KHURRAM HABIB

While the entire Caribbean is going gaga over Alzarri Joseph, who appears a rare positive emerging from the region, fellow Antiguan and former West Indies fast bowling great Andy Roberts refuses to even consider him an out and out fast bowler.

“He is not fast. No, he is not fast. He bowls medium pace at 85 and 86 miles. What some of these guys need to do is speak to people, especially those from the past, and learn about their methods of training which made them bowl quick,” says Roberts.

Joseph, 20, was a member of the squad which beat India in the final of the 2016 U-19 World Cup and graduated to the senior side soon after.

Roberts, the Antigua’s leader of the lethal West Indies bowling quartet in the 1970s and 80s, says cricket is becoming a ‘sissy’s game’ as the administrators are doing their best to weed out aggression.

“We don’t have enough pacers in the world. No one’s bowling fast because rules for shortpitched bowling have changed, batsmen are fully protected. The rules of the game are cutting aggression. You cannot even stare hard at the batsmen else they would fine you. They are taking all the aggression out of the game.

“What part of cricket is gentle? Let me ask you, women are playing, is it a female’s game? No. People who make all these rules make them sissy’s game,” he adds.

“As a spectator what do you like to see, aggression between batsman and a fast bowler. Cricket, when I played, wasn’t for the chicken-hearted, it was for people with a lion’s heart. Not anymore.”

But is fast bowling about muscles, or is it about strength? You build strength only through running and about the WI pacers, they are not doing enough running.