KERR’S FIGHTBACK

HOW DALE BECAME BPCA’S BEST BOWLER

ANGLESEA coach Dale Kerr has produced one of the Bellarine Peninsula Cricket Association’s greatest-ever seasons with the ball.

The 22-year-old, who will lead Anglesea into today’s door-die semi final against Drysdale, has become the first player in 20 years to take 50 wickets in a season, a feat that sits him in the BPCA’s top three of all time.

Operating at strike rate of 20.26 and a miserly average of seven, the paceman has been a key reason why the Kangaroos dropped only one match this season and enter finals as the likely premiership favourites.

But while Kerr’s performances and statistics have been near record-breaking — including a career-best 8-42 in Round 6 — just getting on to the field has been an achievement for the all-rounder.

After dealing with a troublesome back for some time due to the rigours of pace bowling on top of his football commitments, Kerr returned home one night midway through last season unable to walk.

An apprentice electrician by day, the then Anglesea Agrade captain was taken by ambulance to hospital, with scans showing three bulging discs protruding on the sciatic nerve.

“I got home from work one night and I literally couldn’t walk, I was in that much pain,” Kerr said.

“(I) got scans and they found the bulging discs in my lower back and I think within a week or five days I was in getting surgery.”

Four and a half months off work and sport followed as he went through rehab, during which Kerr was unsure if he would ever even make it back to cricket.

“I didn’t know how I was going to play or even if I was going to be able to play,” he said.

“I was just thinking I didn’t know if I was going to be able to bowl pace again, just putting the sort of pressure on your lower back when you’re landing. But I guess its been a real positive for me.”

Arguably, the injury has been the catalyst for his stellar year.

Required to diligently prepare for, and recover from, matches along with doing regular pilates — all to ensure he doesn’t suffer a recurrence of the injury — it is no coincidence Kerr’s game has gone to another level this season.

Former Anglesea president and premiership player Ian Poulter, who is currently the club’s scorer, has also noticed the development and maturity in Kerr’s bowling compared to previous seasons.

“Last year he was a bit erratic, he found. This year he’s dropped back a little in pace and he’s just a lot more accu- rate and doesn’t use the short ball all that much, but when he does, it’s effective,” Poulter said.

“But he’s getting most of his wickets bowling blokes and lbws, moving the ball in a bit into the right hander, and gets quite a few blokes in front.”

Described by Poulter as being incredibly self-critical but also “very much the team man”, Kerr is quick to acknowledge the role his fellow bowlers have played in his own personal success this year.

“I think that's probably been the biggest thing,” he said.

“I don’t think its just been my bowling, I think it’s been someone like Dylan Taylor who’s bowled really tight at the other end and I’ve just sort of been the lucky successful one getting a couple of wickets.”

After the side’s best season since joining the BPCA a decade ago — seven wins, two draws and just one loss — Kerr believes the club’s A-grade side, albeit young, is certainly capable of going all the way to claim its second premiership in three seasons.

“It is really exciting over the next couple of weeks how far we can go,” he said.

“We are a really tight group and we all get along really well, so it will be exciting.”

As for his own standing in the game, Kerr appears set to leapfrog John McVeigh’s 52wicket 1968-69 tally. But Dean Gray’s record of 63, set 20 years ago, could be a stretch too far.

However, the ’97-98 season in which that record was setfeatured effectively twice as many games played, with teams facing each other twice. It means the argument could be mounted that Kerr is in the midst of the greatest season by a bowler the BPCA has ever seen.

More importantly for Kerr and his teammates, it might just be a premiership season too.