Natty Trains with Warne’s Mentor

Natty Sikand-Youngs, a leading junior member of the club has had some expert honing of his leg-spinning skills at the hands of one of the cricket world’s leading coaches, Terry Jenner, the man who made Shane Warne the bowler he was.  The Plumtree CC webmaster asked Natty to write a report on his time with the guru and he provided the following:

“As you probably have all heard by now, I was due to have coaching with Terry Jenner, the “spin doctor”.  That all went ahead as planned. I had two four-hour, small-group sessions in Essex in late July, and another three-hour session a couple of weeks later in Long Eaton.

“It doesn’t take long for one to realise how much Terry knows about spin, which is a great reminder of what sort of specialist coaching was being provided. This meant over the course of just a few hours people were improving dramatically and getting a better understanding of the mentality of a spin bowler.

“A stand out difference between T.J. and other coaches is his speed of diagnosis. It’s as if every problem he sees in an individual is something he is familiar with, due to his long experience as a “spin doctor”.

“One got the feeling he had a very clear image of the “perfect” action, and was trying to coach people to this model. Despite the sometimes radical changes made to individuals’ deliveries, it didn’t seem to take them long to get used to it.

“Sessions were often long, and very draining, so Terry always took time to give us some “theory”, coupled with the emphasis on certain cricketing clichés. If we failed to memorise them, we were forced to perform push-ups in front of the rest of the group, as we were if we had our hands in our pockets, as I discovered when I reached for my handkerchief!

“Among Terry’s tips were: the importance of a strong front arm (or “rudder”), to bowl side-on and aligned, and not to bowl like a medium pacer, which applied to many of us at the sessions. What was surprising was that bringing the pace down even slightly increased spin almost exponentially.

“In addition, he would tell us how important it is to use the Leg Break as the stock ball, around ninety-five per cent of the time. Perfecting this with my new action is my priority over the winter.

“The session I had in Long Eaton built upon what was already said at Essex, and helped me refine the action which he had suggested I use. I was pleased to hear him say at the end that I had improved, since he had at both sessions quoted Greg Chappell’s advice of “you don’t go to the nets just to bat and bowl, you always go to improve”.

“T.J. seemed to think that there is a kind of “prejudice” circulating about spinners, asking, “Why should a four off a leg-spinner be thought of as worse as or more expensive than off a pace bowler?” He complained that many captains don’t know how to deal with spinners, and that they encourage dot-ball cricket, not wicket-taking. This “bad captaincy” syndrome I’ve barely experienced at Plumtree!

“Comments that he and some others made about captains’ treatment of Leg Spinners made me appreciate even more how fortunate I have been with my captains and team managers at Plumtree. And with my parents for paying for the sessions!”

By Natty Sikand-Youngs. August 14, 2009

Well done young man, a great report on what was obviously a tremendous experience; we’ll all be looking out for the results!