Barnes excited by SA's bowling stocks
Having been formally announced as the Cricket South Africa Bowling Lead, Vincent Barnes has continued to make sure that South Africa is a haven for bowlers looking to play international cricket.
Barnes has been involved with Cricket South Africa for many years in various roles but to finally have a role that is official is something that he's happy about.
"The role that I am is no different but it has just been confirmed that I am the bowling lead," Barnes said. "I've been high performance manager for almost eight years but my role hasn't changed and it's something that I enjoy.
"Between myself and Charl Langerveldt we are in the position now to look after the national bowlers and now that my role is official I'll spend a lot more time in that space."
As players and coaches emerge from the nationwide lockdown and prepare for the upcoming domestic and international season, Barnes looks back on the time away from the game as a positive for a lot of bowlers despite the frustration of not being able to train.
"There has been a lot of frustration given it's been six months now," Barnes mentioned. "A lot of the guys were fit and keen to go and have wanted to get out and bowl.
"It has obviously given a lot of bowlers the chance to recover from niggles and the injuries that they have had. Also some of them needed rest, guys like Kagiso Rabada needed some down time which has been good.
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"Now that franchises are back preparing for the season and everyone is going again and now we are just waiting to know when we are going to start playing again."
Given the amount of players under his watch, Barnes is in a position where he can literally keep daily tabs on how players are training.
"Every cricketer's workload in the country is monitored through our Microzone Cricket Clinic.
"I can go into my phone and access every cricketer in the country and see what he has done and on Monday morning I get a report on workloads, especially bowlers workloads.
"We can see if there are any red flags. If a guy is bowling too much, if he's not bowling enough. All that type of information is available to me."
Barnes believes that the current fast bowling stock in South Africa matches up comfortably with the rest of the world.
"I've got 23 men's and 12 women's fast bowlers at the moment that we are looking after.
"Looking at the men, 23 bowlers is a lot and I get excited about it!
"The reason I get excited is because in 2018 we had only Kagiso Rabada as the only fit fast bowler in the side but now we have a number of bowlers saying that want to play for South Africa.
"I'm more than happy with the bowling stocks that we have at the moment."
