Adrian Milledge takes guard as a device costing pounds 2,000 comes to club cricket.
Special delivery: Balls are fed into the bowling machine and delivered at a pre-planned speed (left) for Adrian Milledge (right) to improve his batting technique.
You could never accuse Kenilworth Wardens of being Luddites. Witness their hiring of a helicopter a couple of seasons ago to dry a wet pitch so that a key match could be played.
Technique and Technology
Their latest embrace of modern technology, however, is set to have longer-term value.
After a pilot scheme in the weeks leading up to Christmas, the club is now able to provide coaching which incorporates the use of a bowling machine and video camera.
Wardens have had their own two-lane indoor nets for some years and, as far as the club's head of youth cricket David Gurr is concerned, complementing them with the latest in coaching aids is a natural progression.
In local club cricket terms, Gurr believes it also makes Wardens unique.
Gurr, an Oxford Blue and a seam bowler in the same Somerset side as Ian Botham and Viv Richards, says: "Very few local cricket clubs, if any, have their own indoor facilities, let alone bowling machines and video coaching aids.
"Bowling machines and video equipment are very much the province of the first-class counties."
Initially Wardens borrowed the bowling machine from Bablake School, Coventry; as they did the video equipment from members.
But such was the success of the trial venture, Wardens raised the pounds 2,000 needed to buy their own machine.
Which suggests the Wardens' bowlers are in for an easy life during the rest of the winter. Rather than act as cannon-fodder for the batsmen, they can put their feet up in the bar and let the machine do the work.
Not according to Gurr.
"The machine frees the bowlers to have some meaningful practice and coaching in the other net ," he says.
"Traditional net practice overlooks their needs because they've primarily been viewed as being essential towards giving batsmen practice."
From a batsman's point of view that has always been hit and miss and very unlike batting in the middle.
Instead of facing six balls of similar length and pace, net practice means a Heinz 57 collection of bowlers and deliveries to match.
A bowling machine avoids that. More usefully, coupled with a coach and video camera, it brings a completely new dimension to coaching batsmen, especially youngsters.
Paul Smith, a qualified coach at Wardens, says: "I can tell someone he's not flexing his knees in his stance, or his backlift is non-existent.
"But if you see the fault on videotape, it's a lot easier to get the message across and cure it.
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