YoIt was one of those painful post-mortems after a day’s play in which we – the Glamorgan county team, that is – were trying to explain why the opposing team’s unthreatening medium-pacer had just taken five wickets.
There was a lot of nonsense said, as there usually is on such occasions, and I was too young and shy to really say what I thought, but the reason was obvious enough to me: because Curtly Ambrose was pitching at the other end.
That’s the great Ambrose, whose favourite phrase was “if you want to drive, buy a car” and I don’t remember playing many drives with him. To face him was to be in a constant state of bewilderment about how to go forward. Earth, you were going to score runs with the balls that were incessantly whizzing past your chest and head, while at the same time fearing for your safety if any of those aforementioned rockets hit you.
Wood reached speeds of 97 mph during a period on Friday morning.
NIGEL PARKER/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK
It was no surprise that we tried to play some shots at the other end. And that game in Swansea against Northamptonshire came immediately to mind on Friday morning at Trent Bridge, when West Indies opener Mikyle Louis was dismissed by England spinner Shoaib Bashir.
A few drinks had just been consumed, but it was clear that they had not calmed Louis’s head, because in the over before those refreshments, Mark Wood’s pace had exceeded 97 mph. Louis had bowled Wood very well over a blisteringly fast four overs, generally dodging cleverly and always keeping his eye on the ball.
A full ball almost went through his defences, as his underhand pick-up that veers first towards the gully before straightening out managed that process in time. It did, however, spark an interesting debate on Sky Sports, started by Ian Bishop and my Times colleague Mike Atherton, about how high batsmen should raise their hands against faster bowlers.
There is a school of thought that says the hands should be kept lower (Kraigg Brathwaite has no choice in that matter because his hands are always low anyway, constantly hitting the ball), but I must admit that I am in the Ricky Ponting school of thought here, in the sense that the hands should go higher because it is easier to control the pace of them as they come down to meet the ball.
Anyway, suddenly, on the second ball Louis faced from Bashir after that break, he made a horrible cut towards the leg side. The ball deviated towards the inside edge and went for four, but it was a bad shot after so much good work. At least he survived, though, and one hoped he had learned his lesson.
Kavem Hodge, left, reacts as Alick Athanaze is hit in the helmet by a pitch from Wood.
David Rogers/Getty
And lo and behold, on the next ball Louis attempted an ambitious pass across midfield. He struggled to catch it (a magnificent catch running backwards and the other way from midfield by Harry Brook) but he caught it and Louis walked away, bowing his head on one of his hands in disgust as he went.
How to explain it? The ball was not spinning. There was no obvious threat from Bashir, despite his obvious potential with a high release point and lovely ball shape and movement. The threat was elsewhere, but as Michael Holding has always said: “Speed can do strange things.”
It certainly can. It tests technique, courage and reaction times (with 97mph surely being at the upper limit of human capability in that last respect) and it certainly thrills crowds, as Trent Bridge revelled in Wood’s ever-increasing speeds appearing on the big screen, but it can also confuse minds. It had confused Louis’s, no doubt.
Louis handled Wood’s speed well, but then fell to Bashir.
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And when it comes to a clear barrage of pace on a short pitch, it can lead to other, often unfathomable errors. England’s ploy for Brathwaite – with Gus Atkinson playing some “chin music” (a phrase much beloved of West Indies fielders when their famous pace quartet terrorised opposition batsmen in the 1980s) – had barely begun when Brathwaite succumbed rather tamely.
The pitch had spread out and the first ball of the over had been skied away as Brathwaite staggered – and indeed fell – backwards, but on the fourth ball Atkinson had found his target, close to the batsman’s left ear. Brathwaite did not want to crouch – some bowlers find that difficult – and instead tried to defend the ball. But once his hands had reached a certain height he needed to let them drop, not continue their upward path until they were out of control and therefore only able to flick the ball to Ollie Pope at short leg.
Atkinson then continued the short-ball theory with Kirk McKenzie, and guess what happened? The first ball McKenzie faced from Bashir, in what turned out to be the penultimate over before lunch, the batsman attempted to flick it over mid-wicket which only made it as far as mid-wicket, where a grateful Ben Stokes took the catch. It was incredible.
Three wickets before lunch, probably all due (and I suppose based on past experience) to the effects of pace on a beautiful day for batting. It was fortunate that they had that pace, because wickets proved extremely hard to come by on a hard day’s work for England.
