T A Sekar has shaped many a bowler's career and the head coach at the MRF Pace Academy derives immense satisfaction from seeing a remodelled Irfan Pathan.
NEW DELHI: T A Sekar has shaped many a bowler's career and the head coach at the MRF Pace Academy derives immense satisfaction from seeing a remodelled Irfan Pathan tormenting the Australians on their home turf.
After his meteoric rise, Pathan's form took a nosedive with the left-arm seamer losing both pace and, more importantly, swing.
Soon the Baroda seamer headed for Chennai to fix the problem and Sekar is elated that working on Pathan's action was not a waste of time.
"He came to the academy seeking to correct those areas. There we worked on his basics and made a few technical changes. His action was slightly remodelled and see how he is now back on track," Sekar said on Tuesday.
With his swing back, Pathan proved more than handy on the WACA track and was a vital factor behind India's historic win in Perth with a performance that also earned him the Man of the Match award.
The grateful young seamer thanked Sekar after the Test.
"Once he had corrected those areas, both the speed and swing were back and it was good to see him torment Australia," Sekar said.
"It was a good match for him with the bat as well. We always knew he was more than useful with the bat. In fact, he has it in him to be a genuine all-rounder," the former pacer-turned-coach said.
India's bunch of medium pacers caught Australia napping in Perth but Sekar was not surprised.
"I always had full faith in RP Singh and Pathan. They don't have the pace of some of the Australian bowlers but they still proved difficult to handle."
According to Sekar, the performance of the Indian attack in Perth only proves that pace bowling is not all about challenging the speed gun.
"If you bowl consistently at 135-140 kph and can move the ball, I think you can trouble any international batsman and that has been the case in Perth.
"It's not possible for everyone to bowl like a Brett Lee. Bowlers like him are born and not made. But the beauty of swing bowling is that it does not depend that much on the surface," he said.
Sekar, who was here to attend the Gatorade Pacers 2008 -- a talent hunt to find India's next pace sensation -- said though India has been traditionally seen as a hub of spin bowling, more and more pacers are bursting onto the scene.
"We have enormous prospect for fast bowling in the country. We need a uniform coaching module to groom them for the big league," he said.
Out of the 18 finalists who made it to the national camp of the talent hunt, 10 won a stint in the MRF Academy where they would hone their basics under pace guru Dennis Lillee.
Out of 4,000 participants, Shardul Thakur (Thane), Vishal Singh (Delhi), P Magizhendan (Bangalore), David Mathias (Bangalore), Rahul Sharma (Jamshedpur), R Suresh (Chennai), Wahid Syed (Mumbai), Aditya Dole (Mumbai), Samad Fallah
(Mumbai) and Deepak Chaudhary (Bhiwani) made it to the MRF academy.
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