Tudor: Cricket’s missing a trick
IT IS nearly 20 years since Alex Tudor seemed the answer to the very same prayers now being uttered by English cricket. On the same WACA ground where the Ashes were lost this week, he steamed in with genuine pace to take four Australia wickets in the first innings of his international debut in 1998. Tudor knows the toll that fast bowling can take, his career restricted to 10 Tests by four knee operations, a broken rib, broken pelvic bone, torn shoulder and a
‘metatarsal before David Beckham made them famous’. He is also notable as the last English-born quick bowler of Caribbean heritage to play Test cricket, although he feels a failure to attract more black youngsters is only one reason behind England struggling to find threatening fast bowlers. ‘Football
is the obvious counter-attraction but I also notice how many black players there are in rugby union,’ says Tudor, 40, the cricket pro at Kimbolton School in Cambridgeshire. ‘Cricket is missing a trick. Rugby seems to be finding a way of getting into the schools and scouting real talent.’ Tudor also believes injury management, county cricket pitches and the game’s absence from free TV has an effect. ‘Look at the pitches,’ said Tudor. ‘Kent’s