Road ahead: Centre of excellence wanted

In the ongoing series, Cricket Australia is investigating the bowling shoes of their pacers. Shoe is as central to bowling as bat is to batting. The point to emphasise is that Australia are getting to the root of injuries and trying to eradicate it. Have we done anything like this, I wonder.

In India, research is a neglected area. As a consequence, our quicks are breaking down rapidly. Why is it that the Australians are able to diagnose injuries and get their bowlers ready in three to four months? Our bowlers undergo rehabilitation, but somehow the injuries resurface when they go back. Few understand what led to the injuries in the first place. It’s here that the aspect of coaching comes into play.

These days there are many certified coaches around. They do two-week courses and call themselves Level II or Level III coaches. It’s not your certificate but knowledge that matters. You’ve to coach according to the bowler’s needs. First, you’ve to understand if the bowler’s action and technique is natural to his body.

Dennis Lillee, who spearheaded the MRF Pace Foundation, would need merely three balls to identify a bowler’s problem. He rewrote the science of fast bowling; his methods were scientific and proven. Lillee would constantly update himself. He introduced new methodologies and moderated exercises to suit Indian bodies. Now, we have better fast bowlers than spinners.

If you’ve played 100 Test matches and taken 400 wickets, it’s not necessary that you can become a good coach. We need to grow out of myths. How does one react to stuff like Ramakant Desai would start bowling in October and stop only in April? There’s more, for instance some former greats are averse to the idea of quick bowlers hitting the gym. And they’re the ones who actually go to the gym.

If you’re a fast bowler, your muscles have to be strong to take the impact of the body weight. Your muscles give you power to run. Were athletes like Ben Johnson thin? Fast bowling is an explosive activity. If you don’t have the power, how can you generate the explosion?

There’s little awareness of the body weight or the stress that goes below a fast bowler’s hip joints. If a quickie is 70 kg and bowls 10 overs, he adds at least 550 to 700 kg on each joint. How many coaches know this? Not many because most Indian coaches are batsmen.

Also, there’s nothing called general coaching. Each individual is different and has his own set of problems that call for specific solutions. Let me cite the example of Munaf Patel.

We worked on Munaf when he came to Chennai (at the MRF Pace Foundation). Munaf never had formal coaching. He had played only tennis-ball cricket. Initially he had diagonal run-up. We made it slightly straighter. We got him closer to the wicket and asked him to complete his follow-through. He started clocking 145 kmph.

When he joined the Indian team, the so-called great coaches likened him to Glenn McGrath and made him a 127 kmph bowler. If a bowler has decided what his pace must be, what can we do? That’s one of the reasons he’s not in the Test team. If you’re playing international cricket, you should be able to bowl 135-plus.

I’ve been advocating an institution like Australia’s Centre of Excellence in Brisbane. I’m not in a position to comment on the National Cricket Academy because I was never involved with it.

The Centre of Excellence identifies cricketers who have international potential. They have short-term, long-term and medium-term plans. It is a chain of events. They screen fast-bowlers, understand their body composition. Accordingly they make a programme and ensure that the local physio follow it.

I strongly feel the Indian cricket board should have its own centre
of excellence. If you can’t do it, you might as well give private bodies a chance.

The writer is a former India pacer. He was chief coach at the MRF Pace Foundation in Chennai and has mentored IPL sides Delhi Daredevils and Mumbai Indians

To be continued...

Think aloud: If you have ideas on how to take Indian cricket forward, then don’t hesitate to speak out. Send in your suggestions and the best among them will be published in these columns. Put on your thinking cap and write to sports@dnaindia.net