‘I want you to make me look like an Australian fast bowler’ says Matt Fisher to his Strength Coach
Matt Fisher was looking ahead to a big 2022 after earning his England appearance against the West Indies in March.
Fisher, though, had an all-too-familiar hiccup when he returned to play for Yorkshire in the County Championship in April, when he was hampered by injury. Despite earning his senior debut at the age of 15 in 2013, Fisher has only completed 97 games across all forms due to frequent injuries.
Matt Fisher made his Test debut against West Indies in Barbados almost a year ago. In many ways, that one-time appearance sums up the promise and frustration that have been part of his career since he first played for Yorkshire as a 17-year-old.
Fisher’s career has been full of setbacks so far, such as hamstring and side strains, broken thumbs, and dislocated shoulders. Still, as he gets ready for this week’s England Lions tour to Sri Lanka, he’s not going to let his bad luck get him down. Instead, he can’t wait to show how hard he’s worked to get better over the past year.
“If you improve every single part of your game then hopefully you are giving yourself the best chance to not get injured, I have just tried to do that,” he told reporters. “Literally, looking in a mirror I just thought, I don’t look as robust as some players I’ve seen this winter and maybe that’s something to look at. I basically said to our S&C, I want you to make me look like an Australian fast bowler, because they all seem to look solid. Cummins, Hazlewood, Starc, they all look pretty strong.”
In an Ashes year, Fisher hopes to play a role in a new-look England squad led by Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum, but he knows he will have heavy competition from the likes of Olly Stone, Jofra Archer, and Saqib Mahmood, who are all recovering from injury ahead of the series.
“I ate loads that first three months,” he added. “It wasn’t McDonald’s and stuff like that, but it was just to get so much in where you can’t eat any more, so you can build the muscle, and then once you start playing and bowling again then it drops off, which it did. Sometimes in our sport we think too much about skin folds, a lot of lads get anxiety about being slim enough. But I wasn’t bothered about what my skinnies were at that point, my goal was to put muscle on, and that is the best way to put some weight and muscle on. I was doing loads of training at the time as well so I wasn’t getting really fat,” he said.
“All throughout the summer, the coaches at Yorkshire and some of the players were like ‘bloody hell, you look massive’. Around my chest I am a bit bigger and then my legs are bigger. ”
“I’ve tried to be a bit straighter with my back-foot contact,” he explained. “My back foot was getting into a side-on position, which is fine, but my feet were crossing over a little bit. Now they come down in a straight line and my back foot is pointing more towards fine leg rather than deep midwicket.”
Despite the benefits of Fisher’s recuperation, the disappointments of 2022 remain, not least the fact that he was helpless to prevent Yorkshire’s relegation from the Championship’s top division following Warwickshire’s remarkable final-day escape. He had to watch from afar as England’s Test standards rose under Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes, but the encounter was an example of how much he wants to build on the potential of his England debut.
“I can’t really control where I am in the pecking order, so for me it’s just about bowling well and I know how fast it can happen,” Fisher explained, “It happened last winter, so I am just hoping for that again at some point.
“There’s been indoor sessions where I am visualising bowling at David Warner, so it’s definitely in my mind. But in terms of it being a goal of mine this summer, it’s not like on my wall or anything. If that happens, it happens. For me, it’s just bowling well for Yorkshire and then hopefully I’ll get another chance at some point,” he concluded.
