This week reviews editor Ed Kemp ponders an end to throw-downs as we take a look at the Sidearm coaching aid.
I might have found a very late Christmas present for my club coach. Once a more than handy player, turned very committed coach, he’d still be playing properly himself were it not for a catalogue of bodily complaints: a ruptured knee here and a busted ankle there are the marks of a sporting career perhaps too fully lived in his long-departed youth.
In recent years it’s the shoulder that takes a real pounding. Hours and hours of throw-downs at greedy batsmen in nets and warm-ups put real strain on many coaches. This Sidearm contraption was apparently dreamed up partly in response to the fact that, at the end of the 2009 summer, four England coaches were sidelined due to shoulder injury. And on the reckoning of the coaches I’ve spoken to, it could be the answer.
Graham Gooch has made it famous – he uses it with his England charges – and it’s based on the slinger used by dog walkers to play ‘fetch’ (it could be used for this if you have an irritatingly over-energetic No.11 who needs distracting whilst waiting to bat). You put the ball in, swing your arm down, and the ball flies out. If that doesn’t sound simple enough, here’s a link to Goochie’s own instructional video.
It’s fair to say it takes some mastering. There are two types: Club (£25.99), for all standards (probably the one you want), and Pro (£28.99), which can propel it a bit faster but is harder to control. When we tried them, the first few balls were either short of half way down or beamers sailing high over the batsman’s head. Still better than the net bowling, of course… But after a bit of practice you can see how it’s an effective tool for a coach. It produces pace with little more than a gentle sweep of the arm (so taking the strain off that shoulder) and can also produce variation: turning the Sidearm to one side can produce off or legspin. You deliver from the full pitch length, so it’s more realistic than the classic throw-down, and in that sense it seems to provide a middle ground between manual chucks and the bowling machine: allowing the coach to vary things and keep the batsman guessing but not completely knackering their arm in the process.
Coaches are always on the lookout for little things to make their life easier, and quite right – batsmen can be demanding. Speaking for myself, an unimpressive ‘top-order’ bat, I need all the help I can get. Anything that keeps the coach throwing balls at me for longer has got to be worth a look.
Click here for the ingenious machine featured in the last instalment of Gear This Week.
