Coaching

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Uh strangely, the first thing was uh I got our analyst uh um to put together uh a package for him uh showing all his best moments in in England show. So he had a clip that lasted about three and a half, I've still got it on my phone actually, about three and a half, four minutes to a bit of motivational music, and it just you know, him taking wickets, him sniffing people off, bowling 90 miles an hour, just to give him a good feel about what he has done and obviously where we're gonna get back to. So that's the first point. Look, you're going through a tough time, absolutely understand the person that you're talking to, uh, understand the psyche of that. Know that this is a good man and he's gonna work hard, but give him some belief at the same time. This is where we're gonna get back to. It's gonna take some hard work, but this is the aim, this is where we're going. Um, so he had that, and then we sat down and said, Okay, look, let's take England off the table. Let's go above it, let's go world's best. What does world's best look like? That's the aim. So we discussed six foot seven, 90 odd miles an hour, can swing it away. Right, world's best. Is there anyone else in the world at this time that can do that? Is there anyone in the world over the last 50 years of test cricket that can do that? And there's not many, I can tell you that. So let's aim for that. Let's let's go for the big picture, let's let's go for that. How are we gonna do it? Right. So I think Finney mentioned quite a lot in the in the podcast where he was at such a low ebb. I mean, literally withdrawn. He he didn't want to be in front of people, he didn't want people around him. Um, so we were going in, I think we said about 7, 7, 15, something like that in the morning, before the members of public, before the even his best mates, he didn't want anybody watching him. So we're in there, crack a dawn, um, and and and going through the process. Firstly, just getting his forget the run-up, we know that's an issue, but we're gonna go back to we're literally gonna go back to standing start in the side of a net, and we're gonna bowl the ball into the side of the net, and we're gonna get these arms going long again because it got very short and very tight, and feeling like it couldn't let go of the ball very well. So let's get those arms nice and long again. And we know that if you slow his best footage down at back foot contact, he's got a nice high front arm, and his bowling hand is still very high at back foot contact. So let's start them in that position and then bowl it into the side netting. And it it literally started with that.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

Um, you know, so can I just hold it there for a second? Because this is this is really, really important. Let's go back and reference you know the the research that's out there. It's always good if you've got research, you know, to try and you know, sometimes you've got to see the wood from the trees, haven't you? And you you don't look at the position that the research suggests, and you you'll sort of concentrate on getting that position right because generally, with cause and effect, it can come way before then.

Gradual Process of Rebuilding Skills

SPEAKER_02 11:48

But you wanted to there try and get his arms in a position that you felt firstly, because you were having to give him ideas, weren't you? He was he was probably a little bit devoid of his own ideas. He tried to put it back and it wasn't happening, so you were having to logically now go back with him, yeah. So you're almost reverse chaining, you're going before the actual delay to then get the feel and to match the video. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

And Finney being Finny, he he'll always look at stuff like that. And as long as you can give him the evidence-based stuff, so here you are at your best, here you are at back foot contact, here are your arms. Watch what your arms do, they get long, they've got a good delay, you release the ball. He knows all that, he's got video clips himself, so you go through it with him. So we're gonna go through those positions, isolate those positions, and eventually it all comes together at the end. So we're gonna work the arms first, we're gonna get them in the right position, and even on a back foot starting drill, his arm would still be still be bent on the way down. We had to get him to push out, and and I always say, even now, you know, when you're doing these things, people call drills cones and hurdles and intervention poles and stuff like that. I call drills standing there and talking to someone and working out positions that you know that are good for you to get into. So we know that him pushing out and getting a long arm is how we want it. How do you do that? Repetition video. Have you done it? No, I haven't, it's still bent. He'd get frustrated. Why is my arm bent? Okay, well, let's exaggerate the movement then. Let's really push up and out. That might not be how we end up, it won't be how we end up, but just get the feeling of that long arm coming down, and all of a sudden, piece by piece, bit by bit, it comes together.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

So once you've got his arms to move, and and bear in mind we were you're inside, you were starting this in the winter, weren't you? Yeah, yeah. Um you you got his arms to move. What was your next part of the sequence?

SPEAKER_01 13:56

So, next bit, can we do that off a couple of paces? So now we're adding a little bit of momentum, and then straight away that can now shorten again. Okay, well, what we'll do is we'll go back to the standing start, we'll do a few standing starts to warm up, then maybe we'll do a standing start into the mid so we move it on a little bit, and then we go into a couple of paces, and then you build that up again. So next time you do the same again, and then you do a few more off a couple of paces, you know, and you start. And I suppose you you want to move it on as quickly as you can, because what I think when we did our level four many moons ago, it was very much putting towards uh plans, wasn't it? So you've got your plan. So for two weeks I'm gonna do this, for a week I'm gonna do that, for three weeks I'm gonna do that, and then all of a sudden I've got a six-week program, and I've got, you know, we've we've solved that. What we what you learn when you coach is well, actually, that first stage, you might not need to spend two weeks, that might be done in a couple of days.

Incorporating Rhythm and Flow in Bowling

SPEAKER_01 14:52

So your plan is actually this is the first plan, but if he's done, if he's completed that in a couple of days, let's move on. You can always go back again. So with him, it was always about moving forward, and then we go back again if we have to. So let's push him, but if it's not quite right, let's move back. And I found that with him off the short run up, he would revert a little bit, the arms would get short again, and I didn't want that feeling in his head. So we'd stop that, right? Go back to the standing start. Let's get that right again. Now we'll do it off a pace, now we do it off a couple of paces, right? Now we're starting to get that. Okay, we'll push back a little bit further. So it was a real it was a real gradual process, but the one thing I didn't want him to do, I didn't want it to have that feeling in his brain of that feeling short again. So as soon as it looked short, we let's forget that, we'll go back a step and we'll go back to the two steps or the three steps or whatever it was. And that took the process because as soon as you ingrain that feeling again, it's a real difficult one to get rid of.

SPEAKER_02 15:53

Yeah, and just out of interest, while you were doing this, yeah, were you watching what the ball was doing?

SPEAKER_01 15:59

No, no. At that point, I I wasn't bothered about the ball. Uh, at that point, I was only bothered about can we get his arms in the right place? Can we get that feeling back? Because it's in there, we know it's in there, it's wired in there somewhere. We need to discover it again. So whether the ball hit the ceiling, the side net, and all the at that point I wasn't not worried about that.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

So we've reverse chained it from just getting the arms to flow and move and be long. You've gone to a standing start, couple of paces, and you're now trying to move back. Did you find any sticking points that you had to spend a little bit longer actually working it through?

SPEAKER_01 16:37

How did you do that? I mean, it's certainly indoors, it certainly wasn't right. No, um, it was better, absolutely 100% better, but it wasn't still right. It wasn't until it wasn't until we got outside and we got on some grass, and then we had that conversation about his run-up, and that was the last little bit. We were looking at it going, we knew it was the run-up at the start, but now it's the run-up at the end. So we've got his arms working, but there's something in his run-up that doesn't look right, his stride pattern's not right, he hasn't got that rhythm, that bounce, his arms aren't flowing, and he took, he still took his run-up into his bowling action. So all that work you're doing on the bowling action is being undone a little bit by the run-up. So, how do we get this run-up right? And look, me and you have played you know a lot of cricket, and and and we know we know about run-ups, but we don't necessarily know about running styles and how you how you get out of this tightness that he had, you know, the shoulders were suddenly hunched up and it was all sort of jerky. And and if you've ever seen Finney run, you know, a 400 metres, he's one of the nicest, like most rhythmical runners you can ever see. Put that ball in his hand, and everything shut down. It was like wow, and that's when you that's when you got Raf involved.

The Importance of Technical Focus

SPEAKER_02 17:55

Yeah, so just a um just a quick sort of recap of Raf. Raf Brandon was the head of science and medicine at the ECB, he was an international um athletics coach, and uh people of note that he um actually coached was Christine Ahuragu, who was a 400 metre runner. And uh Christine had obviously been out with us at some points during the pace program when we had people like Mark Wood there, uh Jimmy Anderson and Stuart Broad had come out for that particular one when Raf was out there, and and Christine was training in Potterstrom in South Africa, and she actually did some running drills with the guys, which they really enjoyed. Um, so we thought we we're struggling here to actually, yeah, we we sort of know what we were trying to say. We talk about rhythm, we'd have the bit of footage, but Finney couldn't connect with that, could he? So we brought him back, we'd shown Raf all of the all of obviously the footage that we had, where he is now, and we said, Look, can you help us? And he was absolutely clear that this once again had to be a breakdown. So going back to you then, John, we we actually stood with Raf, didn't we, and Finney, while he was doing these drills, and it was it was really interesting to watch because it was when you had the tens up at Old Merchant Taylor's school, and and it was very cold, sort of February, March, wasn't it? Frost on the ground, that Finney started to do some drills.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Yeah, and uh as he said in his podcast, he he felt a bit of an idiot doing some of the drills, always always with a cricket ball in his hand. But I thought that was brilliant from Raf, even that small thing about having the cricket ball in his hands, and the reference point, because previously he'd be doing a run and feeling great, and then the cricket ball would go in and it all freeze up again. So actually, do these drills with the cricket ball in your hand? And we saw, we saw, I mean, it took him a long time, don't get me wrong, it wasn't uh an overnight fix. He did quite a few sessions with him, but we started to see the difference in his run-up, it started to flow again, his his stride pattern got longer, his arms started to relax more, his shoulders started to go back down, you know, and you could really see it starting to work. And again, you know, you have to take your heart off to Finney. He worked so hard uh during that period to get back to where he wanted to be. Um, and once that once that started working, and you could see in his run-up it was working, that's when the swing stuff started to come in. Okay, look, your arms are in a good place now. So hold on, Joey.

SPEAKER_02 20:30

Let's let's stop there because there's there's a very clear point um here that we couldn't go to the craft until we'd actually put the structure back in place, could we? Yeah, and and if if we're going now and talking about okay, so so why do you do it that way round? Remember to bowl swing. Swing is is the ultimate skill. Once again, we we've mentioned about a wobble scene before, but swing when you

Transitioning to Swing Bowling Techniques

SPEAKER_02 21:00

are you know, obviously you put a grip in place, and that's that's your start point, but then you've got to get into a position at release when you've got your fingers uh you know so um so grooved into a position because you're trying to impart the the ball, the energy onto the ball that gets the airflow reacting around the ball. That that'll be a podcast that we do um in in the future when we look at you know the aerodynamics of swing. But it's such a feel thing, isn't it? And and what we've known from when Finney was his technique was starting to degrade is he was losing all ability to feel the ball. So he was losing control not just of line and length but also skill. So the the the the skill of the coach and the the the skill of you working with him at that point is you were having to put bits in place, then take Test it so you'd then start to have to look at the ball, wouldn't you? Well, what's it doing? What sort of pace is it? Remember, Finney was a 90 plus mile an hour bowler. You know, what's his control like? Okay, so when did you actually make the decision that okay, I I feel the technique now is strong enough to be able to start to put put to work or get to work just before just before I get there, what what you've just said there, I think is a really interesting point.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

I and I talk about this all the time in my coaching now. We as cricketers and and sportsmen always look at the the end goal. We're always looking at the result, the bit down there. Am I hitting the stumps? Am I bowling on a line length? Is it swinging? Is it bouncing? Oh no, it's not. Oh my god, and the world you know falls apart. Well, when you're working on something specifically, if you're working on a front arm position or a delay or elbow into top of hip, whatever it is, whatever you're working on, take that bit out. Doesn't matter where the ball goes, because I need you to focus 100% on the one technical bit. Don't worry about the ball because it's not going to come out brilliantly to start with, because you've got to fill that in. The better you get with the technical stuff, that will start to develop and that will get better. And at some point, we'll change the focus to where the ball is going and can you adjust your line, etc. etc. But you need to have that full focus on that technical bit, and that's what we did with Finney. And vaguely I remember, and it's not 100%, but I vaguely remember it was basically at that time when he got his run up right because I didn't see any point in doing skill stuff until he could confidently run up with a nice rhythmical action and get in really good technical positions that we we knew we were working on and we were trying to achieve and deliver a ball. Once he could do that, that's when we started talking about the real craft of swinging the ball. And if if we think about Finney and swing up to that point, we've got footage before then, before basically just as he'd played for England, possibly, if I remember, of him being able to swing the ball. I've got close-up, beautiful scene presentation. He had a Jimmy Anderson-esque scene presentation on his swing, and he would shake the ball, he could wobble it, and he could wobble it big. So he had that skill to do all of that, and he never used it. And there's two, I think there's two reasons behind that. One, he never felt in total control of swing, and we've been there. We both went from not being able to swing the ball to swinging the ball, and it's a completely different feel, and it takes time to readjust to that feel. So he never felt in control of that swing. Plus, England didn't want him to swing it, they felt they already had swing bowlers, and they wanted him to hold it wobble and hit the bat hard and try and wobble it down the pitch. And I thought it was more of a knit back bowler, wasn't it? Yeah, absolutely. And we've had that conversation with Andy Fly. And this is not criticizing anyone because that's what the plan was for England, and that's what they wanted him to do. Fine. From our point of view, it was hard to see someone who could swing the ball at 90 odd miles an hour, which is very unusual. Um, you know, it was hard for us to see him not even try it. So that was the whole point of this exercise was okay, well, let's get you back to at least the minimum of where you were before, but now we're going to go a level above, and that's swinging it, and we're going to get you confident swinging it, and we're going to get you doing it at a high pace at high skill level. And that and I and we couldn't do that. There was no way we could do that until all the other bits were in place.

The Journey of Recovery and Support

SPEAKER_02 25:45

Yeah, so let's go back to the point. So we'd had the sort of February-March time with Finney and working with RAF, doing all the drills, and then and then starting to test it. Obviously, in the tent. It's brilliant because Middlesex had the tent there, and you had your pre-season games, and then you had the season. I remember the um I remember the bits of footage because I was I was watching it obviously on MVPlay. You would immediately tell me, look, have a look, I think this is now progress. And I'd keep coming to check in, wouldn't I? And my my job was to check in and be cold eyes on it. You know, you were absolutely emotionally invested, so was I to be fair, because we love Finney. He was a great, not only was he a fantastic creeder, he was a lovely, lovely guy, and he was in a bad place. So we were obviously trying to be as supportive as possible, but we knew my my job was to make sure he got back to England as quickly as possible. Uh, I knew that I wasn't the ideal person to do that because I wouldn't spend as much time with him and I didn't have that history. Um, and I also trusted you implicitly as a fast bowling coach to be able to do that work. But I think the useful thing was I was a cold set of eyes for you. You kept sending me footage, or I'd come and visit. And I was here, I was very technical, and it was based on well, okay, I'm seeing that, but I'm not seeing this. That's not the same as that bit of footage. What do you think we need to do here? So you and I would do that on our own, then we'd deliver it back to Finney in a slightly less brutal way because he was making progress, wasn't he?

SPEAKER_01 27:24

Yeah, you don't want to demotivate him, you don't want to push him back. You know, you got it's it's a really hard, it's actually really difficult that period because you you need to encourage the guy because you know Finney takes things to heart, obviously, is at the lowest deb he's ever been, and he wants to get back. And there are times where he feels, yeah, we're making progress, but we're not we're nowhere, we're nowhere near, but you need to keep encouraging the progress. And then somehow you've got to word it right that okay, we're still we're still not there yet. We need to do this now, and we need to do this now. And it it's a hard, they're hard conversations, aren't they? And and because he's uh such a winner and uh a perfectionist, you know, everything had to be he wanted it yesterday, you know, and and it took a long time, and and trying to pull him back and hold him back and keep pushing new things and different things onto him, it was yeah, it was it was hard work. That was hard work.

SPEAKER_02 28:20

Yeah, I I can remember the times when I would come down and specifically you'd say, right, can you now do the session? Okay, away from me. So you walked off, yeah. Um, and and but but we were now in skill terms, weren't we? So we were trying to actually now deliver the skill, which was my eyes would go to more the product that England wanted, which is the end product. So is it fast enough? Is it accurate enough? Does he have movement? Does he have bounce? You know, pace, bounce, movement, control. Yeah, they're the sort of main things for consistent bowlers, and and Finney was high skill in every single one of those when he was first with England. So we knew that you know when it came to planning and moving him forward, we pretty much got to um the consistency was back, wasn't it? The action was starting to stabilize, the bounce was there because he had that lovely the release was getting higher, wasn't it? And he was getting into that really fantastic posture. The control was returning, but the probably the movement was now the bit that we were we were trying to now go towards, which was okay. England had him as a knit back bowler. You and I know that that's a reasonably easy skill, and I'm not okay. I'm saying easy skill, it's a wobble ball generally, unless you're balling a genuine off-cutter, but that's something different or a genuine in-swinger, it was more of a wobble ball. You and I had already decided that you know the ultimate skill being Jimmy Anderson-esque scene position, which we'd seen before. That was the bit we were going to try and promote because if you can get that right, yeah, the rest will be easier because that's the toughest skill than the the the sort of variation of just getting a little wobble on the scene, that's tiny, that's almost just a slight release and position or grip change, isn't it? So, how did you then go about you know moving Finney into right, Finney? I think we've got you in a position now where we can look at swing. How did those conversations start and then move

Building Confidence Through Skill Development

SPEAKER_02 30:35

on?

SPEAKER_01 30:35

Well, he the great thing is at the start of the whole thing, that's what we'd agreed. So we were always he agreed to trusted swing. Yes, I'm gonna bowl swing. So that that was the important thing right at the start. If he was like, Well, I'm not sure, maybe let's see how we go, that's a different conversation. But it was yes, I'm gonna run in and I'm gonna swing it. So once we got to that point, it's like, come on then, let's do it. Let's let's hold the ball upright and let's swing it. And again, it didn't happen overnight. It it because you're used to wobble, and when you wobble, you pull your fingers down, you're looking to deliver the ball just outside off stump, some will nip away, some will probably nip back in, and for him, more nip back in, so he could set his line a little bit wider, knowing that almost all balls are going to go back in to the right hander. But if you set your away swinger off that line, it's too wide, so he's got to adjust his line a little bit. Um, and then once you start getting that feel of adjusting your line, all of a sudden, some of the things that can come in, you start getting a bit round on because your fingers suddenly feel like they're behind the ball a little bit, and your brain starts going, Oh, I want to swing this ball, then you can get a little bit around the side of the ball. So, one of the best drills uh for swing bowling, and we've used it a lot, haven't we, Shiny, is you put that set of stumps uh on about six metres. So if you think uh test match little good lengths are six to eight metres, depending on uh surface and height and type of bowler. So we would have a set of stumps showing one stump on around six and a half, seven metres, and you put that stump down in your eye line and you put it on about off stump. And the idea is when you run up, you're looking at this stump, then you see the other set of stumps ahead of it, and the idea is to swing the ball around that stump, and all that does is gives you the visual, and then you adjust your body slightly to be able to get that feeling of swinging around that stump on a good length, and that that drill I still use it, I think it's a brilliant drill to use. Um, and that's the bit that got him in the groove of getting that nice line and swinging the ball. And the thing is with Finney, as soon as he started to get it, and the line started to come tighter, and the feeling of the ball off the fingers, there's no better feeling. That ball fizzing off your fingers 90 miles an hour, swinging, because when you swing the ball, your fingers feel like they're on the ball that touch longer rather than just pulling off it early and it wobbling, so you feel like you've got more behind it, and the and it's a great, beautiful feeling when it when it lands perfectly. And then you you know you introduce a batter down there to put a bit more pressure on, and all of a sudden, you know, you beat the outside edge a couple of times, and his mates would be going to him, Oh, you just swung that. What was that? Like, because they hadn't seen him do it, and it made him feel good, yeah. You know, so it was a real slow build-up again, one without a batter, and then introducing a batter. And then we then we move on to the pre-season games, and now all of a sudden there's a little bit more pressure. And I remember playing a preseason game at Merchant Taylors against Surrey, which I think again Finney uh referenced in the in the podcast, and that that nervousness suddenly came over him, you know. So now we'd built the confidence to to do it in front of all his mates, you know, bowling it in nets and swinging it and feeling great. And but all of a sudden, he it we've got, you know, we've got Surrey there, merchant sailors, and they're all out in the middle having a having a bowl through. And he came to me and he said, I I don't want to bowl out there, Johnny. I said, Right, okay. Well, what do you want to do? He said, We'll go the marquee. And the marquee was still up pre-season. So we went over in his whites and he did his warm-up in the marquee away from everybody. At that point, he's still not doubting, but there's that there's that like fragility around the pressure and the performance and stuff. And and do you know what? Bless him. He he he literally he was so nervous. And I said to him, You're gonna hold it, seam up, aren't you? And he went, Yeah, I'll hold it, seam up. And he stood there in that first ball and he held it seam up and it swung, and then the process started to widen again. You know, he started to build confidence again.

SPEAKER_02 34:59

So

Layering Pressure and Listening to the Player

SPEAKER_02 35:00

I'm gonna go back over the recap eventually, but what you're talking about there is you were basically layering on different levels of pressure, and the most important thing is you were listening to your player, and when he wasn't ready, you'd go, That's fine, absolutely fine. Let's just carry on doing what we're doing, and that's the important thing. And actually, all credit to Flower. Flower was never in a rush, he he probably was, but he realized with the explanation that we'd given him, with the evidence that we'd given him that this wasn't going to be an easy fix, it was gonna take a bit of time, and and he he never actually put a timeline on it, but he kept he we we kept him up to date. But it I I never ever felt that Finney um was being pressured to be backed by um Flower at any point.

SPEAKER_01 35:46

So that gave us I think that's a really it's a really important point about listening to the player. I mean, we we all have our ideas in our head about coaching, and we might have something in our brain that says, no, we want to move to this, but as we said earlier as well, if you move too quickly and you're not listening to a player when he's not ready, or you're not seeing that he's not ready, so important that you know you've got to give that time, otherwise you're undoing all the good work that you've already put in.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

Yeah, yeah, and there comes a time when you've got to push him as well, though, doesn't it? Do you can you remember that time when you had to actually say, Finney, I now think you're ready. Come on, mate, go for it.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

Uh do you know what? I think it was actually probably the first championship game because you played two or three preseason friendlies, you'd built up that you know feeling of pressure again. But it was a big moment for him to suddenly jump from that into first class cricket after a couple of games, and it was that classic, I'm not sure, I'm not sure I'm ready, I'm not sure. And you're like, Yeah, you are, mate. Like, look at what you've just done in the past two warm-up games, look at what you've done in the nets. Listen to all your mates, they're all saying you're bowling brilliantly, mate. We've got the video evidence. Look at the video, you're in the positions that you want to be in. The ball's coming out well. It's okay, mate. You you could you can do it now. And and that was probably the bit. And then again, he didn't, he's still at the top of his marking up first championship game, and he was like, uh, shall I uh shall I go see M up? Or I was like, you are going swing.

SPEAKER_02 37:12

And that that's that's that sort of leap of faith that you've got to take, isn't it? You've got to trust what you're what you're doing. Do you know what it doesn't matter if it doesn't work then? Yeah, you can always you can always go back to it. So let's just go back to the and and just try and summarize you know the the Finney from being where he was, 90 90 plus miles an hour, high release point, fantastic control, amazing bounce and skill. I he could swing the ball or seam the ball at will. Uh and and that was proven by how quickly he got into test match cricket. Um so the first piece of absolute advice we give you on the recap is keep really great video records of when your player's at his best, 100%, make sure you've got the you know the the how they got to there, and you know that's something that John, you've you probably used brilliantly because it was actually relentless. I remember when you and I were talking, I'd say, Well, hold on, I'm I'm not quite sure you've got that bit yet. Yeah, okay, well, let's keep working. And you would once again keep your records of how close it was to there. So the first thing you did was build belief with your um with your motivational video that the analysts put together, which is reminding Finney where he was, and we know that visualization is a really, really powerful tool. Once again, on the future podcast, yeah. I'm hoping that we're gonna get um Chris Marshall, who's an amazing sports psych, who's big on visualization and belief, and we can you know really tap into that because that's huge for fast bowling coaches to be able to tap into different specialists. Then you took the reverse chaining approach, didn't you? Which you know your decision was because you'd always seen Finney's biggest headline was his flowing arms, his big arms. So that that was the first part. You you moved it on once he got that part of the sequence. So whether it was the standing drill, whether it was the walkthrough drill, whether it was the walk to jump, gather, or the half, the quarter run, half run. You wouldn't just spend loads of time at a low level.

SPEAKER_01 39:34

No, then you you you'd move it on, but if he wasn't ready, you'd move it back. Yeah, and that's the important thing. You can't just keep moving it on if he's not getting it, because you're then you're just keeping all those bad feelings in there. So if he's not getting it, don't be afraid to go back again. So this wasn't it?

SPEAKER_02 39:52

Yes, from the coach, yeah. Patience, yeah, but also, but also the Finney, you're you're getting there now, you know. Let's not just have a session because it looks good and we all feel good, but you know, you know that's not what the finished article needs to look like because you do have to push them on and get them ready to go. Um, then there was the massive um roadblock, which was his run-up that you know, you and I we didn't really know how to do it, we could talk about rhythm, etc. So we brought in a specialist, didn't we? A specialist who understood the mechanics of running, asked great questions of us as to what it needed to look like and feel like, and then he started to put together the running drills that completely complemented what we were trying to do when we got to the final step before jump gather

Overcoming Challenges and Building Trust

SPEAKER_02 40:45

into his action, which you and I know as stability, balance, yeah, controlling momentum, and then being able to control the ground and how we use those forces for the ground to deliver the skill. We didn't actually have the knowledge and the skill at that time to give Finney back, you know, that beautiful rhythmical gait that he had, the beautiful sort of non-rocking um balance that he had when he was getting into his bowling action, which is when some really strange stuff starts to happen when you're on one leg, you know, one arm's up in the air, you've got all these amazing rotations going on. So once you got past that bit, it was then the layering on the pressure, which you did, you know, firstly with batters introducing batters, but in safe knit situations, then when everyone was around to watch and you were encouraging him to go with his new skill. Then you went into matches. And tell me, were when you went went into the first round of matches that he played, did did it was it smooth? Was it was it was it a smooth improvement curve, or was there a little bit of a drop back?

SPEAKER_01 41:56

There was a little bit, a little bit of a drop, a little bit of a drop, which disappointed him. Um not massive, just just slight, just nervous energy, you know, still still a bit anxious about it all. Um, but that went pretty quickly, I think maybe second game, or you know, he eased it back into it. It might have even been second innings of the first game. I think that first bowl was always going to be, you know, can you just get out there? Can you just deliver something? It doesn't have to be world-class. It you just need to get over this hurdle. And once he got over the hurdle, actually, an arm around him, and it'd be a bit down. You know, I didn't bowl as well as that. No, mate, but come on, look where you've come from, look where you've done, look at the positions, they're good, they're good. Yes, they could be slightly better, but wow, like, come on, put pat yourself on the back for once, you know what I mean? Like, you know what he's like. So, you know, it was still a slow process once we're in the games, but he started to pick up wickets, and as you know, as any fast bowler, if you're a bit down, but you can start picking up a few wickets, it's amazing how your confidence builds, you know, the positions got better, the rhythm got better, um, the nerves got less, you know, and it just started to flow really nicely for him, you know, really nicely.

SPEAKER_02 43:06

So we know he obviously started to do well enough in county cricket that he then got picked again for England, it was in the Nash's series, home series. You know, we obviously explained it in the podcast. You know, Finney also spoke about it, you know, with the ball swinging him and he got his wickets. After that, so he obviously there was the euphoria of wow, I'm back. How how disciplined then was Finney with regards to making sure that he kept repairing and kept getting better?

SPEAKER_01 43:34

He's always disciplined. He he's the the one positive and downside at the same time that Finney has, and he openly admits this himself, is he is an absolute perfectionist. And it got to the point where he wanted every ball to fly out of his fingers, swinging away at a good pace, and you know, beating the outside edge or nicking nicking about. And when it didn't, he he struggled with that. little bit and and that built up over a over a period of time and then you know I I don't know the time scale on this one but then he got to a point where he went back to the went back to the wobble again didn't he because he didn't trust that swing again yeah and and that was a tough time actually because that was the bit that he started getting those feelings back again which again he talks about in his book and his podcast about uh uh the podcast about the feelings of not being in control again and and and Finney had this big thing about control I need to be in control and when that swinging ball and I always explain Finney swing uh you would explain it as well shiny where there's two types of away swing bowlers that there's there's one classical where you see it out the hand and the wrist is always that side of the ball to to swing the ball it's always that side whereas Finney's was always off a little bit it always looked like from a batter's point of view it would look like it was coming into you but then he would just wrap his finger round and get the ball to shape away so that's the best type of swing that you can get is the batter's facing and it feels like the angle and everything's coming in but then he gets the swing away and he had you you

The Importance of Technique and Adaptability

SPEAKER_01 45:12

actually had the same um you had the same setup and that's why we wanted to give you an inswinger because your inswinger looked the same as your away swinger um besides the fact you had this ridiculous orange grip rather than that it was like awful grip hand grenade.

SPEAKER_02 45:30

The actual one of the reasons why we thought if we can get you a good in swinger you couldn't tell the difference because you did have the sort of slight sort of just wall mine get it going mine wasn't developed it was because as a young kid I couldn't swing the ball away everything went in so my wrist position naturally was that side of the ball and then we'll I'm sure we'll talk about it when we talk about swing in another podcast but from that position I learned how to swing the ball so yes I had that advantage of it feeling like it was going in and then shaping away and Finney had exactly that.

SPEAKER_01 46:02

What Finney found really hard was now and again when he got his action slightly off because his fingers were that side it would stay that side and he wouldn't have that little flick off the last finger and it would go down leg side and he could he struggled with that he hated the feeling of that ball going down leg side and I would say to him but that's one out of it's one out of 18 yeah but I just don't I can't control it.

SPEAKER_02 46:27

Can't control it. Let's go back to the you know what why do we encourage swing because you if if you had equipment that was sensitive enough to see really small technical energy changes and what I'm talking about energy is when you start to use the ground yeah and you start to see the energy come up and what side of the fingers or the wrist or the arm or the body if you had something that showed that an in swinger would look very different to an away swing I think Jonah you and I because we we did learn to swing it you had to when we we played it was sort of a um something you really had to do yeah exactly exactly um but you you know that you'd be just getting on slightly different positions to get your wrist in the right place but still propel the ball forward with enough pace to be competitive you know and and that's the bit when you're working with your players you know if if you were to say your super skill is that ball then work around that to get them there but always take them back to their super skill you know and work at what now that super skill may be that they can't swing a ball and there there's probably lots of theories around why people can't swing balls and that's for another podcast but we knew Finney did have that super skill didn't he because he did it from a young a young age and you've just given a great piece of um of info there which is even with that weird grip you were able to swing it away and so you obviously were able to stabilize yourself and once again go back to your coaching when you're working with your younger players the first time you set eyes on them yeah really work hard to understand what their best ball is and then get that don't don't then just try and think about what you think they should have go with their strengths maximise them first then see if you can work the skills around them and once again that would be a different that would be a different podcast when we talk about so how do you coach an inswinger if you're mainly an away swing bowler and vice versa because with regards to how actions look there are plenty of people out there who've got actions that look like it's a massive inswinger but they can get the thing to swing away let's talk about Josh Tong at the time you know Josh Tong is is way beyond the perpendicular he's got one of the best away swingers there is and so you know that that sort of convention if you are beyond the perpendicular and it looks like you push the ball in you should bowl an inswinger no let observe it look at it and see what they do then as a coach work the other skills around those and I think that is the bit of coaching that probably works so well for Finney is even though you knew it was his away swinger you wanted to get back to you put the structure in place first so through your reverse chain through going to RAF to get him balanced so that he could then create the positions and the force to get the ball down there at 90 plus but also get it to move oh and funnily enough you've still got to hit that little dinner plate because it's you know it it's a game that requires accuracy as well so you're trying to put loads of things together there. John I I think that's you know that's a that's a fantastic insight into what was a a great piece of work it was lovely to see Finney actually publicly thank you for that you know it's not not what we're in the job for but it was it was really really nice for that to happen so um you know I I think that's that's something that from a coaching perspective there's some nice little technical pieces in there for people and remember our aim is to simplify what could be seen as quite tricky i.e technique you know we are we are talking about there with Finney it was balance when he was going into his action we knew he was a long flowy bowler so it was a bowler type okay and then we were looking at making sure that he could get into a great position to produce his skill so John O thanks very much for that so if you're interested in working with us whether that's through coaching analysis or the pace flow integration head to the website we'll put the link in the description or feel free to reach out via our YouTube channel or socials.

SPEAKER_00 51:00

We'll also be continuing our shorter tech talk episodes uh breaking down specific parts of fast bowling. Thanks for listening and we'll see you on the next