I talked to former England fast-bowler Frank 'Typhoon' Tyson, on his way back to Britain to give a shot in the arm to English cricket.
As he packed his bags for Yorkshire where he will coach at a school and act as consultant to Yorkshire County Cricket Club, the old warhorse had this message for beleagued England: 'Stop thinking negatively; if you think negatively you talk negatively. And if you talk negatively, you perform negatively.'
And he has advice which he says might 'hopefully' find its way into English cricket strategy. It comes from motivational devices used successfully by Melbourne Australian Rules football coaches in Melbourne, adapted by Tyson who went in and got to know the dressing-room gurus. 'They take a video of a good match, eliminating all the bad performances, leaving in it all the brilliant passing, the high marking and long kicking. It is a huge morale booster, and they show it to the team just before they go on the field.
'If I was Mike Atherton, the England captain, I'd do the same. I'd get a video of the match England at The Oval in the last Test. I'd tell the team: "These fellows are virtually the same side that played us then; yet we beat them." I'd tell one: "You got 100." Another: "You got four wickets against the same opposition. You can do this!"
'If you go into a match dwelling on the fact you had one bad stroke, bowled one bad ball, you are dwelling on failure. Learn from it and go on to perform better next time. If you think highly of yourself you will perform well. If you denigrate yourself you'll perform badly.'
Tyson will take another secret in his bags packed with 30 years' cricket coaching experience in Australia, India and Sri Lanka. 'Quite a major part of the last 10 years here in Australia have been directed towards the production of fast bowlers. A lot of pioneering work has been done at the University of Western Australia by Dr. Frank Pyke and his colleagues who were in the forefront of Denis Lillee's rehabilitation after his spinal injury. They evolved a totally new approach towards the fast bowling action, coaching fast bowling along the lines of good bio-mechanical precepts; the sort of thing that should be done in England, but in my estimation, has not been done very well.
'And the mental approach, very much underdone in county cricket: teaching that the greatness of a bowler lies in his head.'
Tanned from the sun where he lives on Australia's Gold Coast, Tyson watched, with me, the dying moments of England's valiant effort to keep the Ashes alive and said: 'The England team obviously feels very much alone. The Australian press is far more loyal to its players than English critics are to theirs. The English press tends to decry its players when they lose. They look on the black side all the time and never the positive side. I find it a little sad. I know steady performances don't make news; but I'd expect a bit more loyalty. You begin to wonder where, in fact, your supporters are.'
In his day? 'When we travelled out to Australia for Tests we had a loyal group of about 30 supporters accompanying us who gave us encouragement; told us when we were down at night: "Keep your chin up! Everything will be alright."
'England is capable of good things once they get their act together; once they regain self-esteem. They need to know someone out there cares.'
Still bull-shouldered and formidable, 'Typhoon' has emerged from operations on his right shoulder and knees, their joints worn and ligaments torn after years of hurling a cricket ball at 89 mph. Dropping cigar ash he stood up to swing the mighty arm that brought apprehension to many a batsman. 'I can get it around all right, but the strength is not there yet.'
He glanced at the television where opposing Australian batsman chatted to English bowler. Was there much banter between batsman and bowler in his day? He chuckled. 'The late Jimmy Burke came down the pitch to me at an Adelaide Test and
said: "If you bowl me another bouncer I'll hit you over the top of the head with this bat!"
'My next ball was a bouncer that went straight past his nose. I went down the wicket to him and said: "Ahhh, I missed you that time. But I'll get you the next."
'You come back at them. Don't fear what they are going to do. Get on with what you are going to do.'
Scientists in New Zealand tested Frank Tyson's speed in 1964. It was bitterly cold, he wore two pullovers and with Brian Statham, hurled cricket balls through a sonic beam at the Royal Aeronautical College. 'They had a metal plate in the ball and measured the length of sound it made as it travelled through the beam. They worked my speed out at 89 mph, but in those days their methods were very inaccurate.' The fastest bowler in recent years: Jeff Thomson of Australia, scientifically proven to bowl at 99.6 mph; under, as Tyson puts it, 'ideal conditions'.
As we watched the final stand Australia that denied England even a slim chance of winning the Ashes, 'Typhoon' said: 'It's really not a question of who was fastest. It's a question of whether you were fast enough to do the job; whether you were effective.'
He had come out to Australia 32 years ago to a teaching post in Melbourne. 'In those days teachers in Australia got twice as much as they did in England and there wasn't very much money in professional cricket; 700 pounds a year or 1,000 pounds if you were away touring for six months. And no great pot of gold at the end of it. Cyril Washbrook's benefit was a record and that was only 14,000 pounds.'
He has been teaching (French), acting as housemaster, and coaching cricket ever since.
His worst moment in cricket? He draws on a panatella. 'I once took 1 for 160 in a Test match in Brisbane; but I didn't count that as any great disaster. I felt I had just begun to fight.
'I can't pin down a particularly wonderful moment, though I took 7 for 27 against Australia once. '
