The specialised bowling academy which helped 36-year-old Ishant Sharma hit 140-plus kph again

There are no batters or targets to aim at in the two modest nets. One holds a goalpost-like crossed mesh at the centre, and the other bears a grassy strip.

Ishant’s rekindling has spread the word through social media now that bowlers ranging from the breadth of Tamil Nadu to Arunachal Pradesh have begun to check in to upgrade exponentially.

Coach Ayush Mehendiratta’s discussions with young bowlers are on acceleration, impulse stride, ball velocity, and resistance.

A former Haryana district cricketer, Mehendiratta owes everything to Jones’ extensive research and expertise. “I was a fast bowler and couldn’t play much because of my injury. It was my dream to ‘make’ fast bowlers. I stumbled upon Steffan’s work on social media. I started doing his drills and was amazed by the results,” he says.

Jones stresses the need to build trust with science and facts so that anybody can buy into his methods, as Mehendiratta did nearly a decade ago.

“My point of difference is sports science and knowledge,” Jones says. Dabbling with sports science at Loughborough University and physical education at Cambridge University, besides a healthy cricket career across various counties, helped develop Jones’s oasis of fast-bowling resources.

“I’m a qualified strength and conditioning coach, a qualified sports scientist, and a qualified coach,” Jones says.

Need for Speed

Jones laments the existing systems of fast-bowling coaching – “Archaic, lost in repetition and overworking.”

“We are training marathon runners, not sprinters,” he says. “We have to train sprinters because we need them to have a full recovery before every over. Fast bowling is not about volume and bowling for hours. Volume kills speed and that concept is based on sprint work. It’s not about cricket. That’s why there’s a disconnect between other speed sports and fast bowling.”

Jones connected with Ishant in 2018 and later egged him onto work with Mehendiratta. Jones explains the science through the veteran pacer’s significant pace revival.

Jones’ ‘run and gun’ training method is employed in the two nets at the facility – One holds a goalpost-like crossed mesh at the centre, and the other bears a grassy strip. (Special Arrangement)

“Ishant has a front leg collapse and most coaches would spend years trying to get him to brace his front leg. But he doesn’t need to do that,” Jones explains.

Ishant’s pace was not close to the 140s he clocked in the IPL, Mehendiratta says.

“Day one, when he came to me, he was bowling only 77 miles (124 kph) on my gun. I found his upper body was weak, and at the same time, his lower body was not reactive at all. He was not jumping higher, he was not running; the sprint times were very low. Sprint time has a direct correlation to the run of speed, and your run of speed has a direct correlation to ball velocity,” Mehendiratta says.

Simple fix

A simple fix also helped Ishant overcome his perennial side strain struggles. “When I checked his action, he was falling laterally. He was running in diagonals, causing lateral flexion. I just corrected the angle of the run-up, and he was fine.”

Weighted balls at about 250 grams, heavier than the standard cricket ball (156-163 g), and specific gym work are key components of PaceLab’s work. “Inclined bench has a direct correlation to a heavy ball. We use a lot of weighted balls in training. Ishant’s inclined bench numbers on day one were only 55 kgs. In six weeks, we went to 75 kgs. And his heavy ball velocity went from 74 miles (119 kph) to 79 miles (127 kph) – a five-mile gain.”

Returning to the standard leather ball meant Ishant began clocking 88-89 mph (143 kph) on the speed gun, which Mehendiratta believes he can crank further up.

A discernible change is Ishant’s bowling motion into the crease, which Jones calls the ‘impulse stride’. Deducting trends from a vast pool of bowlers across the UK school and club level, international cricket and the IPL, Jones formulated the ideal speed for a bowler through the entire run-up till the approach at the crease, around 7 metres per second.

former Haryana U-25 bowler Kushagra Yadav. (Special Arrangement)

“The impulse stride is the one step before the back foot (landing), and that is so important, a key determinant of ball velocity. How fast you hit the impulse stride and not jump up, you go forward, so you project the centre of mass into front foot contact, that is key to bowling quickly,” Jones explains.

Ishant’s revival meant pace bowling aspirants from across the country began to check into the Gurgaon facility.

After a couple of years out of the game, former Haryana U-25 bowler Kushagra Yadav arrived with a throwing action. “He was chucking when he came in and we corrected his arm’s angle, making it slightly wider from the ear.” Beyond this, Yadav went from clocking 68 mph to 81 mph (130 kph on the speed gun, approximately 135 kph on broadcast) in three weeks.

Arunachal seamer Mibom Mosu, who made his Ranji Trophy debut last season with Ishant Sharma. (Special Arrangement)

Arunachal seamer Mibom Mosu, who made his Ranji Trophy debut last season, has not bowled with the leather ball for a month. “I was clocking 78 mph with the normal ball and 81 mph with the heavy ball last month. I’m sure I will at least go over 83 mph with the normal ball soon,” says the 22-year-old who discovered PaceLab through Instagram.

For Jones, who found his way to India via a text from former national head coach Rahul Dravid who linked him up with the Rajasthan Royals and the IPL.

“I’ve seen Mayank Yadav bowl, he’s got talent. Umar Malik has got talent. Kartik Tyagi has got talent. Akash Singh has got talent. Kuldeep Sen has got talent. These guys bowl fast, but where are they now?” Jones asks.