Meet Mr Nice Guy Jane Cable talks to Shane Bond

When Hampshire announced we had signed Shane Bond my first thought was ‘great!’ My second thought was ‘oh no – he’s bound to get injured’. So of course, the first question I had to ask Shane was whether he believes there’s such a thing as being accident-prone.

He looked rather taken aback. “No, not really. It’s the nature of sport; you watch any sport and some players are more injury prone than others. Unfortunately my body doesn’t appreciate what I do. I do a high risk thing, I bowl quick, so all you can do is try and stay fit and train hard – and I’ve always done that, so it’s just down to bad luck.”

I asked him if he found that one injury tended to lead to another, thinking first of his ankle at Headingley and now the more serious two centimetre tear in his calf muscle. “Especially when you have periods out of the game. You come back; it’s always probably the riskiest time. I ran round the field today and it felt fine, but the physio said the most dangerous time is the sprinting, and the doctor said these are the sort of injuries that can easily go ‘boom’. I want to play again – I’m going mad just running and cycling and doing cross training!”

It’s not only injury that has blighted Bond’s career, but more recently unwanted controversy about his involvement with the ICL. The truth of the matter is that the New Zealand board gave him permission to play, but then reversed their decision – after Shane had signed a legally binding contract to play in India. “I suppose the Indian Board swept in behind the scenes and said ‘we’re not going to have that’ and that’s been the end of my international career as such. I’m disappointed. You often hear CEOs talking about honouring contracts, and in my situation they didn’t do that.” He says he’s gone past being angry; he’s fortunate to have had the stint in the ICL and now with Hampshire to take his mind off it – and it least he is still allowed to play domestic cricket in New Zealand. At the end of the day, he believes that the ICL will become officially sanctioned, because one country will lose so many players they will have to break ranks and pick someone who has played for the ICL, which will open the floodgates.

Playing in the UK is very different to playing in New Zealand. The pitches seam around more – particularly early in the season, and Shane believes the English cricketers play so much more cricket they tend to be on top of their game. I wondered what the other differences were coming from ICL to an English county. “The hardest thing I’ve found was going from Twenty20 cricket to the four day game. I haven’t played four day cricket for six months so I was a little nervous about that. I played well in the first game so that eased all those worries. Then it was just the weather. In India it was 35 degrees and the grounds were rock hard and I came into Baltic weather here and the grounds have been really soft – and that’s probably a large part of the reason for my calf injury. You see guys like Morkel who was playing in India come to England and he’s blown his hamstring out. It’s just that little bit of adjustment to the wet grounds. Now the weather’s like this it’s brilliant, so I’m looking forward to getting back playing. The third day of our opening game against Sussex – luckily we were batting – but it must have been the coldest I’ve ever played cricket. It was just ridiculous!

“I think the season should almost be starting now. At home we start cricket in October but the Provincial season doesn’t start until six weeks later so you get some cricket under your belt. But here it’s just bang straight into the First Class stuff. It surprises me they just don’t give it another couple of weeks to play a couple of games for your club, which the clubs would love, then you could come back and play when the edge is off the weather.”

I ask Shane if he thinks we play too much First Class cricket. “Yes, I think so. I think to play a four dayer then a one dayer on the back of it is too much. I think there should always be a day off after a four day game. Even if you dropped the one day competition at this time of year when it can be nipping around a little bit and allow guys to ease into the four dayers and maybe have one one day competition that runs through the year. There is too much cricket. There are good batting line-ups around and for bowlers to run in day in day out – by the middle of the year the guys are just getting tired. The quality of cricket, especially from a bowling point of view, just drops a little bit and you want to keep the intensity up and feel fresh enough to be able to do that.”

Shane is hoping to be able to play a few more games for Hampshire before the end of his contract, probably in the Friends Provident matches around the Bank Holiday weekend. “Playing at Hampshire has been a lot of fun. I had a small stint with The Bears in 2002, so it’s been nice to start the season with these guys. We’re falling like flies at the moment, which hasn’t been great, but hopefully we can get some of our main players back fit and get a couple of wins on the board and get ourselves up the ladder.

“One thing I was looking forward to was playing with Chris Tremlett because I’ve played against Chris so to come here and see how he goes about his work and meet him up close has been good. He’s a terrific bowler. And then there’s guys like Tomlinson and Griffiths who I haven’t seen too much of but they’re steady bowlers. With the injuries it feels as though we’re down to the last couple of guys on the wreck which is always a bit dangerous but I suppose it’s a matter of me, given this time off, getting to help some of them; and I want to do some more of that over the next few days.”

Is coaching something Shane enjoys doing? “Yes, definitely. I’m lucky; when I’m playing I can watch cricket, but I often prefer to not watch! In general I love watching cricket and if you want to have any role after, like a coaching role, then you need to be able to sit there and watch cricket. I’d like to go into fast bowling coaching, or some sort of coaching.”

So did he watch the New Zealand v England Lions at The Rose Bowl? “I saw some of it, but I ended up most of the time just sitting round talking to the guys, finding out what was going on and going out for dinner and stuff. I didn’t get invited to go up and sit in the changing room or anything because that’s always an awkward sort of feeling. The team’s so different now, there’s so many new faces. There’s a few of the guys I know well and miss their company, but they’re the guys I always call anyway. It was weird but I’ve sort of let it go, so it was just good to see those guys. It’ll be a bit different when they start playing Tests though! I asked Shane if he hoped to get up to Lord’s. “No – I’ve got too much on. I’m obviously busy getting fit.”

More than any other player I’ve interviewed, people have asked me “What’s he like?” It doesn’t surprise me that we end the interview talking about his wife and children. In many ways, he’s actually the guy you’d want to live next door to; family oriented, straight forward, laughs a great deal. But I think what impressed me the most is that he has well thought out views on cricket, and isn’t concerned about sharing them. At one point he made a comment about who is actually running the game; in years to come, when Shane Bond finally hangs up his bowling boots, I think he ought to have a crack at it. I think he’d do it very well.

 

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