Varun Aaron and Ian Bishop had promising starts as fast bowlers before injuries scuppered their careers - though not their love for the art. Now as commentators and broadcasters they've had the opportunity to study fast bowlers, dissect their methods and draw on their own experiences to offer a unique perspective. In a chat during the 2025 IPL, Bishop and Aaron spoke at length about their careers, managing injuries, and young fast bowlers to watch.

Varun Aaron: I'm just going to start by asking you, what does fast bowling mean to you, in its purest form?

Ian Bishop: Well, I think for me - obviously very biased - it's perhaps the most exciting facet of the game. Anyone that can get the ball down to the other end, at often over 145kph, over 90mph, I think is classified… There's a distinction between a good seam bowler and a fast bowler. [As a fast bowler] you're in that upper echelon where you're testing a batter's technique, as well as his temperament and his character. I don't want to sound too harsh, but it's something that sort of makes batters think, "I could be harmed here or I could be dismissed."

Aaron: When you were bowling fast, and you were immersing yourself into the art, how did you feel when you bowled a ball, and bowled a length ball, and the keeper was standing at the 30-yard circle, and he gathered it, what did that make you feel?

Bishop: Well it made me feel alive. I suppose you'd say the same thing, wouldn't you? And when you're young and in the prime of your career - certainly for me, it very much at that time was an ego thing. Especially when you're in your early 20s, mid 20s, you want to see the keeper catching the ball above his head, and then as you get slightly older, you recognise the value of not only pace but control and variety that goes along with it. When I got into that second phase of my career, it was [wanting to see the ball pitched to hit] top of off, test his technique, as well as using the short ball and scaring him - or her, in the case of women fast bowlers, like Shabnam Ismail [would].

"Fast bowling is the most physically demanding thing in cricket, so you've got to have a mindset that I am going to be dead tired at the end of the day. And my career will probably be riddled with a few injuries" Ian Bishop

Aaron: The other thing is, a lot of people say that you can train to be a fast bowler, but I believe a fast bowler is born. Where do you stand in that conversation?

Bishop: Why do you say born?

Aaron: Because I feel that you have to have the prerequisite of fast-twitch fibres and also a mentality that I don't think anybody can teach you. You've got to be like a borderline adrenaline junkie. You should be able to take certain risks, because every time you're stepping out onto the field as an out-and-out fast bowler, you're maxing out. You're putting your leg on that pedal really hard every time you're bowling, right? So there is an amount of risk you should be ready to take, especially if you've had injuries.

We've both had a lot of injuries. You always have that at the back of your head that I've been injured before, but you've just got to block it out and be like, you know what, whatever's happened has happened, I'm just going to go out and let it rip. So you have to have that mentality and also the muscle fibres to do that. And you're obviously coming from the greatest generation of fast bowling, I would say. What did you guys think about this back then?

Bishop: We didn't know as much back then, unfortunately. What you and your generation came to know, and what is known now about the science of fast bowling, is an advancement on what we knew back then. Fast-twitch fibres, definitely. You think of sprinters like Usain Bolt, for example. You can take a guy off the street and teach him to run as fast as he possibly can, technically, but there's no way you can take him off the street and teach him to run as fast as Usain Bolt. Fast-twitch fibre is something unique. So I agree with you in that sense.

Fast bowling is the most physically demanding thing in cricket, so you've got to have a mindset that when I go out to work, I am going to be dead tired at the end of the day. And my career will probably be riddled with muscle strains and a few injuries. So it's a different mindset, I think, compared to spin bowling or batting.

Aaron: True. And with that, what would you say are maybe one or two or three very important tenets of fast bowling? How do you build the ideal fast bowler? Could you break that down?

Play 02:22

Role models? Michael Holding is top of the tree for Bishop

Bishop: I would say from what I, when I reflect on my career, because I don't know who your mentors or your heroes were growing up. My first time going to watch a game of cricket, an organised game of cricket, was a Test match at the Queen's Park Oval in 1977. Colin Croft got 8 for 29, and he had one of those weird actions. And that had me hooked. That's the first organised game of cricket I ever saw in international cricket.

The guys that I sort of pictured myself [as] and tried to emulate - the great Michael Holding, number one. I would try to run in like him, then I'd try to jump like Joel Garner and follow-through like Malcolm Marshall. So it was an eclectic mix of all of those [from that] great generation, those great bowlers between 1977 and 1984-85. So Mikey stands top of the list for me for these reasons.

I think ball speed has a great correlation with run-up speed for most fast bowlers. Not all - you have exceptions. And the guys who sprint in, the Malcolm Marshalls, Mikey, were just fluid. You can think of Mark Woods racing... Jofra Archer, for me is my modern-day Michael Holding in terms of technique. You've got to have that run-up speed. Then you've got to have that athleticism and power in the shoulders. Not necessarily size, but power and the ability to get through with that fast-twitch fibre through your delivery stride.

So we had guys like Patrick Patterson, who I played with, who were very strong and bulky. Shaun Tait, another one from Australia who was strong. But I like the Holdings and the Marshalls, the small, lithe guys. Those were great impacts. So run-up speed, athleticism, married with a little bit of power. And the key thing I wish I knew when I was playing: everything [moving] towards the target.

Aaron: So for me, growing up, my heroes were you guys. My dad would watch Calypso Classics - this used to be like a programme that used to come on Star Sports back in the day. They used to just show all of the West Indies games versus India, versus England. And I would just watch you, Joel Garner, Malcolm Marshall, Andy Roberts. And I loved Andy Roberts' bouncer. His bouncer was my favourite delivery. And then obviously Malcolm Marshall with the kind of speed [he had], married with a lot of skill, which was brilliant.

But coming back to the conversation we're having about run-ups for different bowlers, I feel every kind of style has a different run-up speed. For example, Malcolm Marshall - a very front-on bowler, back foot towards the target, shoulders opened, going through the crease really well - for that kind of a style, you need momentum in your run-up.

"It was getting really tough for me at a point to [even] think about bowling. The only thing on my [mind] was my body because I just wasn't able to get on the field for more than six or eight months" Varun Aaron

Somebody like, say, Shaun Tait, you know, side-on, sometimes past side-on, you need to spend an extra second on the crease, in relative terms, to actually gather that momentum and then launch the ball.

So just for the average viewer, it's important to understand that every style of fast bowling has a different run-up speed, different effort. When it comes to Jofra Archer, I think he's somebody who really uses his levers well. We all know that longer levers make more power. And if you see Archer and [Jasprit] Bumrah, the way they generate speed, it looks really effortless to the average viewer, but it's actually science in play.

If you see Archer, his load starts from somewhere here [head height], and it goes down. So he's making an arc from here to here, which is a very long lever, compared to if you see a Brett Lee, his load is somewhere here [chest height]. And then he uses a lot of strength and power through the crease to gather that momentum into his ball.

For the average viewer, to make them understand what a fast-twitch fibre is, the best example is that when you're in school, when you're in grade two or three, when nobody has done any training, when everybody's just fresh, there are some kids, boys and girls, who are just fast from the start, naturally fast, and they're blessed with those fibres which can produce effort effortlessly - to put it that way.

Bishop: I'd describe that in this way, two things. The one thing I'd say about Jofra, at his best - and we're using the most modern entity - when he started in the Ashes, now that he's fit again, [or] a spell he bowled [in the IPL] at your hometown, at the Chinnaswami, a couple of nights ago. When he's bowling at his best, Jofra runs in like a train, but because he is so athletic, people say it looks as though he's not putting out any effort, but he's rapid.

Even the guys who - let's say a Michael Holding who's very classical, he makes running look easy. So I think there's a run-up speed that happens in there. The West Indies bowlers that I played with - for example, Winston Benjamin, lesser known compared to Curtly Ambrose and Courtney Walsh. Myself and Winston would run off four steps in the nets, but because, like Malcolm Marshall, we had quick arms, we could surprise a lot of our colleagues off three or four or five steps, as opposed to over 20 steps, because there was fast-twitch fibre, but the arms would come over quicker. Curtly Ambrose couldn't do it, he had to have his full run, Courtney Walsh had to have his full run. So there are guys who just have that real snap and fast-twitch fibre, similar to sprinting.

Aaron: "Maybe if I had just stuck to whatever action I had as a kid, I would have been injured less" © Getty Images

Aaron: Yeah, 100%. But to me the most important part of your run-up is actually your last three steps, because you could be the greatest runner on Planet Earth, but if you muck up those last three steps, you actually lose momentum and you get injured a lot. If you see the best bowlers, they've been great through the last three steps.

That's why Bumrah, he seems like an anomaly for everybody. But just with the way his knee-drive is through the last three steps, he actually gathers a lot of momentum. So you can run really fast, but if you don't take that momentum into the crease, then there's no point of that run-up, would you say?

Bishop: I think, yeah, I'd agree with that. And Bumrah is unique.

Aaron: Yeah, there's also a lot of hyperextension involved.

Bishop: Wrist.

Aaron: Yeah, there's wrist, his forearm, everything. I think he's like a mutant fast bowler.

Bishop: Like my 15-year-old girl now is a budding seam-bowling allrounder. So she wants to look at us talking about fast bowling and listen, and I couldn't teach her to be like Bumrah. What I would say with the run-up is that you're starting off, you're building momentum. By the time you get into two-thirds of your run, I think you should be at what is optimum run-up speed. Maintain that through the last two. Don't slow down. Maintain that optimum speed - whatever that is for Varun Aaron, Ian Bishop, Jofra Archer - maintain it through a balanced gather at the crease. It can't be too fast where you can't gather yourself, but it can't be too slow where there's no momentum into your delivery. So I agree with you, that last phase must be a continuation of what you built up halfway or two-thirds through.

Aaron: The other thing which comes to mind - and this has been in my head for the longest time - training methods, techniques, the facilities we have now have been radically upgraded from when you were playing, for example.

Bishop: A hundred per cent.

"When he's bowling at his best, Jofra runs in like a train, but because he is so athletic, people say it looks as though he's not putting out any effort, but he's rapid" Bishop

Aaron: The number of fast bowlers, in fact has - and [when] I say fast, I mean 145-plus - maybe declined. In various parts of the decade, when everybody's fit there are maybe four or five bowlers who are really bowling rapidly. What do you think is that one factor that has made this happen? Even though everything is way more upgraded now, you guys still had more fast bowlers than the current times.

Bishop: It is tough because there's a lot of debate. Because when we started playing… you were fortunate you came around in an era where the speed gun was at its height and that has just continued. The guys that played before me didn't have that sort of technology to track them through their careers. It sort of started through the last third of my career. So I believe that what we've learned is, there are more guys bowling fast now, not as many guys at that rapid pace, but there's a greater group of guys who are bowling 140 and above. Not as many who are bowling 150.

I do believe science has aided to widen the scope and the group of guys who are bowling above 140. What they have the advantage of, too, is [having the knowhow about the need to orient] everything at the target - if you're a side-on bowler, you get your back foot parallel to the crease, align your front leg towards the batter and get around yourself, as you said, using that rotation. The guys who are chest-on, back foot probably towards fine leg, so everything towards the target with the hand and the head going through.

In terms of injury prevention, I think that's going to be the big thing. Can our bodies mature, perhaps after the age of 23, 24, when you reach your full prime and use those biomechanics of alignment to keep guys fit? Because you had your injuries as well. As you reflect, what have you learned from it?

Aaron: Yeah, that's a really interesting topic. I could write a book on it.

Bishop: I'd love to know.

Aaron: Because I've had so many injuries. How many stress fractures did you have?

Bishop: Two.

Aaron: Two? Wow.

Play 02:26

Are fast bowlers born or can they be built?

Bishop: How many did you have?

Aaron: I had eight on my back and three on my foot. So I had a lot of stress fractures. and I've had to really do a lot of internalisation, a lot of research on myself to even play the game, because it was getting really tough for me at a point to [even] just to think about bowling. Like the only thing on my [mind] was my body because I just wasn't able to get on the field for more than six or eight months and enjoy a long period of cricket. So this is what I feel in general - and I would love youngsters to maybe think about it and buy into it - that most of the greatest fast bowlers, [one of the reasons] why they're great is because they've had a long, undisturbed career, and they've had long periods of being fit.

I think if you start your career in one action and end your career in almost the same action, there's a high likelihood you don't get injured. Because your body adapts beyond a point. But see, like in your case, you had a mixed action, right? Your back foot was side-on, your front off was really open. So there has to be a little fine-tuning when it comes to somebody who's mixed. That's where actions really can break somebody. But if you aren't mixed, I don't think you should change too much.

When I look back, [when] I started off, I was really semi-open. And my front half was more or less side-on, semi-open. But just as a kid, you're vulnerable to coaching and you listen to mostly what people tell you. I bought into a slightly modified action which made me really front-on. Like at one point, I think throughout my 20s and my 30s, I was bowling with my back foot almost past front-on. We talk about past side-on, mine was past front-on - my back foot was pointing towards first slip. So that kind of instability at the crease really made me fall away. I had to somehow hold my body together to bowl straight at the target and get shape in. I was always fighting my body.

So in 2013, after my stress fractures and back operation, I finally just took a friend down to the NCA [National Cricket Academy] one day. I was really frustrated and I was like, can you just [look at] what I'm doing? Because I told myself, let me go back to what I was doing as a kid.

I was just working out indoors, and I was like, just keep filming me, okay? After half an hour, I somehow felt that something feels really, really natural. And something's clicking. And then [when] I saw the video, my back foot was actually pointing towards fine leg. But what I had done to make that happen was, I started to take my load a little longer. So it gave me that time to open it up.

"I feel that most of the greatest fast bowlers, one of the reasons why they're great is because they've had a long undisturbed career, and they've had long periods of being fit" Aaron

Then I had the only year that was uninterrupted by injuries, the 2013-14 season, when I made a comeback to the Indian team. I feel that if I had just stuck to whatever action I had as a kid, I would have been injured less. But then again, I had a lot of… physiological, I would say, defects. My right shoulder bone is two centimetres shorter to my left, so my right shoulder always has a little indifference of range to my left. I have a very low-loaded back. So there are so many things which contribute to injuries. But at the end of the day, I enjoyed what I did, because I really worked hard on my fitness, which kept me going.

When we come to fitness, what did you guys do in your era? Because obviously, we have so much knowledge [now] as to workloads and what we should do and not do, what we should eat and not eat. What made you guys tick?

Bishop: Those things are still an ongoing discussion. I understand people will be watching this, and there are various schools of thought, so what I'm sharing, I'm not saying it is the gold standard, but it's what we did.

I remember when I was very early into, or approaching, my mid-teenage years, Andy Roberts came to Trinidad and Tobago. He's Antiguan, and his career had just finished at international level. And he would take a group of us, including myself, through training regimes for about a week.

And the one thing that he did was take us to the beach and had us running, for example, on the sand. This is old-school. So we'd start off jogging on the sand. Then he would take us into the edge of the water, ankle height. We'd jog from one end to the next. Then we'd go in knee-deep and jog, knees up, get it out the water to get down. Then we'd go further in, waist-deep, and go up and down.

And this is what he did, why he was so strong and so full of deception. You know those old stories about how he'd bowl you a slow bouncer, and then a quick one, and no one would be able to discern [the difference from his action]? It's because he had so much power in his upper body and his core and his legs.

I loved running. I would go for runs - a couple of miles, two, three miles - as often as I could, because I just enjoyed that. And looking back, I didn't realise that sort of built my foundation in terms of [fitness]. Now fitness is different. It's a lot of gym work, a lot of technology that's involved. So I understand times have moved on. I'm waiting for the day when I can see strength and conditioning bulletproof a young fast bowler, say, Mayank Yadav, to ensure, to see as a test case whether they can stop him from having any more injuries.

Bishop in his pomp: "It's a part of the game of fast bowling - frighten the batters into retirement" © Getty Images

Aaron: That's the other thing. I feel there's no S&C or physio in the world who can bulletproof a fast bowler. Because first of all, fast bowling is a very unnatural movement. It is the most unnatural movement in sport, because there's no other movement in sport where you have to run in, perform a straight-arm overhead movement, and have your back flex, extend, counter-rotate, and laterally flex.

Bishop: Are you going to discourage every fast bowler now? (laughs)

Aaron: No, no, no, I'm not discouraging anybody. I would love everybody to bowl fast, because it's one of the greatest pleasures to see fear in a batsman's eyes, to see a ball shoot down 30 yards and thud into the keeper's gloves.

But the fitness regime we follow nowadays is a lot more structured. It lacks the creativity of what you guys did. The best trainers at this time, the guys who actually somehow [not] make guys bulletproof [exactly] but get them somewhere close, are the guys who can marry the old school and the new school. For example, just like what you're saying, if you're running in knee-deep or waist-deep water, you have to naturally drive your hips higher up. Now what we do is we have hurdles for that. It's the same thing. But then you guys were doing it with water. So you're basically defying a certain level of resistance to do that. And people could take this and do this, that's why there are so many great West Indian sprinters as well. Like, if you see Usain Bolt's hip-drive, knee-drive, it's just brilliant. I would have loved to have something like that.

But it's very structured now. It's great to be structured, but it's also important to have a good running base because that is your engine, at the end of the day.

Bishop: Athleticism.

Aaron: 100%. And if you can't run a 5K under 20 minutes - Dennis Lillee used to say this when he used to coach me - you shouldn't be a fast bowler. He was a hard taskmaster, which was really good because in your younger days if you have a coach who's very matter=of-fact and who's a hard taskmaster, you eventually buy into the most important principle of fast bowling, which is hard work. You can't survive [without it]. Do you think you would have survived without working hard [or that] you would have come back so many times without working hard?

"I'd tell young fast bowlers: bowl fast, bowl as fast as you can. Grooving your action will take place later. You can't go down to the supermarket and buy pace" Bishop

Bishop: There's no fast bowler who will have an easy life. Fast bowling, as I said, is the most physically demanding part of the game, right? So for young males and females watching on, I would identify the guys who played just before me. Michael Holding, to me, was perfect. He looked like a 400-metre runner. Very athletic, well-balanced, lovely bound and gather towards the target. And then you had someone like Patrick Patterson at his peak in 1986, just before I started playing first-class cricket. The fastest that I ever saw was him - he was a lot more muscle, a lot more power, but he would race in, that year of 1986, when he scared the entire English team.

So he was different from Mikey. And Malcolm sort of combined a little bit of speed and athleticism, chest-on, through the crease, lovely wrist action towards the target, head bolt upright.

And that's my key to anyone now. This [your eyes] is your camera. If you can get this going towards the target, wrist, palm of the hand towards the target was on my checklist as well, driving the knee through. I think those are fundamentals that I see in Jofra Archer at his best, even though it's a little laid off. Mark Wood is the fastest of this modern era, even at age 34. Braced front leg, to try to get over that braced front leg rather than collapsing it into the ground and letting the energy going into the ground. And Anrich Nortje, when he was fully fit - he's suffering a lot of injuries now - is another one of those modern bowlers who I think at his peak was rapid. [Kagiso] Rabada is a little different. He collapses a little bit and he's perhaps now not that 140….

Aaron: Not 145-plus.

Bishop: Yeah. Not regularly anymore, right? So those guys, and if I go back a little bit further, Brett Lee and Allan Donald. Brett Lee in particular - perfection. Absolute energy towards the target. Lovely run-up, not too fast, but brisk enough. Shoaib Akhtar, Wasim Akram, Waqar Younis - great fast bowlers, different methods.

Aaron: There's one bit that I really want to talk about, which not too many people talk about in fast bowling. Like in batting, people say, keep your head still, your head shouldn't fall. But I've rarely heard anybody say keep your head still in fast bowling. I feel that's the most important thing. But how you do it is the most important thing. That's where a coach comes in.

Play 04:36

How fitness regimens and training methods for fast bowlers have changed

What was the coaching set-up when you were growing up? And how did coaches approach fast bowling? Were they more like, "Bish, just bowl to the top of off"? Or on the days you couldn't bowl to the top of off, was there somebody to tell you, "You know what, Bish, you can maybe try this"? Because [along] with the art of fast bowling, the art of coaching fast bowling is one of the toughest arts. Because there's momentum involved, there's speed involved, there's power involved, there's balance involved, and you have to do all of that. And then pitch it at the right area, at speed.

Bishop: Yeah, I think you have to know, as a fast-bowling coach now. Back then we were self-taught. There was a group that I was in from school, about three or four of us, in my last couple of years of secondary school. We just loved cricket. So every Saturday, Sunday, if we had the time after school every day, we'd be in the nets in the Queen's Park Savannah, in Port of Spain, in Trinidad. People see me now, older folks, and they say, I remember when you guys used to be walking down there with your cricket bag, and [when] everybody was playing football, we were playing cricket. And we would sit and watch videos of World Series Cricket until two in the morning, just picking little bits out of everyone.

So we were very much self-taught. We didn't have fast-bowling coaches there. I did get one or two tips from other guys as we went along, but the real formal years were when I went to Alf Gover's cricket school, which is now defunct. They taught me a little bit about getting side-on, or trying to get side-on, where my hand [should be], which Andy Roberts, a few months later would say, to bowl that outswinger, you've got to lock your wrist here, and get your hand 11 o'clock, drive it past your left hip. So those fundamentals. Andy Roberts was the greatest contributor to that in my career, following on from a month at the Alf Gover Cricket School where we learned basics.

But now, with technology, with video, you have a chance to record Varun Aaron, slow it down, break it down, see where his back foot is, where his front foot is, where his head position is, and sort of build a foundation from the ground up. And that's where I think someone like Ottis Gibson, the former West Indian fast bowler, who was my room-mate at one point, and went on to coach England, in my view, is the best fast-bowling coach that I know, because he understands those concepts.

Aaron: That's really interesting, because if you look back, what would be that one thing that built you as a fast bowler, and the one thing that broke you as a fast bowler? What would be a regret, like, "I wish I knew this. I wouldn't have had so many injuries, and I would have had a longer West Indies career"?

"Along with the art of fast bowling, the art of coaching fast bowling is one of the toughest arts, because there's momentum involved, there's speed, there's power, there's balance - you have to do all of that, and then pitch it at the right area, at speed" Aaron

Bishop: One of the things that built me, obviously, if I go to just being enamoured by watching Michael Holding and Malcolm Marshall on tape - we didn't have internet back then, remember? So young people watching this might say, "Oh, didn't have internet?" We didn't have internet, we didn't have satellite TV, we're depending on little tapes and little clips.

So I liked running in the first place. Where I lived, it was up a hill, and I had to walk, let's say, half a mile to come down the hill to go to school, and [I had to] walk back up that hill wherever I wanted to go. On reflection, that made me strong. So I liked running. Encouraged by those videos that I saw, I'm marrying and blending [those bowlers'] actions. I loved scaring, trying to scare batsmen and getting them out eventually.

Aaron: Which is not wrong. (laughs)

Bishop: It's a part of the game [of] fast bowling - frighten the batters into retirement. (laughs)

So I think those were the important things, basically the running, the power that I gained as a youth from a very physical lifestyle. And then grooving my action. The thing that I wish I knew then that I know now would be alignment of my feet and shoulders.

I was afraid to go to the gym when I was playing. Because I thought if I do the wrong exercises, I'd become a bodybuilder. And I wouldn't be able to go fast anymore. So I wish I knew [about] strength work back then, how to get my core stronger. How to get my back stronger and my shoulders. If I knew then what I know now, I think I would have avoided injuries.

Aaron: And overwork.

Bishop: Yeah, don't overwork yourself.

Bishop: "I want to see someone work with Mayank Yadav, strengthen him in every part of his body, watch his diet for the next two or three years - and find out if it can have him bowling at sustained pace for a long time" © BCCI

Aaron: If you go back to our formative years, that's exactly what built us to be fast bowlers. For example, my parents would never drop me anywhere in town to school, or for my tuition, or for cricket practice. I had to cycle everywhere. So I would end up cycling maybe 15 kilometres every day. Go to school, then go for cricket practice, then go for tuition, then leg it back home. So automatically that built up my legs.

And my school had something called American handball. Basically, American handball is like squash. But you play it with, like, a beginner squash ball that bounces a lot. And you play squash with your arms. So for you to hit it powerfully on the wall - and it's quite a big court - you would have to really swing your arm fast to get it to where you want it at speed. So I think as a kid, that built up my arm speed. So everybody has a really unique story of how they became...

Bishop: Let me tell you this one. Because we didn't know what to do in the gym, right? So there was a time, must have been late teens, as I started bowling faster and loving fast bowling and into my early 20s. I certainly avoided the gym for those reasons that I mentioned [but] I would try to do as many pull-ups - pull-ups was my thing. So I'd go into my backyard, into the pillars, the roof, those little strips of wood. I tried to do 50 pull-ups a day.

Aaron: That is the best upper-body exercise.

Bishop: And then push-ups. I tried to do at least 100 push-ups a day at that phase of my life. And my shoulders, even when we were playing, I'd be on the field and go down and do a quick ten push-ups because I felt that it really made my shoulders feel powerful. So that worked for me. Then you have technology now. You can bench-press and stuff now, but those pull-ups and press-ups worked for me a treat.

Aaron: So you basically were doing strength training but in a different way. And for your lower body, you were obviously running on the beach against water. So it was like strength training but in a more natural form.

Bishop: The principle then, it's the same principle now. The technology is just different.

"It's one of the greatest pleasures to see fear in a batsman's eyes, to see a ball shoot down to 30 yards and thud into the keeper's gloves" Bishop

Aaron: The other thing - you see a lot of young fast bowlers come in red hot, lighting up tournaments, lighting up the world with their pace. But they drift off over a period of time. What do you think fast bowlers can do to maintain their pace? Obviously them having that frame of mind that I want to bowl fast is primary, because if you don't have that, you're obviously not going to bowl fast.

Bishop: If my daughter comes up now, if I had a son playing, I'd tell young fast bowlers: bowl fast, bowl as fast as you can. Grooving your action will take place later. You can't go down to the supermarket and buy pace.

Aaron: 100%, that's what we started off with, that you're born a fast bowler.

Bishop: So bowl as fast as you can with repetition, [and] you'll groove your action. I would say in the modern game, for example, I love how Australia have managed Mitchell Starc. I talk about Jofra Archer, but Mitch Starc at his pomp, late 20s, early 30s, is someone who was phenomenal.

Aaron: He's mid-30s, he's still bowling 140, 145-plus.

Bishop: Because they've managed, I wouldn't say workload management, but he stayed away from quite a bit of T20 cricket to prolong his red-ball career. He selectively played his ODI cricket. Pat Cummins, the same.

In the West Indies right now, we have two or three guys - I'm gonna throw this out at you - [though] one of them certainly isn't 145. Jayden Seales, young kid, swings the ball. Outstanding young bowler at age 21, 22. Alzarri Joseph is another one who will get above 145, sometimes close to 150. Springy action, wiry, whippy, great wrists. I love watching those guys bowl because of their mechanics. You talk about guys like Jasprit Bumrah, Prasidh Krishna, [who] unfortunately has had his injuries, but he's had so much to offer. So I think there are some really good fast bowlers. Gerald Coetzee from South Africa is another one. If he can stay fit, I think he offers quite a lot to the world. Very exciting.

Aaron: And for example, a Mayank [Yadav], he was bowling early 150s, mid-150s last year. Just looking at him, what do you feel he could do? I have a couple of theories.

Bishop believes Jayden Seales is a young West Indies fast bowler to watch Randy Brooks / © Associated Press

Bishop: I was saying about the Australian fast bowlers as an example. There's three formats of the game today. I firmly believe there is no fast bowler, guys who are bowling rapid, that can play all three formats over a long period of time and continue being rapid. You cannot do it. Your body will not allow you to do it or your pace will not be sustained. So you have to be selective of when you play your out-and-out quick bowlers. Because I think there are a few guys around who've dropped their pace because of [being overplayed], right?

Some guys are predisposed to injuries. You look at Pat Cummins until he sorted himself out. He started as a teenager - 17, 18, one Test match, didn't play another Test match for about six or seven years. His body had to get stronger and his action had to be fine-tuned. Whereas someone like a Courtney Walsh, just open-chested, gangly, very rarely seen to be injured. So I would say that's why I want to see an experiment - which is the wrong word - where some S&C or someone can contract Mayank Yadav and just work with him, strengthen him in every part of his body, [watch his] diet for the next two or three years. And let us find out what that can do for this little kid, if it can have him bowling at sustained pace for a long time. He's going to have to play only certain formats of the game, though.

Aaron: Yeah, but with Mayank, I know at the NCA, they've put in a lot of work with him, strengthening him over a period of time. They've looked after his diet, looked after his workloads, and that's why he's back now. But with him, I feel the most important part of your bowling action is how you dissipate your force at the crease. If you can generate force - and generally when you generate force you don't have many problems, but it's when your force is getting stuck at the crease, that's when a lot of muscles get overloaded.

Bishop: Give me an example of that, because that's very technical.

Aaron: Mayank Yadav, when I had a look at his action last year, he would get completely blocked off at the crease. His left arm would get stuck into his ribcage and not be able to free itself until his right arm released the ball. But if you see the most efficient fast bowlers, they don't get blocked at the crease. The moment that happens, your forces are going not just forward but also into the crease. And eventually, the part that gets loaded the most are your hips and your back. And that's where you suffer. For example, when you had a mixed action, if you were going towards the target and your left leg wasn't going outside instead of going straight, you would have had less injuries because...

Bishop: I hope.

Aaron: And 100%. I've seen your action and I remember it so well.

"My parents would never drop me anywhere - to school, or for my tuition, or for cricket practice. I had to cycle everywhere. So I would end up cycling maybe 15 kilometres every day. That built up my legs" Aaron

Bishop: Yeah, it was a good study for most people coming after me. Of what not to do. (laughs)

Aaron: I feel for coaches, because you have so much technology now, it should be really easy for you to pick up these things. And it always lies one step back. Because [when] you address the problem, it's never the problem, it's always what you've done one step before the problem that leads to the problem.

But I'll just close this off by asking you one last question: what do you think West Indies cricket can do now? What West Indies fast bowling can do now compared to what guys were doing before. Why do you think West Indies cricket has gone from being this fast-bowling powerhouse to not having that many fast bowlers at the moment? If you can just sum it up for us.

Bishop: We were fortunate to have a generation that was a physical generation and guys [who] loved the art of fast bowling. And that's been encouraging from the early '70s, right? So Curtly Ambrose, Courtney Walsh, myself followed Joel Garner, Michael Holding, who followed Andy Roberts, Colin Croft, blah, blah, blah. I think pitches help to encourage that. So in West Indies cricket, I would say we have to be more deliberate in finding those fast bowlers. And we have a good few kids coming through now, a guy called Johann Layne, etc. [It's] how we take them from age 18-19, deliberately strengthen them, teach them the fundamentals [of going] towards the target, the basics of fast bowling. You mentioned force and loads and that sort of thing. We are not deliberate enough, I think. If we are more deliberate in discovering and procuring, the Jayden Seales will reach their full potential. Alzarri Joseph is starting to find himself. Johann Layne, those guys coming through, will develop and fulfill their potential, but we must have the technology, access to it, the discovery process and the procuring. There's potential. There are green shoots in the Caribbean.

Aaron: Or maybe Ian Bishop as a fast-bowling coach.

Bishop: Coaching, Varun, you know this. Coaching and communication are different from commentating on it.

Aaron: Commentating is all about communication.

Bishop: Well, in a different way. I don't have the patience for coaching. I love fast bowling. I love it. You love it.

Aaron: I love it!

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

 

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