Watching cricket these days one often marvels at the remands of the modern cricketer.
Being away from home for up to around 260 nights a year, bowling 150 kilometres per hour more than 100 times in a day or defending your wicket for two days against a rampant bowling attack are all strenuous tasks, but these only scratch the surface of what is required.
This immense physical toll is now stressing the importance of preparing physically as well as technically for cricket. Physical preparation could even have overtaken technical work in terms of importance.
A study undertaken by Australia’s former head of conditioning Jock Campbell revealed that in the 2013 Boxing Day Test Mitchell Johnson covered 23 kilometres on just the first day. This is more than a half marathon. Cricketers must back up this effort for up to five days straight.
In terms of sprint speeds some of these cricketers’ numbers are truly phenomenal. Johnson was clocked at 33.1 km/h that boxing Test day while Peter Siddle has reportedly chalked up 35.9 km/h and Brett Lee a massive 36 km/h.
To put these numbers in to comparison, NRL speedsters James Roberts and Shaun Johnson came up with times of 36 km/h and 35 km/h respectively and Real Madrid flyer Gareth Bale was recorded being 34.7 km/h.
These numbers mean Brett Lee was at the same speed of Roberts, the man believed to be the fastest in all of the NRL. The fastest ever recorded time was of course Usain Bolt with the Jamaican speeding through to 44.7 km/h.
One change in Darren Lehmann’s reign as coach has been the introduction of Olympic style weightlifting to increase all round strength and power, something that Johnson swears by.
I do not believe it was a coincidence that after Johnson’s injury in 2011, which allowed him to go through a solid and sustained period of strength training, that we then saw him at his aggressive and dangerous best.
Mitchell Starc was told to add some more muscle to his frame also and now he is one of the most dangerous bowlers in the world, regularly swinging the ball back in at 150 km/h or more.
My team of cricket athletes
1. David Warner (Australia)
2. Brendon McCullum (New Zealand) (Captain)
3. Steve Smith (Australia ) (VC)
4. AB de Villiers (South Africa) (Wicketkeeper)
5. Virat Kohli (India)
6. Ross Taylor (New Zealand)
7. Ben Stokes (England)
8. Mitchell Johnson (Australia)
9. Jason Holder (West Indies)
10. Trent Boult (New Zealand)
11. Morne Morkel (South Africa)
12. Marlon Samuels (West Indies)
Of course selecting just 12 top physical contributors from all the sides is a difficult task and plenty of players like David Miller, Starc and James Anderson can feel hard done by in missing out.
My side has five international captains from the last 12 months with the inclusion of McCullum, Smith, Kohli, De Villiers and Holder so choosing a captain was tough. I have gone with McCullum to lead and Smith as vice captain.
These two have showed attacking cricket is successful cricket and I cannot begin to imagine the destruction this side would create. It is a balanced squad with three players each from the World Cup finalists, two from the West Indies and South Africa and one each from England and India.
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