Caution comes first in modern era

GONE are the days when fast bowlers pushed themselves through the pain barrier and came out the other side. It’s an approach many from the county circuit of yesteryear will recognise. Niggles would be managed daily until they turned into something more significant or simply went away. Sportsmail’s own David Lloyd tells a story from his umpiring days of ex-West Indies fast bowler Courtney Walsh bowling an extraordinarily long spell for Gloucestershire. Curious, Bumble feigned to give Walsh his sweater and asked what was going on. The answer was simple: ‘My back’s gone and if I stop I will never start again’. In contrast, their modern counterparts are mollycoddled. Reports of the mildest pain are followed by scans, and the advances of medical science mean these scans routinely show up some hot spot or other. Wary of incurring further damage, the result is that medical staff take a cautious approach. Rest periods follow as a matter of course. Acknowledging that their promising pacemen need to be more robust physically, the ECB and d first-class counties have made strength and conditioning the primary focus of their fast-bowling programmes. We reveal our fantastic five last year When it comes to stress fractures of the back few are of what his body can produce immune. Indeed England’s at 36, spent most of the greatest, Jimmy Anderson, a summer of 2006 laid up in bed cricketer who knows the limits watching World Cup football.