The Cricketer vs the BOLA Professional

The Cricketer team headed down to the MCC Cricket Academy at Lord’s to try out the four bowling machines on offer from BOLA

The old favourite. The Lord’s media centre (from the back, anyhow) on three legs. When they first appeared 32 years ago (I used one at school), BBC1 was showing a sci-fi show called The Tripods, alien machines which looked a lot like them. That programme was short-lived, but the bowling machines have endured – the 10,000th model has just been sold.

While they look similar, especially the moulded fibreglass exterior, the internal technology has improved.

You still drop the ball down into a hole on the top, and it still shoots out of the slot at the front. The latest models use brush motors rather than just two rubber wheels counter rotating, however, so the deliveries are more accurate – so no more beamers when the ball is dropped down into the wrong place. This gives the batsmen greater confidence.

BOLA machines have always been incredibly useful for practising a particular shot – 30 balls in the same area to punch through the covers, or clip off your legs, for instance. The swing is authentic, and the pace is an impressive facility and easily controlled. What you do not get is seam movement, for the rubber balls do not have any.

I found 60mph very comfortable just to drive through the covers, but a relatively modest increase to 65-67mph, and the ball felt as if it was hitting my bat, rather than me hitting the ball.

Tom Gibbs, my colleague and former Jersey No.4, had no answer to an 85mph toe-crushing yorker. He moaned that he was not given any warning about a sudden increase in speed, but alas, that is cricket.

To find out more about BOLA head to their website: http://www.bola.co.uk/