New BOLA Professional bowling machine mimics the randomness of reality

BOLA are known and trusted worldwide for their bowling machines, and it would not be a stretch to say that every single current professional cricketer, in England at least, will have used one of their bowling machines

BOLA have been at the forefront of designing and building bowling machines for 35 years, and they have now released an update of one of their most well-used machines – the BOLA Professional.

BOLA are known and trusted worldwide for their bowling machines, and it would not be a stretch to say that every single current professional cricketer, in England at least, will have used one of their bowling machines.

Their Merlyn bowling machine has revolutionised how batsman practice against spin, while their TrueMan machine, which uses bowler animations, gets about as close to facing a real bowler as you can without doing so.

In a world exclusive, The Cricketer was given a demonstration of the new features that have been added to their new BOLA Professional by co-founder and managing director Nye Williams.

“When we started off making BOLA bowling machines 35 years ago, what we were trying to sell to people was consistency of bowling. A machine that would bowl a ball in the same place 10 times out of 10,” he said.

“The latest iteration of the machine is a different animal in that we’ve introduced user-definable randomness – controlled variation – which encourages batsmen to think about the shot they play, rather than just placing the front foot and knowing where the ball is going to be.”

While the new BOLA Professional can still be used for a consistent speed and length, its new function of “controlled variation” means users can set upper and lower speed limits, along with swing, which allow for variety during a practice session.

Another key addition is the introduction of a key-fob remote, shaped much like a car key, which allows users to operate the machine remotely. The key-fob remote can make the machine fire a ball, and also adjust the speed of the delivery.

“The thought behind the key-fob remote was to try and get the coach away from the machine and still give them some control over the practice session. The only way we could do that was to have some form of remote intervention,” Williams explained.

Improving the functionality of the machine appears to have been one of BOLA’s main aims, and in line with that they have replaced the LCD display, with an E Ink display.

Resembling the screen of a Kindle, the display is much more visible than the previous one, which works in all light and gives a clearer indication as to what the machine has been instructed to do.

They have also added a ball counter so you can keep track of the number of balls fired, which means no more arguments about which batsmen has faced the most balls during a net session.

As Williams points out “we’ve had 20 years of not very much change. This new update represents a very big step forward. I’m very excited about it” – and so should you be.

For more information on BOLA head over to their website HERE!

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