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Pace Trio Progressing Well Says Chris

6 January 2012

Chris Bodman believes a winter working hard on their fitness will ensure pace bowlers Liam Norwell, James Fuller and David Wade have an opportunity to overcome last summer’s injury problems.

Liam missed much of the season because of a back problem, while James took a long time to overcome the foot injury he had sustained in New Zealand before coming over and David was frustrated by fitness problems as he made the adjustment from Army life to professional county cricketer.

In the third and final part of his exclusive interview for this website, Gloucestershire’s Strength and Conditioning Coach brings us up to date with their progress.

“The news is good in each case,” said Chris. “Liam was exposed to county cricket at an early age and with hindsight he was probably not as physically robust as we thought at the time.

“He is a big strong lad, but there is more to being fit than outward appearance and we recognise now what he needs to do to build himself up for next season. His winter training programme has been set with that in mind.

“Liam was away for most of last winter, but this year he is here with us and he understands the need to get a good phase of conditioning in. I am sure he will be ready to fight for his place in the opening game of next season.

“David Wade came from the Army, which meant he was physically fit, but playing county cricket day-in, day-out placed different stresses on his body and made it a difficult first season with us for him.

“Again we identified the need to do a lot of foundation work with him this winter. Ask him to put a back-pack on and run with full kit and he can do it no problem because that is what he has trained for, but cricket demands something different.

“I’m confident he will also be ready for the start of the season and as a result of his work in the meantime he will be able to deal with the rigours of being a county cricketer.

“James Fuller played towards the end of last season after suffering some discomfort from the foot problem he had before joining us.

“He didn’t arrive at the club until middle to late March and the season started in April so we had little time to assess him in terms of fitness.

“In fact he is a very fit lad and if he conditions himself right this winter he will have a great future with the club.

“If what I believe turns out to be true and Liam, David and James play a big part in next season it will give me huge satisfaction.”

In fact, Chris says seeing a fully fit Gloucestershire squad gives him the biggest buzz his job with the club can provide.

“As the job has developed my emphasis has changed," he revealed. "In the past on the field performance gave me the greatest satisfaction so seeing players run a quick single or show good movement in the field would be very important to me.

“Now we have a relatively limited squad in terms of numbers so my focus is really upon having as many of them as possible available for every game of cricket.

“If two or three key guys are injured at the same time it has a massive impact on the team. What gives me most satisfaction now is to know that the guys can play at the level they are playing at and repeatedly do it throughout a season without missing games unnecessarily.

“Of course, you can’t prevent every injury. But in the past when the players were not in as good condition physically as they might have been there were unnecessary injuries, which caused them to miss matches.

“I am sure physiotherapist Steve Griffen feels the same. As a department, we reckon we are doing our jobs if a full squad of players are fit for selection.

“I worked with Jon Lewis for seven years and the fact that at the age of 35 last season he rarely missed a game is testament to the effect a proper emphasis on strength and conditioning can have.”

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