I was much too polite to be a fast bowler: Frank Tyson

December 22, 2014 12:01 am | Updated 07:43 am IST - Brisbane

Frank Tyson, one of the fastest bowler England has produced, in full flow during his playing days. Photo: The Hindu Photo Archives

Frank Tyson, one of the fastest bowler England has produced, in full flow during his playing days. Photo: The Hindu Photo Archives

Frank Tyson was given the moniker ‘Typhoon’ since he was the fastest bowler of his era.

The illustrious Richie Benuad, former Australia captain and commentator, rates Tyson as the quickest bowler he has seen.

The England paceman’s career was short but its impact devastating. He fired out 76 batsmen in 17 Tests at only 18.56. And he was the toast of England with 28 wickets in the victorious Ashes campaign Down Under in 1954-55.

The Hindu caught up the 84-year-old Tyson, who has now settled in Gold Coast near Brisbane.

These are days when Tyson is in some pain after seeing Phillip Hughes lose his life to a short-pitched delivery. “It’s sad that the boy lost his life. Actually, he was not hit on the head but on the area below it, on the neck blocking an artery,” he said.

In his playing days, Tyson bowled some menacing short-pitched deliveries. “I bowled bouncers to force the batsman on to the back foot. Then I would pitch one up and test his technique. I bowled a bouncer to get a wicket or set it up. I never bowled to hit people,” Tyson said.

Although Tyson recalled hitting famous umpire Dickie Bird on a few occasions — Bird then played for Leicestershire — he said, “I was much too polite to be a fast bowler.”

On the physical danger to the batsmen who faced him — that was a period when there were no helmets in cricket — Tyson replied, “Not many got hit then and it reflected on the skill level at that time. It’s a lot about planning the correct movement path to get yourself out of the ball’s way.”

On so many batsmen being struck on the helmet these days, Tyson said, “It does show a certain neglect technically, in the manner they cope with such deliveries.”

Asked about two best players of short-pitched bowling, he had bowled at, Tyson responded, “None played the hook and the pull better against me than Neil Harvey. He would get himself into very good positions.”

Tyson, then said, “If it is a batsman who could get out of the way of a bouncer, it has to be Colin McDonald.”

The explosive but articulate Tyson — he graduated from the Durham University — never sledged. “Exchanging words, it’s a waste of energy, really. I recall a conversation with McDonald in Adelaide, but it was light-hearted and there was no animosity. You can give the batsman a glare though,” he said.

Shock tactics Tyson was not too convinced at the tactics of the Indian pacemen in the second Test. “The two young bowlers (Varun Aaron and Umesh Yadav) have some pace but India should not have tried the ‘shock’ tactics against lower-order batsmen. They should have bowled good length and moved the ball away.”

Tyson felt both the Indian and the Australian pacemen did not make full use of the Gabba surface. “Both teams did not swing the ball or get much sideways movement off the pitch like a Freddie Trueman would have done. They were bowling way too short.”

Talking about swing, Tyson, an accomplished coach, said, “The swinging cricket ball depends in the creation of different fields of air pressure on each side of the ball. You are creating a vacuum behind the ball that will slow it down. But you will get the ball to swing.”

On whether pacemen breaking down often in modern-day cricket was due to excessive bowling, Tyson said, “It’s not that they are bowling more overs. We, in our time, would bowl 25 overs a day in county cricket, when we were not playing Tests. These days, the pacemen hardly bowl 10 to 15 overs a day. If you take the number of overs the present pacemen bowled in all forms of the game and compare it with how much we bowled in a season, we bowled more.”

He attributed the breakdowns to wrong technique. “Mixed actions, when your shoulder gets opened up, make you vulnerable to injuries.”

Tyson was also against back-to-back Tests. “They are ridiculous. You hardly have time to recover.” Tyson felt swing bowling was endangered, not just because of the shorter formats, but also due to the advent of the bigger, heavier bats. “The thick edges are a deterrent to swing really.”

Asked about the some fine movers of the ball, he replied, “Brian Statham could get it to move off the pitch. Trevor Bailey used to swing the ball late. Ian Botham got a lot of his wickets with intelligence and swing.”

Despite the passage of time, Tyson remains a charming man. In his time, he was a gentle but hostile fast bowler.

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