Former Australia fast bowler Shaun Tait has shared the reason behind modern-day pacers’ inability to bowl over 150 kmph consistently. Tait said that today’s fast bowlers don’t have their inputs in ‘robot-like’ training programs. He reckoned that current bowlers are ‘spoon-fed’ concerning the ‘Dos and Donts’ by their team physios.
Tait, who played 59 international games for Australia, used to bowl over 150 kmph on a constant basis. He even clicked the 160 kmph mark in his career. The 38-year-old mentioned that speedsters like him, Shoaib Akhtar and Brett Lee, could cross the 150kmph barrier because they had their say in their training schedule.
160.7 km/h!
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“I can talk about this for an hour… I think anywhere you go right now; bowling programs are very similar, workload, programs, you have to do this, you have to do that. Whereas when I played, before that Shoaib and Brett Lee, our programs were there, but we had a big input into them. We were not faced with almost like a robot-type thing. You are not doing the same thing, day in, day out. You are not being told by people what to do all the time. You are taking a bit of onus on your career and doing what feels good for your body,” Tait told Sportskeeda.
The South Australian enlightened that a lot of professionalism is hurting bowlers in current times. Tait expressed that bowlers should be allowed to make at least some decisions regarding their workload on their own.
“Nowadays they are told ‘Now, have a rest day’, ‘Bowl a certain amount of balls this day. Obviously, the professionalism of cricket has come into it; a lot of guys have got jobs to look after programs for fast bowlers. I think it’s hurting express bowling a little bit. Sometimes I think we should let cricketers make their decisions themselves rather than telling them what to do and spoon-feeding them,” added Tait.
