by Dr Sahi
(Yamuna Nagar , Haryana India)
Respected Sir, we are running a NGO called ‘Helping Hands’ group in India. We want to select a fast bowler, under 16 from our town, sir please help us to know what good points to see in a fast bowler,sir we want to encourage new talent.
Hi Doctor Sahi, the first consideration is pace ! Your quick bowlers need to have raw pace, you can teach accuracy later.
You will need to contact schools and junior clubs to run trials and hold fast bowling selection trials.
Having a competition advertised in the newspaper will draw good exposure for it. Also it generates interest around fast bowling.
If your local cricket association doesn’t have speed guns to measure the speed of the bowlers, you could ask the local traffic police to bring down their speed guns to time the bowlers and give accurate speed assessments. They use these to catch speeding motorists.This will also generate some interest !
Height is a key criteria, which determines length of limbs. Long limbs create greater speed, ask your local university for average heights for U-16 s.
Explosive strength is an important indicator, again ask the local university sports department to see if they can do some testing of your final trialists for you. Measuring sprinting speed, medicine ball throw, jump height, standing long jump and anthropometric measurements.
The bottom line is the speed of the bowler though, Dale Steyn is not a big man, nor was Malcolm Marshall so height is only secondary.
As always, fast bowling is very stressful on growing bodies so don’t allow the trialists to bowl for more than 24 to 30 balls maximum.
Good Luck ! Best wishes Coach
Join in and write your own page! It’s easy to do. How? Simply click here to return to Ask Coach ?
About Richard Pybus
I'm Richard Pybus, I've coached Pakistan, Bangladesh, Middlesex, Titans and the Cape Cobras in South Africa and the goal of this site is to help you to play winning cricket.