Kiss from a pro: Jackson Bird's unfinished business

After more than a decade as a professional fast bowler, Jackson Bird has developed a couple of small signs he looks for to tell him he is bowling well.

The first is in his action, right at the point of release.

"I can feel the seam up against one of my fingers when I'm letting go of the ball, which means that I'm getting that good snap behind the ball," he explains to cricket.com.au.

"Usually when I'm doing that, the ball is coming out alright. So that's a big key for me."

And the second follows a fraction of a second later, some three-quarters of the way down the pitch.

"I haven't really ever bowled fast, so the big thing for me is trying to get that kiss off the wicket – that bit more bounce.

"I'm never gonna blast guys out with pace, so that's not something I focus on, but I feel like if I'm going well, I'm getting that bit of extra bounce – that bit of extra kiss off the wicket."

It has been happening in Hobart these past couple of weeks. Bird feels it in his rhythm, sees it in the way the ball zips off the surface, and hears it in the batters' feedback.

After a winter spent pushing himself through the pain barrier, he finds great satisfaction in being able to say he has reached 100 per cent fitness ahead of the summer.

And while there are factors that complicate that claim, Bird knows too that there have been times where his body and mind could've given up on him altogether. In fact, only 12 months ago, they almost did.

"When I hurt my Achilles two or three times in the space of two months (last summer), those sorts of questions did creep into my mind," he says.

"Am I ever going to get back to playing? Am I going to shake this injury? Or am I going to have to retire?"

* * *

Sitting in his home down on the flats of Sandy Bay, on the western side of the Derwent River, Jackson Bird is pondering some of the sliding-doors moments that have put him there.

He and his partner Scarlett used to live a couple of doors down, but when an opportunity arose to buy the heritage, 1920s-style weatherboard home they had been quietly admiring, they took it.

"It was a bit bigger block, and we were looking at starting a family," Bird says. "So we redid that, and then put an extension on out the back with a pool. Now we've got the old part of the house and the modern part of the house, which is really nice."

They also have a couple of little humans to fill it out, in the form of May's arrival, George, and his big brother Max, who will be three next month.

Scarlett is a Tassie girl and increasingly, as his life has become settled and his family has grown, the Manly-raised Bird has felt something like a Tassie boy, too.

"I love it down here," he says. "Obviously with Scarlett, and we've got a family now, and ties in the community.

"And it's a great place to raise a family. So close to – well, I wouldn't really call it a beach – but close to the Derwent, close to schools and it's probably a five-minute walk from the city, so it's a really good spot."

For Bird, there are reminders of cricket everywhere. A couple of streets away, the Boons are also building, while there are teammates and coaching staff within cooee as well.

"I think we're lucky … because everyone's so close, that brings everyone together," he says. "And we get a lot of guys coming from interstate, and when a new guy comes down, everyone gets around them and makes them feel really welcome, and they settle in a lot quicker than perhaps they would in a bigger city."

Image Id: F1A37DD4D9994C97937F31A5A7146254 Image Caption: Bird's first Shield final defeat came at the Gabba in 2012 // Getty

Bird could be referencing his own experiences. It is 11 years since he came down from Sydney on the promise of nothing but a one-year deal. At the time, he was pulling beers at the Mosman Hotel, trying to force his way into a New South Wales set-up that was overflowing with fast-bowling talent.

"I was working there a couple days a week," he remembers. "It was a great pub to go to, I think they did a $10 steak then, so obviously pre-inflation.

"I wasn't looking too much into my career outside of cricket; I was just really focused on trying to become a professional cricketer.

"But I was coming through at a time where New South Wales had Trent Copeland, who had come in and started his career really well, and then there were a couple of guys – Starc, Cummins, Hazelwood – who were also decent bowlers coming through as well.

"Mark Cameron was still around, and Doug Bollinger was probably in his prime around that time, too.

"So there were a lot of fast bowlers, and Cricket New South Wales just told me that, if I did have an offer elsewhere, I should take it, because I wasn't really in their plans.

"That was fine. I understood that completely. I was just really keen to get an opportunity somewhere, and thankfully, I got one at Tassie."

Bird settled quickly and seized the lifeline thrown his way by then Tasmania head coach Tim Coyle, though it was one that almost didn't come.

"I was probably lucky to get that Tassie contract," he smiles. "From memory, either Jason Krejza or Xavier Doherty got a Cricket Australia contract that (Cricket Tasmania) weren't counting on, which opened the door for me."

Bird wasted no time in bashing it down. By the end of that summer – one in which he turned 25 – he had taken 53 wickets at 16, producing one of the most extraordinary maiden Sheffield Shield campaigns in history.

He was named that season's Sheffield Shield Player of the Year, and by year's end he had made his Test debut, being handed his Baggy Green by Bill Lawry at the MCG on Boxing Day morning.

Image Id: 07904A9E3B2E4FFBAA781A6A7A408EC9 Image Caption: Bill Lawry presents Bird with his Baggy Green, Boxing Day 2012 // Getty

It was a dizzying rise for the Manly boy who, a little more than a year earlier, had been told to look elsewhere by his native state.

A decade on, Bird has cultivated a record to rival any bowler in Sheffield Shield history.

Having long moved past Ben Hilfenhaus as Tasmania's most prolific Shield wicket-taker, he last summer leapfrogged Paul Reiffel to become the 10th most successful quick in the competition's 130-year history, with 319.

But where Bird separates himself from the rest is via his average (21.60) and strike-rate (45.6); of the 42 bowlers to have taken 250-plus Shield wickets, he tops both categories.

"It probably helps playing at Bellerive Oval five times a year," he offers modestly when hit with the statistic. "We usually get pretty seaming, friendly conditions."

It is a common refrain, though it does Bird a disservice. In 31 home matches, he has taken 154 Shield wickets at a stunning average of 20.62. Yet in 38 matches away from home, his 165 wickets have still come at 22.52 runs per wicket; a superior figure to any of the overall averages of the other 41 bowlers on that list.

"They're phenomenal numbers," says Greg Shipperd, who has coached Bird at Melbourne Stars and Sydney Sixers, while also acting as a consultant at Tasmania last summer. "It's a bit like Jamie Cox, and others, sitting behind that Australian batting group in the Ponting era; you were the seventh, eighth best batter and you just didn't get a go.

"Jackson spent two years sitting as the fourth wheel behind Cummins, Hazlewood and Starc … and whilst that might have been an informative period for his cricket intelligence, it didn't really expose him.

"He's taken around four wickets a Test match for the nine that he's played, and he's a fabulous, fabulous bowler – the numbers prove that. I'm sure there'll be some frustration about (lack of) opportunity at that next level.

"He's like another version of Josh Hazlewood, really, without the opportunities. I'd be very confident that if a parallel universe appeared, there would be 200, 250-plus Test wickets next to his name."

* * *

The turning point in this twilight period of Bird's career came via some good news from the Tigers' medical staff amid a period of persistent frustration.

Along his journey, the Tasmanian has learned to accept that injuries and fast bowlers make regular bedfellows. Since 2015, he has been managing the discomfort and restrictions that come with a bulging disc in his neck. And up until five months ago, it had been a similar story with his right shoulder; for the past four or five years, he had been putting up with the pain, at least in part because the prescribed treatments impacted the problem in his neck.

The delicate juggle came to a head on the County Championship circuit in April, when the tight turnaround between matches finally brought Bird undone.

"It got to a point where it was hurting every ball," he says. "So I got a scan and they found a tear in one of my tendons. Luckily, I didn't need to get surgery."

Instead, after some time away, Bird committed to an intense three-month period of rehabilitation on the shoulder, through which regular hands-on treatment from Tigers physios Brendan Wilson and Jack Derrick also soothed the flare-ups in his neck.

In a way, this onerous path to a new season was one he had already committed to taking. The previous summer, as he battled a recurring issue with his right Achilles, he had seriously weighed up his future.

"I hadn't really thought about retirement before," he says, referring to those questions that had entered his mind. "But I had some good chats with our medical staff, and they were pretty confident it wasn't going to be a career-ending injury."

Bird took that news and ran with it. It was a greater silver lining than he perhaps realised at the time. From the depths of a debilitating injury, one that forced him to contemplate his cricketing end point for the first time, he came to understand a couple of things. Firstly, he still relished the daily grind. And secondly, he had unfinished business.

It was a vision that crystallised in his mind, and helped push him through his shoulder rehab. Across the cold Tasmanian winter, Bird worked hard to shed the four kilograms he put on during the layoff for his Achilles injury.

By the start of September, he had returned to his ideal playing weight of 90kg, and a week or so later, he was bowling off a full run-up, the ball was kissing the wicket, and he was counting the days until the beginning of the season.

Image Id: 06FE4C4B58524580B5360E8E900EAFAA Image Caption: Bird has worked with Greg Shipperd at the Sixers, Stars and Tasmania // Getty

The nature of his recovery, particularly as he nears 36, is testament to Bird's professionalism. He thinks back to the earlier years in his career and is thankful he established good habits in terms of training and conditioning; he knows he is reaping those dividends now.

Recently, Shipperd has seen it in practice at Tasmania and the Sixers.

"I've noticed his interactions with the sports science and medicine team in terms of his preparation," he says. "If you ever walk in early, he's the first there often, doing what he needs to do in terms of strapping and taping and just the pre-game preparation."

That meticulous planning manifests itself in other ways, too. Bird studies video of the opponents he is set to come up against but moreover, he analyses himself.

"For a long time I've looked at a lot of my own footage," he says. "I like to look at footage of when I'm going well, and then also, when I've not been bowling as well as I would have liked, to hopefully see something in my action I'm doing different, or whatever it might be, and then hopefully I can go to training and feel when I'm doing it, so then I can sort of link up the two."

Bird has been ticking all those boxes in the past month as he readies himself for the summer ahead. That clear vision is continuing to drive him.

"Last year when I spent the summer with Tasmania, something was cooking down there," Shipperd says. "I just got a good vibe from what was happening.

"The Sheffield Shield is a super tough competition, you've got six states turning themselves inside out to win it, but I think (Tasmania) are very, very close."

* * *

Should he collect 32 wickets for the Tigers this summer across the two formats, Bird will become the first player to reach 400 for the state.

Yet while he admits to being "a bit of a stats man", he in the same breath explains that individual achievement is not the driver.

It sounds cliché but a quick glance at Bird's back catalogue explains the added motivation; three finals – two Shield and a One-Day – across 11 years have all ended in defeat, with his lone piece of domestic silverware coming with the Sixers in BBL|10.

Image Id: D3DD8BF32E6E48B9B0270E9374C28223 Image Caption: Bird dismissed both Scorchers openers en route to winning the BBL|10 final // Getty

Without prompting, he thrice raises the notion of winning the Shield as his chief motivator for playing on. There is the enjoyment factor, too – he gains reassurance through the process of turning up to training each day with a plan and looking to better himself as a bowler – but in this most individual of team sports, it is that collective glory he is targeting, and which he believes is just about within touching distance.

"The last couple of years, we've come really close to making the Shield final," he says. "We've lost a few key games throughout the season, but we know now what we need to do to go to that next level.

"I suppose you get that with the more experience you get across the board."

Shipperd describes Bird as having "a big influence around the group, and (being) really giving of his knowledge with the bowlers around him", and circumstances have dictated that to have been particularly so in recent seasons at Tasmania.

When former Tigers bowling coach Adam Griffith was unavailable due to shifting and conflicting commitments with Royal Challengers Bangalore as COVID-19 wreaked havoc on the cricket calendar, Bird and fellow fast-bowling veteran Peter Siddle picked up the slack. It was a role that neatly complemented some of Bird's dominant traits; Shipperd calls him "cool, calm and collected".

"We were quite hands-on with the bowlers while 'Griffo' (Griffith) was away, which was really good," Bird says. "We've got a good crop of young bowlers at the moment, and it's been nice to take on that sort of leadership role, helping those young guys out.

"That coaching side of things is something I've really enjoyed doing, so I'd be keen to explore those options once I retire."

Image Id: 32D7BE8FAEE3406DAECB3DD0D8BAEC27 Image Caption: Bird and fellow veteran Peter Siddle have lent their expertise to the Tigers pace group // Getty

Bird has taken much from a number of mentors over the years, and he tips his cap particularly to former Tasmania and Victoria paceman Damien Wright, with whom he quickly struck up a strong rapport at the Melbourne Stars. Their relationship built from there, and continues today, generally in the form of advice via text or phone call.

Griffith and more recently Rob Cassell have been other influences, while given his accomplishments, it is unsurprising he has developed pace-bowling theories of his own, the sentiments of which can be boiled down to a single word: simplicity.

"Fast bowling is something that can get complicated pretty quickly," he says. "If you look at all the great fast bowlers over time, guys like Glenn McGrath and James Anderson, they can obviously move the ball, but fast bowling is all about line and length.

"As simple as that sounds, it's something that should be taught to young fast bowlers – that line and length is basically all that matters.

"If I was coaching young fast bowlers, that's the message I'd want to get across."

For now however, as he sharpens his focus to this season, it is one he is continuing to tell himself.

* * *

Bird and his partner Scarlett have twice postponed their wedding because of the pandemic, and they think now they will simply wait until Jackson calls time on his playing career. Not that he is willing to put a date on that eventuality just yet.

"I don't want to go into a season knowing it's going to be my last, just because I don't want bad habits to creep into my preparation," he says. "If I know I've only got a couple games left, I might take shortcuts, so I'm just taking it season by season at the moment.

"I'm really still enjoying training, which is a big thing for an ageing athlete. I'm still enjoying the fitness sessions, and having a plan and trying to get better every training session."

It is an attitude he wishes he had been able to maintain during his time in the Australia set-up, from that MCG debut, to the five-wicket haul against New Zealand that helped put the boys in Baggy Green atop the ICC Test rankings in 2016, or even in his forgettable final Ashes Test in 2017.

Instead, he rues being consumed by the seriousness of it all; the fight for positions, the pressure to perform, and the cutthroat nature of international competition.

If he could, it is wisdom he would share with his younger self.

Image Id: D12E6CCDD0364567AA67A5BBFCA50845 Image Caption: Bird celebrates a second-innings 5-59 against the Kiwis in 2016 // Getty

"During the years that I was in and around the Australian squad, I was so worried about a lot of other things, rather than just enjoying being around the Australian team," he says.

"I hate using the term, but if you don't stay present in the moment, you don't really enjoy it.

"Looking back on it, I was worried a lot about selection, and getting picked on the next tour, and I was worried about what other guys were doing rather than just enjoying what was going on around me at that time.

"Playing for Australia was obviously a career highlight of mine, but it's also good fun as well, and I probably didn't enjoy it as much as what I should've at the time."

Five summers on from his final appearance in Baggy Green, Bird doesn't believe even a bumper Shield season would return his name to the conversation of national selection ahead of next year's Ashes tour ("they've got six or seven pace bowlers now that are going really well," he smiles, "so I feel like if they were going back to a 36-year-old medium-pacer, they'd be going in the wrong direction"), and he is at peace with that.

Instead, his ambition lies with the Tigers, and the silverware he wants to win.

"That's my focus now, that team success," he says. "Individual wickets and all that are nice, but at the end of the day, I'd love to win a Shield before I retire. That's the big motivator for me, definitely."