— Boria Majumdar
India Australia is round the corner and the focus will yet again be on Virat Kohli and Steve Smith. How do you bowl to batters of this calibre? How do you keep them quiet? Why is it that India continues to miss Jasprit Bumrah? Why is he getting injured far too often? Jeff Thomson, one of the best ever, answers these questions in this episode of Backstage With Boria.
Boria Majumdar: If Jeff Thomson was asked to bowl to Virat Kohli today, how do you get him out as he has got back to form and batting well?
Jeff Thomson: It is no different to anyone else. If you are bowling to Virat, it’s the same as anybody else. You try to tie him down, make him uncomfortable. Don’t let him score runs as it is difficult to keep him quiet as he has such a wide range of shots. Make him take more risks. Get him out of his comfort zone. It is easier said than done. Good bowlers will be able to do so more often. That’s how you bowl to great batters like Viv Richards, Greg Chappell, Sunny Gavaskar or Virat Kohli.
Boria Majumdar: So, when you bowled to the greatest batters, say for example Viv Richards, it’s also mental, right? So, what would be your advice to the fast bowlers, how do they deal with Virat? Is it also a mental battle or is it something else?
Jeff Thomson: You can’t back off. You got to use your head. It’s your mental battle against him (Virat). The one who breaks first looses out. You got to be more strong mentally than him in order to get success. Good players – both batters and bowlers work that out. They got to have a Plan B or C and see what happens. Some days it doesn’t work but as long as you know you tried your best and did not bowl too many garbage and make him score easy runs, that’s what you can do. Good bowlers on their day will have fun. When you play international cricket, it has to be a tough challenge. But you got to strive to be the best. I had to turn up against Viv Richards. Everyone else in the world would have been shaken, but I was not scared of him. I was after him. He was the big fish and I know he is going to come at you, so that gives me more opportunity. Whereas some other batters like Sunny Gavaskar don’t go after you. That’s when you have to try harder as you had to make them try and do something.
Boria Majumdar: Why are fast bowlers nowadays not having the same kind of impact, is it because of injuries?
Jeff Thomson: I think it is because of so much cricket. They play all the year round. We didn’t play all the year round during our time. We used to play in seasons like Summer and occasionally we would go to England for our winter which was a long tour for four and half months. But generally, we played in summer. I knew I was going to get a rest at the end of March. But now you can’t do that anymore. You got to sort of pace yourself to be around and that’s why you have all these back-up bowlers. So it’s a matter of having to rest these days because it’s a twelve month a year job.
Boria Majumdar: If I can ask you about Jasprit Bumrah, he is one of the best bowlers in the world. He has a bit of an awkward action and we have seen him suffer from too many injuries off late. What is Jeff Thomson’s advice to Bumrah so as to prolong his career? What does he need to do?
Jeff Thomson: Well, he as to prioritise what formats he wants to play. Whether he wants to play white ball cricket or test cricket or both. If I was playing now, it would have been very hard to play test matches because you get so much money in the short version of the game. We didn’t have to think about money in our days because there was no money. Now it’s a huge business. You got to work out how long I am going to play for. I think you have to be more smart in terms of workload and what you got to play. If you are good enough, you will be picked in all formats. But you can’t play all and burn out. That’s what Bumrah has to do. Choose what you want to play and go about your job.