bowling

A winless football team went bowling. It’s true.

With his players in need of a refreshing change that would still allow them to compete, UCLA interim coach Tim Skipper took the Bruins to a bowling alley last week on one of their days off from practicing.

“I also wanted to get out of the [football practice] building, to be honest, even for me and the coaches’ sake,” Skipper said Monday. “We’ve been locked in working and grinding and all that stuff, so we needed to get away and just kind of take a deep breath and compete in a different way.”

While it was the sort of team bonding exercise usually carried out in the offseason or during training camp, throwing a few strikes together could be the thing to help spare players from walking out on the rest of the season after an 0-3 start that led to the dismissal of their coach.

A week into the 30-day transfer portal window that opened for players, Skipper said no one had left the team. Additional incentive to stay could come Saturday.

A victory over Northwestern (1-2 overall, 0-1 Big Ten) in UCLA’s conference opener at Martin Stadium in Evanston, Ill., could be doubly important for a team that needs a confidence boost — and reason for players with an available redshirt season to keep playing after the four-game cutoff for preserving eligibility.

“I think the discussions might come up a little bit more after the game,” Skipper said of redshirting. “But, to me, it’s always good to win for everything, just morale and every single area that you’re in. You deal with that as it comes, but right now the guys have been attacking and everybody seems like they want to play and are eager to do that.”

Skipper said coaches have commenced a deep dive into the roster to search for players who could provide additional help after the team struggled so mightily in its first three games. As the Bruins shift from what Skipper labeled a mini-training camp last week into game mode, they will see if those new discoveries can handle the opportunity to make a bigger contribution.

UCLA interim coach Tim Skipper is trying to keep his players motivated amid the Bruins’ 0-3 start.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Nobody appears to be giving up given the energy and personal pride Skipper has seen from his players.

“Everybody has a number out there, but you also have a last name on the back of your jersey,” Skipper said. “So, that last name needs to matter and you need to represent it in a positive way, and that’s what this is all going to come down to. I don’t care what we’re doing, whether we’re bowling or playing football, whatever — compete to win.”

A defensive boost

Skipper said Kevin Coyle had arrived on campus after having coached for Syracuse in its victory over Clemson last weekend.

A senior defensive analyst with the Orange who is expected to serve in a similar capacity at UCLA after the Bruins persuaded him to make a cross-country move early in the season, Coyle has been a longtime mentor to his new boss.

Coyle, 69, was Fresno State’s defensive coordinator when Skipper was a star middle linebacker for the Bulldogs from 1997 to 2000. The duo also worked together last season at Fresno State when Skipper was the interim head coach.

Now Coyle will boost a UCLA staff that needs help after the departure of defensive coordinator Ikaika Malloe last week in what was termed a mutual parting of ways.

“He is kind of like ‘The Godfather’ to me for football,” Skipper said of Coyle. “Did a lot of teaching me the game. It’s where I originally first started learning how to play sound, good defense. So to have the opportunity to get him here is major.”

Without offering specifics, Skipper said the UCLA defensive staff had simulated the way it would call games as part of a new collaborative approach.

Baker is also a prolific note-maker, something he puts down to his education.

At the time of his first stress fracture he was targeting a place to study biology at the University of Oxford and now he records analysis on opposition batters in a little book, along with plans and hopes for the future.

“I’ve just found it keeps me involved in the analysis stuff and then really remember it,” Baker says.

“It would be an absolute nightmare if you’re not really sure whether you’re meant to bowl wide or straight and then you pick the wrong one.

“You can’t really justify that to yourself at the end of the game.”

The Hundred means there is already a page in Baker’s notebook titled with the name of an Australian great.

Of the 12 balls Baker bowled to Steve Smith when Welsh Fire hosted Manchester Originals last Monday, three were hit for four and another three resulted in a false shot.

“It has been surreal, writing notes on Steve Smith thinking ‘am I actually going to be opening the bowling at him?'” Baker says.

This is the company Baker now keeps, however and, having rehabbed in Sydney after his most recent back injury, he has spent the past two winters in Australia.

Another will likely come this year with the young quick expected to be part of the Lions squad shadowing the Test team around the Ashes series.

From there anything can happen.

Far more unlikely names have been plucked by England to make a Test debut down under.

“I mean, that would be good fun, wouldn’t it?” Baker says.

“I’ll refer back to notes on any matters and Steve Smith is one of the red-ball GOATs [greatest of all-time] so I’d definitely be coming back to that analysis if I end up needing it.

“But let’s just worry about the next few games first. Let’s not get too far out of ourselves.

“We’ve got a Hundred to try and win and then South Africa series to try and win and then Ireland series try and win way before we think about any of all of that stuff.”

England were held up by India captain Shubman Gill’s patient century as their bowlers fought admirably on day one of the second Test at Edgbaston.

After captain Ben Stokes opted to bowl first again, his bowlers battled against Gill’s calmness and another flat pitch to limit India to 310-5 at the close.

Chris Woakes bowled KL Rahul off the inside edge in a fine new-ball spell and Brydon Carse found extra bounce to have Karun Nair caught at slip for 31 shortly before lunch.

But opener Yashasvi Jaiswal complied an elegant 87 and after he was caught behind off Stokes, Rishabh Pant put on 66 with Gill as the new-ball zip faded in the Birmingham sunshine.

England hung in, however, and Pant’s patience broke after tea when he hit Shoaib Bashir to long-on for 25. Nitish Kumar Reddy was bowled shouldering arms to Woakes in the next over.

That left India at risk of collapse but Gill remained unflustered and reached three figures for the second match in a row in 199 deliveries. He put on 99 with Ravindra Jadeja to see out the final 90 minutes of play.

The tourists, who made three changes including leaving out star bowler Jasprit Bumrah, will be content but memories of England’s win at Headingley only adds to the feeling India have a long way to go to bat Stokes’ side out of the game.

Helmets, padding and the ability to practice better has made everyone fair game and you’re acutely aware that you’ll receive a bouncer when you walk out there, especially as you’ll be tasked to do the same when you have the ball in your hand.

Your palms get sweaty, you need a nervous trip to the toilet every five minutes and you can’t take your eyes off who the opposition captain is gesturing at to bowl next.

I made the mistake of bouncing Jofra Archer in a County Championship match in 2018, hitting him on the head.

As soon as it was my turn to bat, I knew who’d have the ball in his hand.

The index finger on my right hand is still swollen from where the first ball I faced from him squeezed in against my bat handle in front of my face. He got me out next ball for nought.

The psychological lift a wagging tail gives to a dressing room is also huge.

It lightens the mood, it gives players the confidence that the momentum in the game is in their favour and you can physically see the frustration in the opposition as they toy with how to extract the last few wickets.

The top order batters’ minds are distracted from facing the opening overs of the following innings and if the tail really wags it can descend into chaos.

England were the sixth worst at removing the tail in the previous cycle of the World Test Championship, with the opposition averaging 87.04 after the sixth wicket fell in that period.

With the best in the world, New Zealand, conceding an average of 61.92, that is a significant 50.24-run swing across a Test.

Cast your mind back to the first Ashes Test at Edgbaston in 2023 that Australia won by two wickets.

In a chase of 282, Scott Boland as nightwatchman scored 20 from 40 balls, Pat Cummins 44 not out from 73 and Nathan Lyon a 28-ball unbeaten 16.

More was made of the Stokes declaration on day one, but fundamentally, the inability to blow the tail away in the second innings was where the game was lost.

Killing the tail is going to be imperative to England’s success not only in this series, but in this winter’s Ashes too. Tongue has shown he has the skills. The likes of Carse, Archer or Gus Atkinson could do it too.

Gobbling up rabbit pie could be more important than anyone thinks.