As Northamptonshire’s equal leading wicket taker in the LV= Insurance County Championship, Gareth Berg has had plenty of opportunities to show off his celebrations in 2021.
Ranging from the reserved to the ridiculous, you can never be quite sure how the 40-year-old will acknowledge his latest scalp.
“In the beginning of my career when I’d take my wickets I’d jump up and do almost 360 in the air.” Berg said.
“Then I started realising probably the older I get I need to start keeping my feet on the ground a bit longer, so I started doing the old Alan Shearer.”
And while ‘The Shearer’ has had its fair share of airtime this season, Berg has gone off script on more than one occasion.
“There’s been a few things this year though where even my slip cordon has asked ‘what the hell was that Bergy?!’ and I honestly said, hand on my heart ‘it just happened naturally’.
“Sometimes a celebration comes out, however it comes out, because it just comes out. I have no thought process on it, I’ve surprised myself with it a couple of times actually.”
When it comes to his teammates however, Berg feels there’s room for improvement within the bowling group.
“I think most of our bowlers need to work on their celebrations.
“I’m a big fan in having your unique way of doing it and you certainly don’t see enough guys giving it everything in their celebrations anymore, I might have to do some coaching sessions with our bowling unit on it.”
Berg will be hoping for plenty of opportunity to trial different options when Northamptonshire visit Sussex this week. When the sides last met, Berg and Sanderson went head-to-head to claim 19 of the 20 wickets in the match, Berg claiming a career best 9 for 90 in the process.
Northamptonshire’s Squad to face Sussex
Adam Rossington (c/wk)
Gareth Berg
Ben Curran
Brandon Glover
Rob Keogh
Simon Kerrigan
Wayne Parnell
Luke Procter
Ben Sanderson
Tom Taylor
Charlie Thurston
Ricardo Vasconcelos
Saif Zaib