Friday 30 July 2010

Such is the esteem in which Trevor Penney’s fielding ability was held, England used him as a secret weapon in the sensational 2005 Ashes series when well past his prime.

Penney was not the man who ran out Ricky Ponting as one of the fielding ‘super-subs’ in that series, but he was standing right beside English coach Duncan Fletcher when the Australian skipper vented his anger as he walked off.

“I don’t know why he was cross at me, I was 37,” Penney laughed. “I was fielding coach for England and the ECB but I hadn’t been practising my fielding as much, although I did it now and again with Warwickshire.

“I didn’t want to go in the Ashes, the greatest Ashes of all time. But I got a phone call saying, ‘no, we want you here for the second, third, fourth and fifth Tests’.”

Had Penney been on target in that same game as when Ponting was run out by Gary Pratt, the Australian captain might well have exploded.

“I missed ‘Kato’ (Simon Katich) - I should have thrown it back to Freddie Flintoff from mid-wicket,” Penney clearly remembers. “Kato got caught in the middle of the strip but my throw bounced short of Freddie, he couldn’t get to it, and it just missed the stumps.”

While fielding was Penney’s passion, he was no slouch with the bat, and is a huge addition as an assistant to Trevor Barsby on the 2010-11 XXXX GOLD Bulls coaching panel.

Penney averaged over his 17 seasons with Warwickshire and played against the best bowlers in the world.

He scored centuries against attacks containing West Indian great Malcolm Marshall, the fearsome Curtly Ambrose, and Pakistan star Wasim Akram.

“Getting runs against the real greats was the memorable thing for me,” Penney said. “Sometimes facing the little English ‘dibbly-dobs’ on a ‘slow pudding’ was when I didn’t achieve what I should have.”

He played in one of the most successful eras of any County in English cricket, winning 10 titles in the early 1990s playing alongside the likes of Allan Donald - a close friend – Brian Lara and Shaun Pollock.

“Those three great overseas players helped influence all the youngsters,” Penney said.

Having been raised in Zimbabwe, Penney had to make a choice with his cricket allegiances. “I had to make a decision between Warwickshire and Zimbabwe. I hoped to play for England but it never quite came about.

“I missed out on three or four World Cups (if he had chosen the country of his birth) but it was still the best move.”

Coaching was always going to be Penney’s preferred option post-retirement.

“I wanted to coach from the time I started playing,” he said. “I loved going back to Zimbabwe and coaching there and get involved with the ‘A’ side. You get a different perspective playing as well as coaching. It improves your game.”

During his last four years at Warwickshire, he limited himself to one-day cricket at a time when former WA captain John Inverarity came in as coach.

“He was more a manager and he wanted someone underneath him to run fielding drills and the likes. With one-day cricket you get a lot of time off, so I became an assistant plus a player,” Penney said.

His work with Warwickshire obviously impressed the ECB, and after the Ashes series he was head-hunted by Sri Lanka, where he spent two years as assistant to Tom Moody.

Penney visited Brisbane on the Sri Lankan one-day tour in early 2006, when the sub-continent nation met Australia in the final of the tri-series, just as they would in the 2007 World Cup in the Caribbean.

“We lost here in the final when Gilly (Adam Gilchrist) got a hundred, and he did it to us again in the World Cup - Gilly was the thorn in our side. But they were a wonderful two years in Sri Lanka.

“They are wonderful people who were very keen to learn. Like the Indians, they love their cricket. Even in the street cricket they are all dressed in whites. The heat, the different foods, the cultures – it was just a great experience.

“Dealing with the Muralidarans, Sangakkarras and Chaminda Vaas’s - greats of the sport - was fantastic. It was wonderful to find they are nice, normal human beings who still want to keep learning. They never acted as if they knew it all.”

Penney has enormous respect for Muralidaran, who retired from Test cricket last week with 800 victims to his name.

Penney said the off-spinner never flinched in face of the flak that he received from some sections of Australia over his bowling action.

“Deep down it probably annoyed him a little bit, but outwardly it never bothered him,” Penney said. “He is a wonderful guy. And so full of beans.”

“He practised like I’ve never seen. He would practice for hours out in the middle bowling to a keeper and then would come to the nets and bowl to a batsman. He must have worked on that ‘10,000 hour rule’, where if you do something that often you become great.”

Sri Lanka had been, in fact, a diversion as Penney had been keen to relocate to Australia for five years prior.

“My wife’s father was born in Sydney so it was easy enough to get visas, but we kept delaying it,” he said.

The Sri Lankan contact with Moody, a longtime WA all-rounder, saw Penney land on his feet at the Warriors in 2008.

He revealed it was a huge thrill to be involved in the Sheffield Shield competition in particular.

“It’s nice to work in Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka and England but suddenly the big Sheffield Shield, the one and only, was there in front of you,” he said.

“I didn’t notice the players were better, but you have fewer games and the players prepare from three days before as they would a Test match.

“Sometimes (in County cricket) you would finish a game, drive three hours up to Durham for a one day game and play that the next day.

“You can prepare and really nail it here. You have 10 games and they are huge.”

While Moody stood down at the end of last season, Penney’s departure was not related – he moved to Queensland for family reasons.

“All my wife Debbie’s family lives here and after 20 years of us travelling the world it was time to do something for her,” he said.

Their children Samantha (15) and Kevin (12) have also settled in well.

Penney had been resigned to the fact that he would probably have to continue travelling himself with his employment.

“It was pretty difficult. I had worked in the IPL with Kings XI Punjab and was hoping to get something with Academy (CA Centre of Excellence) which didn’t quite work out,” he said. “I went and saw ‘Tank’ (Trevor Barsby) and nothing came of that either.”

He had sourced a month’s work in New Zealand for July and a six-month contract with the Mashonaland Eagles in Zimbabwe when Bulls assistant coach Lachlan Stevens resigned.

With fulltime employment in the highly respected Queensland Cricket organisation, it was just what Penney wanted.

He has spent his first month at Allan Border Field familiarizing himself with the Bulls squad.

“You study the opposition and watch them but you still don’t know them,” he said of his time dissecting the Bulls from Perth. “I’ve got to know them pretty well over the last month and gone through footage of the last year or so, especially of the batsmen.

“Everything has been fantastic, spot on. The fields at AB Field are amazing. We would be indoors at the WACA at this time of year.

“(Conditioning coach) Damian Mednis is like an army instructor and they are unbelievable with their training, but I’ve not heard one guy complain which is unusual for a cricketing squad – I don’t think I’ve ever seen that.

“It shows some character. I’ve heard that is the Queensland way.”