Fastest Gun in Test Cricket
Anrich Nortje is one of the fastest bowlers in Test cricket.
“In the nets, I probably bowl a lot more than the other guys. I am a rhythm bowler and it is important that I get that going. Of course, there is a fine balance between getting the rhythm and remaining fresh,” says Anrich Nortje.
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Anrich Nortje’s job is not to score runs, but he loves to put his pads on and face a few deliveries in the nets. His session is intense. Nortje doesn't ask for half-volleys, he asks his fellow bowlers to come hard at him. If it's a dog stick, he asks the coaches not to go easy on him. His reasoning is simple, a practice session is not worth doing if it is not going to make him better. Nortje lives by the Drew Brees quote, “You are either getting better or getting worse, but you are never staying the same.”
The other reason is something to do with a thing called the fast bowlers’ union.
Once upon a time, the fast bowlers' union was a thing. Fast bowlers had each other’s backs and did not bowl short at each other in the nets or games. The understanding was that they would bowl full to each other. Nothing short or dangerous. The life of a fast bowler was already hard enough without adding short-pitched bowling into the mix.
Since the disbanding of the union, it is almost as if opposition bowlers run in with the aim to inflict body blows or knock out fellow fast bowlers. There is no empathy, just hostility. The reason could be that some bowlers developed airs after hitting a couple of cover drives. They puffed out their chests and started acting as if they were fully-fledged allrounders.
Chris Martin, the New Zealand bowler and not the one from Coldplay, always walked in to bat in his bowling shoes. He probably didn't own a single pair of batting boots. After his dismissal, all he had to do was take off his gloves and pads, and he was ready to bowl. He was a bowler's bowler. At some point, bowlers sauntered out in batting shoes and owned bags full of bats. Suddenly, they started batting as if they were setting themselves up for a big score.
No self-respecting bowler will let another bowler make a name for themselves as a batter at their expense.
Whatever the reason, a half-good defence is no longer good enough. Walk in with a rickety, makeshift defence, and you risk injury. Nortje loves bowling too much to take that risk. He loves his bowling so much that on his 29th birthday, he spent a couple of hours in the nets at Nelson Mandela Bay University before he headed home to enjoy a quiet evening of celebration with a handful of friends and family.
Nortje loves being back at NMB University, which is his alma mater. It’s home. Before NMB University, Nortje attended Brandwag High School, and the only time when people did not see him bowling in the nets was when Nortje was injured. Those were the days when he had broken his collarbone playing rugby. Playing rugby is the defining characteristic of a Brandwag learner. Brandwag is not a big cricketing school. Besides Nortje, the Conradie twins, Henk and Schalk, are the other notable cricketers from the school.
Before his injury, Nortje's attention was split between the two sports. The injury had cast the deciding vote for him. After recovering, Nortje turned all his focus to cricket. He went all in. When he was 15, his parents drove Nortje from Uitenhage to St. George’s Park four out of seven days a week for him to do extra work on his bowling.
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At 18, Nortje became the fourth member of an Eastern Province's fast and furious quartet that also featured Solomzi Nqweni, Mbulelo Budaza and Tladi Bokako. Their approach mimicked that of the West Indies quartet of Andy Roberts, Malcolm Holding, Colin Croft and Joel Garner. Aggressive pace.
They unleashed bouncers and short balls and stuck to aggressive lengths. “All they wanted to do was hurt the batsmen and take wickets. They basically fed off each other,” says Andre du Plessis, their coach at the time.
Even back then, Nortje was the 'fastest gun in the east', the Andy Roberts of this lot. He enjoyed this distinction. Bowling extremely fast comes with the risk of edges flying to the boundary, but this has never bothered him. “It’s allowed that batters will get lucky off your bowling. I don’t take it to heart,” says Nortje.
By the time he reaches his bowling mark, Nortje will have forgotten about the previous delivery and its result. “Many bowlers lose their rhythm and focus because their emotions get in the way in high-pressure situations. Not Anrich. He has good emotional control,” says Piet Botha.
Despite being the fastest bowler of the Eastern Province pace quartet, Nortje would later approach Drikus Saaiman and Piet Botha and ask them to help him bowl faster and more consistently. He felt that the only way he could force his way into the Warriors’ team was if he had more speed.
In principle, Nortje had the perfect action. He had all the raw ingredients, as Piet Botha put it. Saaiman got him super fit and Botha tweaked his action to help him maximize it. They supercharged him.
In August 2022, while England melted under extreme heat, one of their hottest summers in decades, Nortje bowled one of his fastest spells. It was a spell that came close to one of his most treasured spells. In 2017, immediately after being supercharged by Saaiman and Botha, Nortje led the Eastern Province bowling attack in a match against Namibia in searing heat on one of the flattest pitches he has ever bowled on in Windhoek.
“I just tried to bowl as fast as I could in that game,” says Nortje.
Nortje bowled 18 overs of targeting off-stump, yorkers, bouncers and 132km/h slower balls. He had batters rattled. The then 24-year-old was putting the fear of God in them. He was hurling missiles ala Andy Roberts. He didn’t take many wickets, but he set the platform for Eastern Province’s spinner at the time to bag 13 wickets.
There is little difference between then and now. No matter the conditions, Nortje runs in wholeheartedly and ‘gives 110%’. Nortje has also not deviated from the strength and conditioning drills he used back then. And as with Andy Roberts, not much was expected of him with the bat back then and not much is expected of him with the bat in the present.
In 1936/37, Don Bradman asked his team’s numbers 10 and 11 to open the batting on a sticky wicket. He was holding back his specialist batters until conditions got better for them to put up a decent total. The Proteas adhere to that tradition by sending in batters of questionable ability to navigate the most challenging passage of play in Test cricket, after the morning session.
They are keen on protecting their top batters from the dangers of batting in fading light, so they send in a nightwatchman to defend the last few overs of the day. Nortje is the Proteas’ designated nightwatchman at the moment.
“The nightwatchman role is challenging, but I love the challenge. It’s been my role for a while now. My role is to survive and give the next guy a decent platform to build upon,” says Nortje.
Successfully repelling opposition attacks in fading light and helping create a solid foundation for the next batter gives Nortje a lot of personal satisfaction.
*It should be noted that Nortje makes for a good bat advertisement. He has a good forward press, owns a solid defence and holds his pose after blocking the ball. As he holds his pose the bat logo is in full display.
Survival is not the only reason why Nortje spends hours in the nets working on his batting. “Anrich has always felt that if he could develop his batting, he could win games with the bat as well,” says du Plessis.
Speaking shortly after his 40th birthday, Tiger Woods shared that he believed that he peaked at 11. When he was 11, he played 36 tournaments and won them all. “I also probably had the cutest girlfriend in sixth grade and I had straight As. No A minuses, they were all perfect As. I have been trying to get back to that ever since,” said Woods.
Nortje’s batting peaked when he was in high school. During one T20 match for Brandwag, Nortje smashed five sixes from nine deliveries to lead his school to victory. In high school, Nortje batted at number five. In youth provincial teams Nortje batted lower, around number seven going downwards.
And even back then, he had no illusions about his batting abilities. He has always known that he was never going to be a world-class batter. He knew even when he was going against his brother in the backyard or at indoor cricket - which he played a lot of when he was young. But, that knowledge never stopped him from spending time in the nets working on his batting.
His motivation to work on his batting then and now is simple, with the ball, he walks onto the field determined to be the MVB - most valuable bowler - and with the bat, he wants to do all he can to ensure a team win.
