1 month ago
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When watching sport we rarely know what is going on behind the scenes.
Across formats, seamer Lauren Bell took an impressive 18 wickets in nine internationals during the English summer.
She took nine in eight during a more mediocre season in The Hundred.
Throughout it all, the 23-year-old has been grappling with the very thing a sportsperson tries to protect: Bell has been going through a painstaking remodelling of her action.
"The worst place you can be as a bowler is overthinking your technique in a game," she says in a fascinating chat with the BBC’s Tailenders podcast. "It is not a nice place to be.
"You are going to care how you bowl and how you do but some of those games I was going in thinking my focus is technique.
"Because I was changing my technique I had to think about it so much because it wasn’t natural."
Bell first made her name in the inaugural season of The Hundred in 2021. She was a tall seamer with decent pace, who had an uncanny ability to hoop an inswinger into a right-handed batter.
An international debut came the following summer.
But after two impressive seasons at the top of the women’s game, and after England had drawn but not won the Ashes, Bell decided she wanted more.
"I sat down with Mase [England women's fast-bowling coach Matt Mason] and Lewy [head coach Jon Lewis] and said 'how am I going to push my game forward?'" Bell says.
It was decided the very thing that made Bell good was actually holding her back.
Her action allowed her to bowl that inswinger but the way she fell to the left in her delivery stride made it all-but impossible to swing the ball the other way.
"I had back pain quite a lot," says Bell.
"And secondly bowling inswing was my only option because I fell away so much.
"We said to get better I would like more pace, more bounce and in time it would allow me access to swing the ball both ways."
A decision to change was made but there were doubts at first.
"For a good few months I would do a couple of session and be like 'no I don’t want to change it'," Bell says.
"It took until I got back from New Zealand in March to jump in two feet."
There have been countless hours of drills with Mason away from the cameras. Lewis, himself a former bowling coach, has overseen the changes.
"We did so much technical stuff," Bell says.
"What I have done is tried to get more upright by having two feet on the floor, dragging my back foot so it is not in the air and I fall over."
Bell is not the first bowler to go through a reworking of his action.
James Anderson, England men’s most successful Test bowler, famously did so. Mitchell Johnson did similar too as he went from the butt of Barmy Army jokes to Ashes destroyer.
Bell, though, has had to do so while playing an entire English summer.
There has been success but also occasional difficult moments. In Bell’s four one-day internationals this summer she bowled 17 wides.
"It is not an overnight fix which I have worked out over the last six months," she says.
"Every time I have a good session I hope I have got it and then I play a game or another session and think 'not quite yet'.
"My skillset is now different, where I put my wrist.
"Before I just bowled and it would go [swing] in.
"Now it is like I am like a real fast bowler. I have to choose with my wrist which way I am going to swing it."
Bell is now in the United Arab Emirates, where England begin their T20 World Cup campaign against Bangladesh on Saturday.
After another block of training she believes she is in a good place with her new technique.
"I have got to a place where I am really happy with the technical stuff and I have realised just because I have it [the outswinger] it doesn’t mean it is the best ball I am able to bowl," she says.
"Since I have learned it I have wanted to bowl it over and over again and show everyone I can do it. I forgot the whole point of bowling is to read conditions and players.
"I ended up forgetting all of those things and thinking I am going to bowl my away-swinger today because I have just bowled it really well in training."
Follow ball-by-ball coverage of every game in the Women's T20 World Cup on BBC Sounds, with live text commentaries and in-play clips on the BBC Sport website and app.
