By Grockle
October 12 2024

In the early part of the year, I wrote a piece for Annie Chave's "County Cricket Matters" magazine for the 2024 Spring edition.  Because of the amount of material to be put in my piece was held back because I could publish it independently if I chose to.  The season had pretty much started by then and it did not get onto a Grockles frontpage and now I thought it might be interesting to put it out to see how my questions panned out.  I'll look to update it for the first edition of next year's CCM but would appreciate comments on this version with the gift of hindsight if anyone is bored in the winter.      

CRICKET’S ‘CURVE BALL’

Over the years the sport of baseball has had things to offer to cricket.  The most obvious modern one was the development of fielding with the outfield throwing techniques of the American sport transforming deliveries to the keeper especially in the women’s game getting rid of the ‘parabolic’ lob from the boundary.

Recently, I found by accident another lesson we may take from the sport while watching a Clint Eastwood movie called ‘Trouble with the Curve Ball’ from 2012.  It is a film about an old style independent baseball scout (Eastwood) out on the road looking for talent for the ‘majors’.  It’s mostly about his relationship with his daughter (Amy Adams) also a baseball nut as they travel.  Towards the end of the movie they find themselves at the first net of a franchise side’s big hitting first draft player picked up from college by the more market orientated scouts for the organisation.  He is hitting the cover off the ball to all the stands and the corporate scouts are smugly grinning to the boss of the team (Robert Patrick). 

Adams introduces a pitcher she found when she ‘heard’ the sound a pitcher makes when he delivers the perfect pitch, he’s unknown, plays locally and is not on any corporate radar – he sells peanuts at the ground. When he is introduced to the mound the college star comments “You want me to waste my time on the peanut boy? This is going to be messy” as he smugly prepares to deliver more home runs.  The pitcher is fast and passes the hitter with 3 straight fast balls.  The grins disappear from the corporate scouts.  “Now show him the curve” says Adams.  Despite the star hitter knowing which pitch is coming he gets nowhere near any of the pitches.  The manager asks his scouts “Nobody saw this?” and then curses as he realises they have signed a guy who for all his power cannot hit a specialist pitch most other sides will have in their arsenal.  The corporate guys looked for what they wanted to see – ‘home runs’ and neglected to check for other weaknesses in their first pick.  The old style scouts look for flexible and skilful players who have that ‘thing’ you want to see in a player who can fully develop in the skills of the game.  As Eastwood says “That’s what you call trouble with the curve ball”

It resonated with me more than usual given the present debates within my own county and across the domestic game as we look to the future of possible franchise based short form cricket and how that fits with the 50 over and four day game that some county cricket members and supporters also enjoy during their summers.

The ‘Curve Ball’ metaphor took me back to 2013 the year after Eastwood’s movie was in the cinemas and Mr Jos Buttler’s decision to leave Somerset for a job at Lancashire in order to toss his hat early into the England ring as a batting wicket-keeper.  An immense talent with the bat, Jos was making a name for himself in short form cricket and competing with Craig Kieswetter for the gloves and spot five in the four day team at Taunton.  He wasn’t there in the longer game yet but he was improving He had his work cut out for him as CK was no slouch with the bat or the gloves.  He decided to leave (there were other reasons) to make his claim elsewhere and the rest is white ball history for the present World Cup winning (and losing) England short form captain. 

As a Test match batsman however he never quite made it with the odd exception.  My suggestion is that this is partly down to not spending another season or two in a four day set up with Marcus Trescothick, Nick Compton, James Hildreth, Craig Kieswetter and Peter Trego learning the nuances of the longer game and developing strategies for the ‘curve balls’ of Championship cricket. 

I’ve seen massively impressive innings by Jos, his destruction of Parnell against South Africa when he took him for 32 in 1 over (with sixes at either end by his team mate Craig Kieswetter) and his record breaking 46 ball hundred against Pakistan in Dubai in 2015 – a feat I saw live and enjoyed from ball one to name just a couple.  I’ve also seen him be thought out by Test match and domestic four day bowlers, I’ve seen him play all round a straight one and be frustrated into batting errors when patience might have been the better strategy to follow.  Could Jos have been more than he is despite the fact that he will be remembered as a great short ball bat and won’t be poor in his retirement when it comes?  Did he choose to take the short cut and gamble on not facing the ‘Curve Ball’?

Taking this question forward to the present day I find myself asking the same about four talented young batsmen in the present Somerset setup.  I am sure there are others up and down the country in the same situation and I think this may find similarities in more than one county squad. 

My four players are Will Smeed, the 23 year old right hander.  Tom Banton the 25 year old wicketkeeper bat, Tom Lammonby 24, the left handed bat/bowler and last but by no means least the 20 year old left handed keeper James Rew who already has a double hundred to his name and pushed Tendulkar close as the 19 year old with the most first class runs in a season in 2023.

What do they all have in common?  Well it’s the importance they may put on hitting the ‘curve ball’ and how it will affect their earning potential and their final career statistics?  They seem to fall into 3 main categories.  The question is whether the options they have chosen mean the game has expanded its opportunities or is moving away for the purist view of cricket and possibly eventually restricting the skillbase as a whole as money overtakes ‘playing the game at its highest level’ as a prime motive for some perhaps.

I am not saying I know the motive of the four and I don’t blame a player in their 20s making career decisions that may well make them happy after they finish playing.  That is not what this is about.  My view was always that you played the game to be as good as you could be at it given the circumstances.  I always thought coaching was geared towards that and that county scouts looked for potential to exploit to that end.  I’m not sure that is the case now.

If we start with the mighty powerful Will Smeed you may see what I am trying to get at.  The producer of the first hundred in a ‘Hundred’ game in August 2022 was lauded as ‘coming out of nowhere’ to do that.  In fact his debut for Somerset was in September 2021 in a T20 Blast game.  He opens with Banton for his county and won a Blast trophy with his side in 2023.  He has only one List A 50 over game to his name in his career and that was for England Lions against South Africa in July 2022.  He chose a white ball only contract with Somerset at the start of 2023 and has appeared for Quetta in Pakistan, St Kitts and Nevis in the CPL and MI Emirates in the UAE ILT T20 tournament.  He presently plays Blast only for his county, no red ball and no 50 over cricket at all.  One has to ask where he develops his game beyond the present latent ability he has and whether it matters or not as long as he continues to hit 90 meter plus sixes. 

Will’s earning capability is presently well beyond that of the average young English cricketer in his 20s of even 10 years ago.  Can he be better than he presently is?  Well he doesn’t start working with his county until May one would imagine except in the nets.  He will play league cricket and will be featured (one hopes) in ILT20 2024 in the UAE in the early months of the year.  He will then play a maximum of 14 T20 games between the start of June and mid July once he joins the white ball Somerset squad.   Then he will professionally kick his heels (unless he contracts to one of the smaller T10 or T20 tournaments abroad) before he joins his UK ‘franchise’ for August. From September he is a free agent for anything except county training until May 2025 (I believe his county contract is up for re-negotiation after 2025).  Before his white ball decision, Will had not been a factor in Somerset’s red ball plans even though we are desperate for a stable opening partnership in that format.  Whether he chose to not push to develop that ‘arrow’ in his ‘quiver’ or was realistic about depth of his ability is something only he can answer.  He was talking about committing to red ball cricket months before he chose a different path.

Maybe he saw the experiences of his colleagues at Taunton and decided not to follow their route.  The two Tom’s Lammonby and Banton have decided on a different, possibly more traditional journey in the game.  Banton, who tasted international cricket with a T20 debut in New Zealand in the winter of 2019 followed by ODI level honours in 2020 turned his back to some extent on that early interest to work at his red ball skills with his county in the early part of the 2021 season.  A brave move for a young player with distinct white ball skills. He seemed to have a desire to be more than that although he has also tasted the global T20 game with Quetta, Brisbane, Kolkata, Peshwar, Columbo and the Northern Superchargers in 2023.  Another ‘franchise’ player in the domestic game but with a view that there may be more to his game than this.  He has not been prominent in the Somerset Championship side in 2023, making only a few appearances at the end of the the season but he still seems to have a desire to work at the skills he’d need to deal with the ‘curve ball’.  He was the other opener in the winning Blast side however.

Tom Lammonby also chose the wider cricket experience despite being another talented white ball bat with a ‘franchise’ domestic berth and work abroad with Karachi and Hobart in T20 tournaments.  His experience has been different again from Messrs Banton and Smeed as he has been the number one choice in the opening partnership of his county championship side for the last couple of seasons.  He has the best first class average of those presently working at Somerset though it is not all that impressive.  He has been working hard to make the transitions between the requirements of an opening bat in a four day game and those of a middle order bat in a 20 over evening fixture.  It has not been easy for him as the need for a patient start in a CC1 game conflicts almost directly with getting down to the business of scoring in a Blast match.  He has learned that using the shots of the white ball game early tell red ball bowlers too many things about you in the first innings of four.  He has significantly pulled back on the boundary shots he might have attempted early in a T20 innings that are simply not appropriate in the first 10 overs of a Championship tussle. 

It has not been easy but he has kept at it.  It may have slowed down his scoring in Blast games but he is more of a challenge to bowlers in long format conflicts because of it.  Is he a more complete player?  Has he lost his spontaneity?  The jury is out.  He spent most of August on the bench with Manchester Originals when he would have played all of Somerset’s Metro 50 fixtures had he been released back to his county.  He would have earned less but played more.  However he was a member of Somerset’s successful Blast side in the same season.  What does an English domestic cricketer want these days?  Is Tom Lammonby more at home in front of the ‘curve ball’ than his two team mates because of having faced it and does it matter any more?

The last of the quartet is a rarer cricket gem these days.  James Rew is a born red ball player.  He instinctively knows how and when to play the ‘curve ball’.  At 19 he was a first pick for the county championship side and one could argue that in combination with a bowling attack doing more work than it really should the keeper’s batting kept Somerset out of the relegation area as the rest of its front end struggled to find itself, especially in the first innings.  His future, in the past, would be certain.  A future Test player and county batting great with a career and first class records to his name. 

However, the present is not so certain for a red ball player first and foremost.  James did not feature in the Blast glories of 2023.  The gloves and opening spot were taken by Tom Banton.  He did not feature in the ‘Hundred’ Draft but represented his county in the Metro50 with the rest of the youth as 10 first team players went elsewhere for August.  He does not have foreign berths with T20 tournament sides, though he is in India as I write with the England Lions so he has moved into the international spotlight because of his phenomenal batting during the 2023 summer.  Where does the future of this skilful bat lie?  Does he have to work to become a more explosive and less careful player to put himself into white ball contention away from his county?  Does he have a future in the ‘Bazball’ Test side of Stokes and McCullum?   Will he get the opportunity to make a statement or will he be expected to bat aggressively from Day 1 irrespective of the skills of the opposition.  How flexible is James and how much time does he have to show it before the ECB juggernaut moves on to the next T20 TV star?  Has he the same problem as Ben Foulkes vs Jonny Bairstow?

So we come to the question.  How much variety does a young bat need to have for a successful career in modern cricket?  Is there still a place for a youngster to work at their game and develop better technique and aptitude against the less predictable conditions of games with the ‘curve ball’?  Does it necessarily matter any more?  Is the spectrum of skills required with the bat decreasing in spread?  Are the basics all you need to make a decent living and is there that living to be made if you want to do more with the willow in more challenging situations.  Are we dumbing down skill levels to cater for the corporate demands of the world game or is the straight drive simply being replaced by the ‘ramp’ or the reverse sweep?  Its another area of debate.

I enjoy the pure ‘wham bam’ of Will Smeed but I wonder what else he has.  I marvel at the sheer class of James Rew and hope he has a real future in the game I know and I admire the pain and effort of both Tom’s as they struggle to find the balance between what they want to be and what they need to be to be happy in the modern game.  I also hope there is a place for all of them to be successful.  I also hope there is still a future in modern cricket for the ‘curve ball’ as a delivery that worries the best of bats.

Trouble with the Curve Ball

Discussion started by Grockles.com , 12/10/2024 19:17

Grockles.com
12/10/2024 19:17

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2024:11:18:07:15:15 by Grockle.

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Grockle
18/10/2024 12:54

I wrote this during the early months of 2024 as a possible entry in the 'County Cricket Matters' magazine in Spring or Summer. It was late for the first and didn't make the cut (as I have another places to publish my stuff) for the other so it has sat in my files for the seaon though I may revisit the subject for a 2025 edition if I get around to it.

However, given the progress of the four guys it talks about during the season - Banton, Lammonby, Smeed and Rew, I thought it might be something worth publishing now to compare my impressions at the start of the 24 season with where the 4 stand at the end of it. I may be wrong of course but here you go if you have some time to waste

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888STARZ
28/01/2025 19:16

The article "Trouble with the Curve Ball" draws an intriguing parallel between baseball and cricket, emphasizing the importance of comprehensive talent evaluation over mere statistical prowess. The anecdote from the film "Trouble with the Curve" serves as a compelling reminder that true potential often lies beyond conventional metrics. In cricket, as in baseball, it's crucial to look beyond the obvious and assess a player's adaptability and skill set in various scenarios. This perspective is especially pertinent in today's game, where the allure of short-form cricket can sometimes overshadow the foundational skills honed in longer formats. A holistic approach to player development ensures that emerging talents are well-equipped to handle the diverse challenges of the sport.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2025:01:30:20:24:25 by Grockle.

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Grockle
30/01/2025 20:21

Thanks for this... nice paragraph summary of what I was trying to get near. I've removed the link as I've temporarily left it on the other thread where it isn't hidden.





Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2025:01:30:20:26:48 by Grockle.

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Scrumper
30/01/2025 22:23

Is this AI?

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Grockle
31/01/2025 11:09

Probably... its an advertising 'tempter' I assume from some Sri Lankan betting site.... but I do like what they say & I doubt any if our locals will be scammed by it at all so...😁👍😁👍

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