Meuleman - The man behind Gilly’s squash ball

ADELAIDE: After smashing a blistering century against Sri Lanka in the World Cup final in Barbados last April, Adam Gilchrist took a squash ball out from his gloves and waved it to the television cameras.

Who was he waving to? In case you did not know, it was not to his team mates but to his batting coach, Bob Meuleman, who was back home in Perth. Gilchrist did that again in Perth, again against Sri Lanka last week. This time, Meuleman was at the WACA to accept Gilchrist’s appreciation. It was an honest acknowledgement from a great player to a proud coach.

The coach says it was not the first time Gilchrist had stuffed a squash ball into his glove. “It was not an overnight development. He has been doing it for nearly 10 years,” he tells DNA.Meuleman, in true Aussie style, was a player of modest success but a coach with a great vision.

He was the batting coach of players like Justine Langer and Damien Martyn too. Meuleman, who has worked with Gilchrist for more than 10 years, says he found an unusual grip in the left-hander.

 “He has a long bottom hand. He wasn’t able to grip it properly. His left hand was getting lost in his shots. By stuffing in the squash ball, he got a better grip. It made it easy for him to play the upper hand shots too - that is front foot drives, back foot drives and square drives. But above all, the squash ball helped him to hit the bottom hand shots easily - that is cut and pulls shots.”

Before going to the World Cup, Gilchrist had played a first class match against New South Wales and scored a century. The coach thinks it may not instantly help players like Sachin Tendulkar because it requires a tremendous amount of practice, which Gilly has been doing. Even Ricky Ponting tried out the squash ball.

“Adam has told me that even Ricky has used that in the nets. But I do not know if he ever did it in an international.” But why a squash ball? “It is tiny and it is not hard, like a golf ball. And remember if you were to use it, use an old squash ball, not a new one,” Meuleman says.

Before Gilchrist left for the West Indies, the coach had given him six worn squash balls.
Meuleman, whose family has produced three generations of cricketers who have scored centuries in the Sheffield Shield — his father Ken, his son Scot and himself — played a lot of squash and has realised that the ball has utility in cricket too.

Gilchrist and Meuleman have come a long way since their first meeting in mid-90s. Meuleman, then a selector of Western Australia, was one of the few who were willing to accept him as the wicket-keeper batsman for the WA. There was a general feeling of ‘resentment’ among his other colleagues.

“It was hard to convince the cricket management and other selectors. But I am happy we accepted him. It was a right decision,” Meuleman recalls. Gilchrist was a New South Wales reject and WA had international Tim Zoeher as their first choice keeper.
“It was not easy to replace Tim. He was a great keeper. But he was hard to handle,” Meuleman recalls.

“It led to a lot of public outcry and Adam was accorded a mixed reception. There was more negative than positive response. Now of course there is only positive and positive. The Western Australia has produced its best cricketer ever.”