Battle of coaches : What sort of a coach do India need?

[achilles]

Dav Whatmore.... offered his services, quit Bangla cricket, met BCCI officials, everything seemed good. One fine day, BCCI wakes up and gives the job to Gary Kirsten. That is plain humiliation. I'm think the seniors must've given their opinion against Dav, for there was hardly a reason to rock the boat.

[achilles]

Harsha Bhogle has done a phenomenal job of putting forward in the most eloquent way, the dadagiri of some players and their resistance when someone tries to discipline them. We are No.1 in cricket and No.1 also in cricket politics.

[Chandan]

Akash Chopra had also written a good article on what sort of coaches India needs: Link From Wright to Chappell to Kirsten Aakash Chopra, Wednesday, April 06, 2011 'Who told you to play that shot?' He asked angrily. 'But it was a short pitched delivery and I did get a boundary off it' replied the player, quite taken aback by the retort. 'It's not about what you achieve, but what you can help the team achieve' informed the man and ended the discussion for good. He was indeed the coach who started the revolution and subsequently metamorphosized Indian cricket in a way that changed its very fabric. He started a process, a vital one, which, and it won't be unfair to say that, played a crucial role in all that Indian cricket has achieved in the last decade. Yes, I'm talking about John Wright, Team India's coach between 200–200. Of course, the player in that conversation is none but yours' truly. I had despatched Craig Macmillan's harmless half-tracker behind the square-leg region for a boundary and indeed taken immense pleasure in doing so. In fact, I'd thought that John and the others would appreciate my effort, for I had compiled my first half-century in my second Test match. But to my utter disbelief, John on the contrary, gave me an earful and reminded me of my role in the side and how it wasn't about reaching personal milestones but putting the team's requirement ahead of my personal ambitions. That's what John Wright instilled in every player of the Indian cricket team. A team of matured and highly skilled individuals doesn't need someone to correct their technical flaws (that too from time to time) but more importantly someone who helps them fulfill their potential and at times, punch above their weight. To put things in perspective it's important to go back a couple of decades to really understand what Wright brought to the team. Those were the days when we had our own ex-cricketers coaching Team India. While I'm neither contesting nor critiquing their contribution or their ability, but there was, undoubtedly, a sense of unprofessionalism about the entire set-up. The coach would never tell the 'star' (read senior) cricketers anything, while gave vent to his anger and frustrations by lashing out at the juniors. There was an obvious hierarchy which demarcated everyone's position and roles in the team, of course going by the seniority in the side. There was also a sense of parochialism because invariably the coach would speak to the players from his state or zone in their local language which left others wondering. This set-up ensured that the team rode on individual brilliance and not on team effort and hence the good performances were sporadic too. Then John Wright happened to India and the change was brought in. Though he understood the Indian model pretty well and accommodated a few whims too but largely managed to instil the sense of professionalism in the team. Roles were no longer based on the seniority but on the skill level. Sehwag, though a junior, was not only allowed but also encouraged to play his brand of cricket. Dravid, a lot senior than Sehwag, was told to anchor the innings together and not get carried away. The biggest challenge a coach faces is to know what a player isn't equipped to do, rather than what he can do. There must have been a huge temptation to change the way Sehwag plays to ensure consistency, for you know that tighter technique could do wonders. But as a coach, you must detach yourself, even from your age-old beliefs, and see the individual with a new perspective. Curbing Sehwag would have nipped his career in the bud but encouraging him gave India a match-winner instead. Besides this Wright also kept the hunger alive in the players and never took his eyes of the ultimate goal i.e. making Indian Team a global force. India had always been an invincible side at home but its record overseas was abysmal. With him, the team took the vow to change that. And once we started winning Test matches abroad, he raised the bar. I remember him telling us not to party after the Multan victory; the real job was to win the series. John handed over the baton to Greg Chappell and everyone is aware of what happened next. But contrary to the popular belief, Greg did bring a lot to the table and in fact played a key role in shaping Indian cricket. He may not have been the best man-manager but his knowledge about the game is second to none. He may not have understood the intricacies of working in India but he did have an eye for talent. It was in his regime which gave us players like Dhoni, Raina and Gambhir. Unfortunately though, we as a nation are more prone to judging people by the results they achieve, paying little attention to the process. Had Greg won the World Cup 2007 or someone like John Buchanan won the IPL for his Team, we would have hailed them as the best thing to have happened to India and the IPL. We must allow people to think out of the box and also give them a chance to fail. Coaching a national team is not about correcting players' technique or chalking out plans, that too but more importantly about creating personal relationships with every single member of the team and making them, both as individuals and as a team realize their potential. The real challenge for a coach is to remain fluid and not treat everyone uniformly. It may sound absurd or smell of favouritism but what I mean from this is that no two individuals are the same and what makes one person tick might bring the other person down. You must speak to every player in the language which they understand and by language I mean the way you treat someone. A player like Gambhir would be at his best when you give him the confidence, while someone like a Kohli would thrive if you throw a challenge at him. Some people like to take on responsibility and some perform their best when they are led. Gary Kirsten has managed to do all this and hence commands great respect and love from this team. It's not often that we see the entire team dedicating such an important win to their coach especially when he happens to be a foreigner.

[Chandan]

Another interesting point of view is: ‘Kirsten clone is not needed’ Eric Simons feels that the South African’s replacement should be his own man and not blindly follow in his predecessor’s footsteps Sandeep Narayan Thursday, April 21, 2011 Eric Simons is 49 but on the ground during the Delhi Daredevils training session you could have mistaken him for a teenager. India’s bowling coach, who is now with the Delhi Daredevils, is a quiet ball of energy on the field. From standing in the nets coaching the fast bowlers to jumping fences at the Ferozeshah Kotla to collect the balls — there isn’t one thing that the South African couldn’t do. “That’s what you have to do to get the job done,” he says, donning a huge grin. After a rigorous three-hour training session Simons spoke with Mumbai Mirror about his future with the Indian team, coaching an IPL side and what the new chief coach of India should do in order to be successful. After the World Cup, you didn’t get any rest and joined Delhi Daredevils within a few days... I think in some ways for me as a coach it was a good thing. I mean the World Cup win for us was a great thing for me, Gary (Kirsten), Paddy (Upton) the players and the other support staff and we got time to celebrate but then coming here to Delhi it gave me a chance to move on. Are you planning to continue with the Indian team? I have not spoken to anybody yet and therefore I do not know what the exact thing is but I would not like a long-term contract because I have my business in Cape Town. I was with the team for 15 months and I have some months left and will go back and join the team but what the long term future holds is still unsure. What do you feel the new coach should do in order to sustain the success that Gary enjoyed? I don’t think you should try and be another Gary Kirsten. I think the BCCI will be wrong to get a clone of Gary as the next coach. The coach should learn from what Gary did but most importantly he has got to be his own person when he comes. India is a unique team so when any coach comes here he should not try and come here to teach the players how to play cricket. He must try and influence them, to give them ideas and build relationships with the players. He must never forget that it’s about the players and not about him. These players carry huge expectations and the burden of the nation. He must try and understand them but he shouldn’t try and duplicate Gary but rather emulate what he achieved. Delhi has almost eight fast bowlers and yet you have not gotten the pitch you require. You think you will get lucky today? We’re are looking for options for the pitches and we need a wicket that supports our batsmen as well and it’s not about having a fast wickets for our bowlers but a good playing wicket so that runs can be score as well. You were working hard with Irfan Pathan but his bowling was very wayward today... Actually Irfan bowled really well today. The balls that seemed to go wide or over the batsman’s head were his slower ball options that we are working on and that’s why it seemed wayward. But I was happy with the way he bowled. We think he needs to get more arm speed. The relation between his arm speed and the pace of the ball is not good as we saw in the previous match. He is the complete package and we need to get his confidence up and in fact that goes for the team. As an all-rounder myself I know that all one needs is a big score or a good haul and the rest starts working. This is about getting his confidence up. Once that happens, he will perform.

[Cricket Tragic]

Kirsten has apparently recommended Duncan Fletcher to the BCCI.

[vijay810]

I recommend Stephen Fleming............Respected his tactical moves as captain...........Can pass on lot of knowledge Gambhir and others ...for future captaincy..........plus Dhoni and he have worked together at CSK.....Dhonis mind and Stephens strategies together can make achieve what Dhoni said "I dont mind repeating it all over again". If that happens by 2015 we should have one T20 title and the main target should be 2015 Wcup...........That would be fantastic..winning WC in Australia

[Chandan]

I recommend Stephen Fleming............Respected his tactical moves as captain...........Can pass on lot of knowledge Gambhir and others ...for future captaincy..........plus Dhoni and he have worked together at CSK.....Dhonis mind and Stephens strategies together can make achieve what Dhoni said "I dont mind repeating it all over again". If that happens by 2015 we should have one T20 title and the main target should be 2015 Wcup...........That would be fantastic..winning WC in Australia

Fleming is not yet ready for a full time coaching job. According to him, he is still learning his trade for the six weeks stint at IPL. Link

Stephen Fleming’s name has been doing the rounds as a possible successor to Gary Kirsten as India coach but the former New Zealand captain has said again that he had no plans of taking up a full-time coaching job yet. The Telegraph had first reported that Fleming may come into the picture as Kirsten’s successor, on January 13. However, Fleming quickly dismissed it saying that coaching wasn’t an important part of his life at the moment. On Friday, he reiterated his views. “I’m enjoying coaching Chennai Super Kings (CSK). It is a good experience. But I haven’t thought a lot about my coaching career. It is something that I’ll consider as time goes on,” said Fleming after the CSK lost to the Mumbai Indians. “It’s a great challenge for these two months of the year. I am still learning my coaching philosophies in this period,” Fleming said. The BCCI is yet to decide on a coach after the exit of Kirsten who ended a highly successful tenure with the World Cup victory. Fleming, former Zimbabwea captain and former England coach Duncan Fletcher, and current England coach Andy Flower’s names have cropped up for the high profile job. Of late, Fletcher has emerged as a strong contender for the job.

[WC2011INDIA]

Kirsten has apparently recommended Duncan Fletcher to the BCCI.

We need a middle aged coah. Someone in his 40's.

[Show_stopper]

I hope the BCCI approaches Kepler Wessels(sp?) and another S.African for the bowling coach's role.

[Karan114]

Interesting Kirsten has recommended Fletcher. He was a fairly strong personality in his time with England, not sure how well it would work with our guys.

[Cricket Tragic]

Interesting Kirsten has recommended Fletcher. He was a fairly strong personality in his time with England' date=' not sure how well it would work with our guys.[/quote'] Yeah, a bit suprising for me as well. Fletcher doesn't take any **** and likes to run the show. The likes of G Jones and Giles were picked only because of him. He also has an obsession with bowlers being of a certain speed. If you are below that, he won't pick you no matter how well you bowl. He almost finished the career of Sidebottom because of this and called him "an honest county bowler but nothing more". He also didn't rate Swann at all. He basically started the system of picking guys to release for county matches. He won't get that sort of control in India. If Kirsten has recommended him, they must have had a chat and spoken about how things work. According to the TOI, the BCCI is also thinking of having BOTH Fletcher and Fleming on the tour to WI before deciding on one. :omg:

[Karan114]

That's right CT, he is very rigid in his beliefs re pace bowlers and orthodox finger spinners and Sidebottom and Swann are both good examples of his inability to see beyond those beliefs (he is convinced that a finger spinner needs to be able to bat and field to be useful at international level). I think he's got a good brain as batting coach (I follow his articles on Guardian blogs and some of the technical stuff is interesting) but elsewhere he is lacking. And as you say he can forget about getting that level of control in India - and dealing with BCCI officials is another task in itself (Kirsten had to cajole them into giving even the most obvious things like sending the players to SA instead of NZ ODI series because of that ridiculous schedule). As for the ToI report, hope its their usual total masala because otherwise :hysterical: :WTF:

[Zelig]

Darren Lehmann or Greg Shipperd :hmmm:

[CoverDrive]

so far fleming looks like a front runner and the safer and less risky choice. He is also likely to gel well with dhoni and he has been a successful captain for a very long time. Duncan fletcher is probably a better technical coach battingwise but he is probably not a good fit personality wise.

[Chandan]

Have you guys read this interview of John Wright? Pretty insightful. 'To become a good coach you need to have good cricketers' John Wright talks about the place of coaching in the modern game and looks at his assignment with New Zealand, as well as his time with India a few years ago Interview by Sharda Ugra April 21, 2011 If cricket coaching could be transported into extreme sport, John Wright would probably not opt for the elastic security of his native bungee, or even skydiving. Wright would be a BASE jumper, the stuff of shorter freefall and greater hazard, leaps taken off buildings and cliffs. Better not go further with the metaphor, though; Wright doesn't even like flying in an airplane too much. Yet it's no coincidence that both his international coaching jobs so far have involved risk-taking and a sense of why-the-hell-not? Coming cold into India in 2000, and then, 10 years later, joining up as New Zealand coach, with a team at an ebb and two months left for a World Cup, does indicate an appetite for adventure. At the World Cup, the previously easybeat Kiwis strangled South Africa in the quarter-final before losing their semi-final. The sight of a baying pack in black astonished many, the result shook the World Cup's rafters. Wright says drily, "I'd rather that happen than for us to leave limping meekly. We're not playing in a church or a classroom." Those words are not quite in sync with his decades-old image as "nice guy" and "gentleman." While the image is not entirely untrue, it's not entirely him either. In a game situation, the hard-bitten on-field competitor in Wright would always punch the gentleman's lights out. It is how his coaching works. The basics over the bull, the "wins" column over the window-dressing. He is today one of the world's most seasoned coaches, an individualist in a world of jargon-junkies and cheerleaders. In his time away from the disco lights of Indian cricket, Wright's kinship with the country has only grown deeper. At the World Cup, New Zealand never had a shortage of net bowlers; hotel staff talked family with Wright; his India captain, Sourav Ganguly, called to give batting tips ("Don't play square so much", "When tackling spin in India, keep your legs out of the way"). Wright watched the World Cup final in his home outside Christchurch, pleased to see many men from the 2003 final laugh and cry, celebrate and be celebrated. In between the two big jobs, he got an offer to head the Australian Centre of Excellence in Brisbane, worked as New Zealand High Performance manager, contemplated frequent IPL coaching offers (at last count, three), and late last year was about to sign a World Cup TV contract in India. Then he was asked to walk through a door that until then - to the utter bewilderment of the outside world - had been kept shut between a tailspinning national team and its country's most prominent international coach. Once again John Wright took a leap into the unknown. He spoke to ESPNcricinfo in two parts; the business of coaching and modern cricket was discussed during the World Cup, and matters New Zealand early last week. What is your assessment of how the World Cup went for New Zealand? What did the World Cup prove to you about the Black Caps? That we can beat anyone. Losing in the semi-finals was bitterly disappointing, but I hope the team has learnt. I think it has grown. What's important is that we just played as hard as we could with the resources we had. The semi-final was just a case of the batting going wrong, wasn't it? We won the toss at the Premadasa which was a bonus, but we couldn't achieve what we wanted to with the bat in the last 10 overs. We had a pretty good target to achieve. We knew that a 240-250 target in a semi-final would be tough, but we had our hiccups in the latter phases. We just didn't get to where we needed to be with our batting. We lost three wickets just when we were about to take the Powerplay. When we came into the break, what we talked about was that we just needed to replicate the attitude and the quality of our display in the previous game. We didn't have much to play with but if we went out there with the attitude we had in the quarter-final, you never know what could happen. In a one-off tournament anyone can be beaten. In the team's net session in Ahmedabad, batsmen weren't allowed to hit over the net? What was that about? We have got a lot of good ball-strikers, but we hadn't had a lot of hundreds before the World Cup, and that's been really because we have not been prepared to work the ones and twos. It's all very well to be a net tiger and play all the big shots. Before the Australia game I saw we were were hitting the ball all over the place, but when we went out there we found that didn't work against a good bowling attack, and we had to knuckle down. So we changed how we trained. The guys didn't like it very much for a start because it challenged them. It was a way of getting them to work on their first 10 minutes on the batting crease. So if they practise irresponsibly, they'll go out and someone else will get a bat. I think you have to practise with purpose, as if it is going to help your game. The du Plessis incident surprised a lot of people. No one had seen the Kiwis sledge someone so hard. The captain got fined. Well, it wasn't carefully rehearsed. But I'd rather that happen that the other way around, to go out limping meekly. We're not playing in a church or a classroom. As coach, what was your best moment from the World Cup? Seeing a team starting to believe in themselves and in each other. That's a big thing. The fight the boys showed tells you about the team - that it can get better. We have the opportunities at this stage to get better. What's with these almost self-destructive jobs you like to take on? First India, which you didn't know much about and then a struggling New Zealand, two months before a World Cup. The Indian one was sort of just an opportunity you couldn't miss: to be the first foreigner to coach India. I always thought if I got the opportunity and if I hadn't had a go at it, I would have regretted that when I was at 60 - not much older than I am now, really! It's been a great life experience for me, to be honest. This one, New Zealand, was slightly different. I'd been working for New Zealand Cricket for two years and a bit. They had hired various coaches, and I probably was their last resort. I thought the side could play a bit and just needed a bit of tweaking and changing one or two things. I suppose it was a bit like unfinished business - to come back to India and do a World Cup with your own country. It's nice to be back coaching. After India, I of had two years of recovering, fixing up the farm, and working with some of the younger New Zealand players - a variety of roles, a little bit of a coaching. I wanted to get back to team coaching. I like the competitiveness of team coaching, of having games where you want to win. I like that. It can be… not nerve-wracking, but it keeps you on your toes. What from your Indian experience have you learnt or unlearnt? You just keep learning. First of all, the way you become a good coach is, you need to have good cricketers. And that's it. Not only good cricketers, if you get that combination of a great cricketer and a very competitive character, a good character, certain behaviours. You look at the way that people react to competition, to pressure, all those things. It's just moulding all of that together. I've always believed in old-fashioned stuff: work ethic, honesty, and really enjoying playing for the team you are in, whatever that is. Coaching is just moulding a group that has the skills and the attitude to win. It's probably a different challenge with this team, with difference pieces that perhaps we haven't got, that we had with India, and vice-versa. You just work all that out. I think most coaches come into an environment and they have to sit and listen and look and find out where what needs to go, where, if you do make a change, it makes the biggest impact, and hopefully you win games of cricket. One of the things I learnt in India is that you are so dependent on what goes on underneath the national team. When we mentioned to Mr [Jagmohan] Dalmiya [former BCCI president] that A teams are really, really important so we had to have regular A-team touring, it made a lot of difference. It creates heat on the incumbents, which is good, because you don't want comfort zones. Then again, the selection has to be very accurate and ruthless, and you have to have succession planning. I don't think many countries get that right, personally. I think you have to be thinking a year ahead, at least. That doesn't mean you're changing the team now, but you know you have to. You can't stand still. Where does it stand in New Zealand at the moment? I just feel we have got a long way to go. We are missing one or two bits here and there, and we've got some good youngsters coming through underneath. If we get them some really tough playing opportunities to bridge the gap between international and first-class, in two or three years time we could have a good side. Given the team's poor results last year, isn't New Zealand Cricket worried about reduced public interest or the shrinking of the talent pool? I spent the last two-three years working with 16-19-year-old kids, some of them now 20-21. Kane Williamson is in this team, Adam Milne was in the Under-19 teams. We've got four or five, maybe six, kids that really show a lot of potential. I've been really impressed with some of the talent I've seen in the last couple of years in U-17 and U-19 tournaments. I know that as long as we can put a playing programme in place for these guys coming through, it challenges them and bridges the gap between first-class and international cricket. The ones with that talent, the ones that really want to make it, we could hopefully hold on to. There will be a few changes from this team over the next years. The opportunity for the boys to earn huge money with the IPL, of the kind we wouldn't be able to generate in New Zealand, is exciting. That may attract more kids to play the game, or think about it anyway. The critical question is whether the administration makes the right cricketing decisions. Much was said about how you had been kept off the coaching job because of player power in New Zealand. What's it like working with perhaps the most powerful of New Zealand's players, Dan Vettori? I'm all for player power, particularly if it's on the field. Dan's been great to work with. I've enjoyed working with him and we have got to know each other. As captain, he tried to lead with performance on the field, and he achieved that. The 2015 World Cup in New Zealand is going to have only 10 teams. As someone who's been a part of the tournament, do you agree with the idea? The World Cup has got to be about the world - they [the ICC] have to be sure they have got the 10 best teams in it. No matter where they come from. Otherwise it's a nonsense. Surely it doesn't take eight years to sort that one out. Ireland were a revelation this time. They have shown they can knock over big sides. There needs to be some incentive for the [Associate] teams to get the opportunity to play in the World Cup. Fifteen-odd years into coaching, is there anything that you did in the past that you wouldn't do now? The one thing I wouldn't do is overestimate the importance of the role of coach. Because I think there's a lot written about this and that. It's the players that win you the games, that's it. As a coach you can do some things, but when you sum it all up, matches are won because DW Smith got 124 or SL Patel took 6 for 38, and they, the players, did it. You've been involved with two very different teams. In a skill-driven sport like cricket, what do teams really need to win - talent or application? In India, belief was a big thing [when] playing away. That was built slowly, like a win here and a win there. Now they have got that and the latest crop has taken it to a much higher level. I mean, a simple thing like fitness. When you look at it, when I first started, it was a coach and a physio, and it took us a year and a half to convince people that a fitness trainer might help. The support team now with the Indians is very, very professional. So there were lots of areas of improvement. In the end it's about working particularly with your captain and your seniors players, to say that, "Well, look this is probably the way to go if you guys want to be a part of a winning team." You have got to be able to sell it to them. Not only sell it, sometimes you have to convince them and sometimes you just instruct. But in the end they have got to take ownership. If you can't sell it, you can end up frustrated and you are probably not a right fit with that group. The best thing is to have a highly talented player who has the best attitude and wants to be the best player in the world. It's not common but coaches can get a few of those. Look at all the good teams - they have five or six or seven of those. Now if you are playing international sport and you don't have that attitude - those individuals who like to compete and have a lot of courage, you're not going to make it. Personally I've [given] a high score on attitude or character, or whatever you like to call it, because I don't think you get it on talent. There's a huge amount of talent everywhere; getting both in a package is fantastic. You have to have a certain amount of ability, but I think the players that have attitude will always go further. You probably want people [who], if you had to go to war, you wouldn't mind them being on the same bus. Culture becomes immaterial, then? I think you have to be mindful of the culture you are in. I would always try and be me wherever I work, but you have to appreciate where you are. It took me two years to work out how things worked in India. I could never work out why there were 15 players with every team at home when all we needed was 12. But that's fair enough, you understand and accept it. One of the things you get quoted a lot is saying that you can't coach "want". How, as a coach, can you pick want? That's easy. A ten-mile run will answer that. You see it in the way a player approaches everything, particularly on the training ground, particularly how they react to individual success or failure. What would you say has changed about you since your two international jobs? When I coached India there was so much at the start. You were virtually coaching for your career, every game almost. It was trying to manage your emotions that was important. I think I used to take the losses when I was coaching India a bit personally, which is not so much now. I'm a bit older and wiser. I don't know how the boys see it, though. I wanted to make a difference with India, and so it meant a lot. Here I'm a bit calmer. It's a big role in terms of New Zealand, but actually coaching the All Blacks would be similar to coaching India, in a much smaller fashion - a country of four million to a billion people. You get better at things, areas you try and improve, areas where you need to improve. I still don't smile much during matches. What's said most commonly about the Indian team is that they play with so much expectation surrounding them, while the Black Caps don't really have to deal with that. Does the pressure of expectation bring a team closer? Or does having a relaxed environment produce better cricket? I think any fan, whatever sport they watch, just wants to know that their team plays with a lot of courage, plays with a lot of fight. I know that all New Zealanders - and we've had a bit of an up-and-down period - want to see their team wants to play good cricket, is proud to play their sport for their country, and fight like hell. Realistically, man for man, against some teams, statistically we don't match up, but if we can put on a good performance, people will accept that,. And it wasn't too much different in India… although, come to think of it, it was different. Fighting was important but you had to win. As a foreign coach, you had to win. Sourav and the boys, we had a good cricket team, and we needed to win. As New Zealand coach, are you tempted to talk about the team you played for in the 80s? No, absolutely not, they're not interested. A lot of them would have [had] the 80s rammed down their throat. Some of the guys who have played in the 80s are commentators now. It is good to reflect on the past, but as a coach you don't do that at all. Players want to set their own era. A few things you want to avoid [as a coach] is saying, "Don't do this" and "In my day." We were playing Test cricket and we weren't a great one-day side. The modern cricketer is interested in the Twenty20 landscape. There are many more choices. They are professional sportsmen and are earning lots of money. When you work with them for New Zealand, you want a good support crew around so they feel like they're playing for the team, but they have also got other things they do too. So whatever you are, it is that team thing that you are talking about, about getting the culture right. As coach, the other thing is simple: you put a group around you - the physio, the trainer. Bob Simpson, who had a big influence on my coaching career, always told me that as a coach you always try and get your batsmen to score more runs and bowlers to take more wickets. You always go back to that, because if a player is not learning his own game, he will, after a time, become a little dissatisfied. You are trying to help them learn their game, trying to put together a team that wins, because that's how you have fun playing international cricket. It's not fun losing. All your fun comes from winning and that's how it should be. What about modern coaching do you not like? Having a lot of meetings sometimes doesn't make much sense to me. Generally I think they are overrated. I'll try anything if you think it's going to make you win and make a player work. As a coach you're constantly thinking of what those things are. I have probably done some dumb things over the years myself, but the longer you go on, certainly I think you can throw away a lot of the meaningless stuff. I've always thought there are two levels. There is the team thing and then there are the individuals. The trick is finding the key that turns the lock for a player and gets the best out of that player. I would have to say I have seen a lot of kids get messed up by poor coaching. Saying stuff when it just complicates it for the individual or the team, I think that's just someone trying to justify their role, and I really don't have time for that. Sometimes it's easier to say, "Look, this is what we need to achieve." Good people and good players generally work out how to get there. They might need a bit of tweaking, and if they go down a blind alley, you send them back. That's where selection is critical and the characters you pick and the make-up you pick. The other thing that I hate is when people start talking about others. I always think they should look at their own game first. That's really important. Once you start reviewing each other, you don't review yourself first. And that applies to coaches and everyone. You can't just blame the players. You're interested in the work of other coaches. What's the latest going on there? I was reading Roy Keane's book and the boys are reading it too. His insights on [Alex] Ferguson, for instance, were very interesting. He was obviously a very, very good operator, with a great attention to detail, and he stood up for his players. Meeting other coaches is fantastic, but you don't get too many chances, so I read up a lot. These days it's almost like you've got to have several PhDs to qualify for some of these job descriptions. I always go back to coaching the game and coaching the skill and then putting the management structure around it. I think when you are at the international level you are always judged by your results. So don't fluff over them with all the other stuff. You've played and seen limited-overs cricket for close to four decades now. Where do you think the game is now? I think the all-round batting is of a higher standard. The ball-striking ability is something that has really evolved since Twenty20, and players are smart about it. The running between the wickets varies from team to team. There are more shots, a lot more players now play the reverse sweep than they ever did. They are probably more fearless now. The boundaries aren't huge, and players look at someone on the boundary and say, "I've got the power to hit over them." That used to be the bad option, but now there are players that can do that at will. Whether this means that Twenty20 specialists will be the way to go, though, I don't know. We must see how the stats of the good Twenty20 players came through in the World Cup. I think your more all-round batsmen will come through in 50 overs. Whereas in Twenty20, it's your impact players, who don't bat for long. But you still have to set an innings up in 50-over cricket. And that is set up by the top four. If someone out of that gets a hundred, then you're going to be okay. How does coaching work in Twenty20 now? My first match with New Zealand was a Twenty20, and I hadn't worked that before. It was interesting. You have to be really fast tactically, you need to get people in the right places quickly - like, your batting order can change. And then where you bowl and who you bowl to. It will get to a stage, I feel, where you will have match-ups. You put that bowler to that batsman. You can do a lot of research in that area. For the bowlers, the variation of deliveries is really big. That's probably come through in the World Cup: slow bouncers, all sorts of different balls, taking the pace off the ball... Spinners are a lot more effective than people thought they'd be in limited-overs cricket, mainly because [batsmen] can't use the pace of the ball. I enjoy Twenty20 because I think it'll evolve into a lot of match-ups, where you put players who will have an impact, and player stats will get more important. Your research and planning will have to be interesting. What's the point of having a player with a strike rate of below 130, for instance? You look at all that information, you look at players that can bowl at different times and in different places. Now sometimes when you look at how IPL franchises assign values to different players, sometimes you just say, "How does that match up with the stats?" I think it's like baseball where numbers will be really important. Eventually players will be bought and sold on those valuations. Twenty20 is only going to evolve that side of the game. As a coach, you don't have to sit for so long and I think there's no time to get anxious because Twenty20 is pretty cut and thrust, pretty intense. Did you follow the IPL auction? Yes, we were in the changing room, having finished a day's play and it was an hour after that. The boys were following it on their phones. Ross Taylor was sitting on the couch, and was sold for a million. So that was the fastest million you've ever seen. It was quite surreal. But that's where it's going. What's the type of coach India now need, given that Gary Kirsten is leaving? Gary Kirsten's done a great job. What type of coach? Just a good one. The team is at an interesting stage. It's probably going to be a younger team in two or three years. It's something the BCCI is going to have to think about. Obviously what they want is someone who can win games of cricket with India. One who can work with the players and challenge them to keep getting better. Coaching is a lot of man management, being a hard task-master, and yet, also making a player feel good about himself. In reality it's a mixture of both: you have to do both things and you have to work out how to do it with each individual.

[fineleg]

We got Duncan Fletcher now :bubblegum: