Hadlee, Ambrose and the need for speed

The players - towering figures, two hugely successful and respected fast bowlers. The setting - Wellington's iconic Basin Reserve. The occasion - a media opportunity where both legends posed with the ICC Cricket World Cup Trophy two days before their nations will contest the fourth and final quarter-final of the tournament, with the winner gaining passage to the final four. When they spoke, you listened.

Sir Richard Hadlee, with 589 international wickets, and Sir Curtly Ambrose, with 630, sat next to each other, kept the reporters entertained with their sharp insights into the game and shared their experiences of playing international cricket.

In a World Cup that has seen a few scores of over 400, and plenty in excess of 300, the amount of pace bowling skills on view left both Hadlee and Ambrose pleased. Hadlee has already spoken of how he feels Tim Southee and Trent Boult are on course to become New Zealand's best new-ball combination, and he reiterated his views.

"I don't think you can go far beyond Dale Steyn. He's starting to hit his straps now, bit of a slow starter. But he's got a presence," said Hadlee. "He's starting to put pressure on batsmen and get his pace up. Southee has been outstanding. He got a big back here in Wellington and has picked up the odd one or two since, but I like the way that he's running in and bowling and swinging the ball," he said. "I think the New Zealand pace attack has swung the ball more than others. I don't know why. Maybe it's a technical thing. Trent Boult has been quite outstanding, running in off a short run-up, sort of reminds me a little of myself. Short run-up, attacking the crease, side-on, swinging the ball both ways. That combination of Boult and Southee is outstanding. Those three really rate for me."

While speaking of the potential he saw in the West Indian duo of Jerome Taylor and Jason Holder, Hadlee was interrupted and brought to notice that he hadn't spoken of the tournament's leading wicket-taker, Mitchell Starc. "I'm coming to the Australians," he said with a smile. "He [Starc] has been very efficient with the ball, the leading wicket-taker, he's the guy to chase. There are so many good ones, you've just got to respect them and batsmen have got to try and get on top of them and score some runs. We've seen batsmen score a lot of runs in the World Cup, but also seen quality bowlers get quality wickets. The contest between bat and ball, on the type of pitches we've seen in New Zealand, they've been outstanding."

Ambrose shared his views with Hadlee, but singled out South Africa's Morne Morkel. "I've always kept my eyes on Morkel. He can be a handful on his day. Tall, hits the pitch hard, extra bounce. We talk about Steyn, who is a fantastic bowler, but so often we overlook Morkel who I think is one of those guys who can pose problems."

Here, Ambrose and Hadlee agreed that the combinations of fast bowlers was also influential in teams dominating. Morkel and Steyn. Southee and Boult. Starc and Johnson. "That's what makes some of the individual bowlers potentially more dangerous than the other," said Hadlee. "If it's not their day, its somebody else's. This is what is exciting in the game at the moment. Going way back in history when you look at the great combinations - Lillee-Thommo, Hall-Griffith, Trueman-Statham - you can't forget them. But today they still hunt in packs."

Hadlee's response to how he would bowl in today's era of big bats, small boundaries and with Powerplay rules was to adhere to the facets of bowling that he learnt and fashioned a superb career out of. "If you look at the last ten overs of teams batting, particularly batting first, 110, 120 or 130 runs being conceded, there just aren't the yorkers being bowled," he said. "There's a tendency to bowl back of a length, the slower bouncer, different change-ups, or full and wide.

"That's the way the modern game is. But if you get the yorker right, it's pretty difficult to hit out of the park. Batsmen move around a lot more, outside the leg stump to get room, or outside off, or at you, back in the crease too. For a bowler to make those sorts of adjustments like that, it's not easy. How would I bowl? Good old line and length is not a bad option for a start, to get that consistency. Changes of pace, wider to the crease, trying to get the yorker right up there. And if the batsman is good enough to hit me out of the park, then you've got to just concede and say well played."

Ambrose, who was a key member of the last truly competitive team from the Caribbean, spoke briefly on what he felt was holding back West Indian cricket. "A lot of things need to be done. I believe, first and foremost, that when we were the best team in the world for so many years, the West Indies Cricket Board did not do enough to nurture talent that they had coming up," he said. "In my opinion, we were the true producers of fast bowlers and the rest of the world has copied us and gone past us.

"A lot of things need to be done. We must change the structure of our cricket, we need to implement cricketing academies. Kids are still playing cricket. The structure needs to be looked at. We are still a talented nation, but things need to be done to improve our cricket."

One suggestion put forward to Ambrose, 51, was that West Indies could learn from the way New Zealand, a country with a small population, have used their resources to produce a steady flow of good international cricketers. "I believe that every nation can learn from each other," he replied. "There must be something that nations are doing that cricket is so successful. Like Sir Richard said, if there are six or seven good Test nations playing equally you get better competition rather than just one or two teams dominating. Once West Indies cricket is strong, it is good for world cricket. We tend to play a different brand of cricket - a lot of flair and excitement."

Ambrose's role as bowling coach cannot be an easy one, for West Indies have struggled to produce quality fast bowlers who have lasted long periods at the top. West Indian attacks in the past few years have often conceded a lot of runs, home and away, which is one of the most worrying aspects of the current setup. Ambrose has plenty of knowledge to pass on to the likes of young skipper Jason Holder, Kemar Roach, Jerome Taylor and Sheldon Cottrell, but knows that is not enough.

"It's going to be difficult to find the same kind of players that we had before," he said. "How can you produce someone like a Sir Viv or Brian Lara? Malcolm Marshall and such greats from the past? I wouldn't want to compare that era with the guys today. Skills are not the problem. These guys have skill. We've seen it from time to time. It's the lack of consistency. We're working on that.

"We must have the self belief that no matter who we play against, we can beat them. Those are things I am working on mostly. We're not going to get success overnight. I'm a realist. We are far behind most other Test teams and it will take a long time. We've got to keep talking to the players, keep educating them, let them know what West Indies cricket means. Given the opportunity, West Indies cricket will come back."

Having faced the great West Indies of the '70s and '80s, Hadlee was wary of another era of domination by one or two teams. Which, against the back drop of calls from Associate-level teams and their backers want with the ICC looking to trim the number of teams at the 2019 World Cup to ten, "They [West Indies] were too strong in the 70s and 80s, too one-sided I think. You want the top ten nations to be competitive. Bangladesh is getting better and better, Zimbabwe are perhaps struggling a little, but you want the top six or seven nations to be thereabouts with each other," he said. "You're going to win some, lose some, but I don't think you want one team totally dominating. I don't know whether that is good for the game. I don't think it's great for the fans. When those dominant teams come to a particular country and keep winning, it can have a negative effect. You want a nice balance."

Ambrose had sterner views on the rules of the game, which he felt were heavily stacked in favour of batsmen. "Presently it is grossly one-sided. It favours the batsmen. A bowler tries hard to do well for his team, but he oversteps and the batsman gets a free hit. Then you have Powerplays. I'm totally not in favour of it. Bringing up fields so teams can score, for me that's a no," he said. "I'm not for it. It's too one-sided. The powers that are in charge may be in a need to look at it seriously and make it a little bit more even. At the moment it is all about batting, and if you kill the bowlers you can't have cricket. Soon we may have to use bowling machines."

Invariably, the talk moved to Hadlee and Ambrose's great careers. Ambrose was reminded of his famous spell against Australia at the SCG in 1993, when Dean Jones got under his skin by asking the umpire to have Ambrose remove the wristband off his right hand. The menacing fast bowler's response was to rip Australia apart with a crippling 5 for 32.

"It's always a dangerous thing to do, to rile up a fast bowler," he said with a grin. "It's never a good thing for a batsman. Suddenly you don't know where the extra pace comes from. Dean Jones tried that and it backfired. He didn't try it again. I was hoping he did. You have those moments. You are bowling well within yourself and then something triggers you. It doesn't have to be something that the batsman says; it could be anything. Suddenly you get that extra bolt of energy, start bowling a lot quicker. My advice to batsmen is - do not rattle fast bowlers."

During the 1992 World Cup, opener Mark Greatbatch's shameless six-hitting was one of the highlights for New Zealand. On March 8 at Eden Park, Greatbach delivered his most sparkling innings against West Indies, hitting Ambrose, Marshall and Anderson Cummins for sixes. In an interview years later, Greatbatch had remarked: "Ambrose bowled quick that day. But he gave me a little bit of width, and I whacked him over point for a six. Then I struck Marshall over extra-cover for another six. That really set the tempo."

Asked for his recollections of Greatbatch's ferocious assault, Ambrose revealed a little nugget. "There are some things a fast bowler never forgets," he said. "I remember that game clearly. He [Greatbatch] came down the track to the late great Malcolm Marshall, and hit him for a six. He did the same against me as well. I remember saying to him politely, 'It's 22 yards, don't try and make it 18'. That's all I said. He got the idea. He stayed with 22."

Immediately after Ambrose finished, Hadlee added weight to the topic. "These contests are very important for the game. When the West Indies came here in 1980, it was the start of helmets. [Gordon] Greenidge and [Desmond] Haynes came out to bat in helmets, but one Vivian Richards, in 1985, didn't wear one. He wore the cap. He didn't like wearing helmets. Naturally, as a fast bowler you think a batsman is not protected and you're going to bounce him, but four fours in a row knocks that out of the picture and you have to get back to the plan of more line and length. These kind of things get you fired up, don't they? But you've still got to have control. If you lose control of your emotions and show frustration, it will effect you as a bowler. It shows signs to the batsman that they can take advantage of that potential weakness."