By Cameron Ponsonby, ECB Reporters Network
What did you learn to do in lockdown? Many of us baked, some of us drank, others exercised and Will Jacks bowled.
Jacks’ bowling has been an overnight sensation that has been years in the making. Where he counts hours, weeks and years spent in the nets honing his craft, the rest of us are the grandparents who see him come back each season six inches taller than when he last left us.
And my, hasn’t he grown. Having first bowled with any form of regularity for Surrey in 2020, he took his first red-ball wicket in 2021 and then this year has leapfrogged both Amar Virdi of England Lions fame and Daniel Moriarty, who took three five-wicket hauls last season, to become Surrey’s premier spinner.
Head coach Gareth Batty even alluded to Jacks’ ability to become the next Moeen Ali. Ripping them big and whacking them far.
“I used to bowl seam when I was an early teenager,” Jacks said.
“And when I was about 15 my school coach said, these are pretty average, they’re not really doing anything for you in the long term and it’s just going to hurt your body. Why don’t you give offies a go?
“And then when I turned pro at 18 or 19 I bowled them, but it wasn’t an idea that I could do a job for the Surrey first team. It’s just been years in the process really.”
Jacks pinpoints returning from Covid in 2020 as not so much the turning point for his bowling but the moment the accelerator was hit, as Batty pushed him to realise that he had the raw attributes to be the real deal.
Bowling would make him better for Surrey, and in turn help him stand out from the otherwise ‘Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V’ top order white-ball batters who are also pursuing England honours.
Furthermore, it’s worth noting that professional cricketers often improve through osmosis. Jacks’ bowling wasn’t at a professional level when he first signed, but over time, given the environment he was in, he almost couldn’t help but reach it.
He cites bowling to the likes of Ollie Pope and Hashim Amla every day as a key contributor to his success and growing confidence, not to mention the constant presence of off spin jedi master Batty as his coach and mentor.
“The margin is so small,” Jacks explains of bowling to Amla and Pope on Surrey’s nibbly green training wickets, which are “virtually impossible” to take wickets on.
“So when you do get that right and spin one through the gate, that gives you the confidence when you go out there and there’s a bit of rough on the wicket and you’re not bowling against international legends like Amla.”
Bowling to Darth Vader in the nets whilst the offspin Yoda is watching over your shoulder. Obi Jacks Kenobi.
Jacks is keen to stress that he is an all-rounder whose primary role is still as a batter. But the result of such a rapid improvement to his second string has been that his role across formats has varied sharply.
This season in the LV= Insurance County Championship he has batted as low as nine, whilst in the Vitality Blast, the tournament in which he first earned his stripes as a bowler, he is yet to send down a single over whilst continuing his fine form with the bat at the top of the order
His lack of bowling is in part due to the depth of Surrey and the arrival of Sunil Narine, a bowler Jacks describes as “almost hard to talk to because they are so much better than everyone else”.
But it is also because the Blast takes place earlier in the season, so that on fresher wickets more seam than spin has been bowled.
Spin in the powerplay, Jacks explains, used to be the novelty that was hard to hit. But now “if it's not spinning and you don’t bowl mystery spin you’re in the firing line. It’s going to be harder to hit a bloke bowling 85mph at the top of the stumps, which is just common sense now I think.
“If me and Jason [Roy] are walking out to bat and the off-spinner is bowling the first over we’re licking our lips.”
It’s a thought process that summarises the social status of off spin in the game. The batter who can’t wait to face it, whilst also bowling it themselves.
“The generic thought of batters and everyone who plays is that offies are really easy to bowl and anyone can do it,” Jacks smiles.
“But I think it depends on what you bowl. I think if in T20 cricket you run up and bowl 60mph darts, in my opinion anyone can do that. But the real skill is using pace and guile and changing where you are on the crease and the angles to get someone out when it’s not spinning. That's what I think the skill is in bowling off spin.
“I probably didn’t appreciate it that much but then we were playing at Beckenham on a bit of a spinner a few weeks ago [a game where Jacks himself took a career best four for 65] and Sam Curran bowled two overs of left-arm offies and he was absolutely bad at it. And that made me think, ah, maybe I’m actually all right at this.”
As understatements go, it is what you would expect from a player too modest to recognise his own rate of improvement and achievements. But us proud grandparents would say that wouldn’t we? After all, they grow up so fast.
To book tickets to this summer's Vitality Blast, visit this link.