My best coach and another (timely??) prospective

[imahmud]

My best coach and another (timely??) prospective

Note: I don’t expect any of my ideas stated will be taken literally. I am merely suggesting some of my ideas/solutions which only reflect my own view in order to secure a practical coaching solution for our team.


In the thread “The next BD coach”, there is a very good list of coaches compiled to get fans opinion and on the other hand our BCB is indicating something else they have in their mind. They have their own compiled 6 coaches as mentioned in the thread. But I would like to propose a different prospective, a different way of coaching our cricketers to practically coach and improve our cricket.


We had a history of consistency problem which is comparable of seeing a shooting star. You never know when one could see it and it usually being seen when it is less expected. In the past, we had a team like the shooting star. From that phase to our new phase, where now we can say that, “in our day, we can beat any team in the world”. This is definitely an improvement because during Khaled Mahmud and the past era, we could not even claim it.


Our biggest problem is consistency of our mainly batsman and bowler (better but not like the BIG brothers yet) and fielding. Our traditional approach is to hire A good coach. Think about it, Chicago Bulls in the past NBA (1991-1998), hired (promoted) Phil Jackson and guided Chicago Bulls in the NBA hall of fame. Of course, Chicago Bulls had players like Micheal Jordan and Scotty Pippen and many more. Same successes followed; when he coached already star loaded L.A Lakers. He would not have had same success if he would have coached any other low profile NBA team. That’s why Australia and and Sri Lanka are so successful. They hire a one Phil Jackson and they already have Chicago Bulls.


Dave Whatmore did a great job by improving the spirit of our team and made them believe in themselves and did an excellent job of promoting us and defending us in the world of cricket. We are at present, passed that era. We need to move forward and only Dave Whatmore can not do it all any longer and nor we should expect it from him or any other high profile coach. We need to look at our problem accordingly and prescribe a very practical solution to heal our team. I believe I made my point on the above paragraph (Phil Jackson) about that. It is time to think out of the box, take a different look into the problem.


In the year 2006, Ohio State University football team won the Fiesta Bowl and they were unbeaten. OSU is historically a great football team. I work at OSU and I recall that it was a well celebrated moment for the university. After the championship, I had to go to Buckeyes Hall of Fame Café for a meeting and there in a magazine, I read something very surprising to me and that is, the head coach of the Ohio State Buckeyes Jim Tressel heads a staff of approximately eighty:

• ten assistant coaches,
• a strength and conditioning staff of three,
• a program operations and support staff of eleven (including two part-time coaches),
• a sports medicine staff of eleven team physicians and seven consultants,
• twenty-five athletic trainers,
• six equipment managers, and
• approximately ten to twelve student managers.

Eighty staffs!! Well, here is my point; we don’t need A super high profile expensive coach. Thanks to Dave that he already established our arrival in world cricket successfully. But what we need is a solution, a system. First of all, under the guidance of a non expensive, highly potential (an Australian, may be) moderately affordable main coach, there would be a suitable number of staff coaches who will personally work with each (or some) of our player. In WC’07 some of our failure was due to the lack of match temperament and lack of highest level match skills. Our players are in need of a solid personal attention to improve and correct their weaknesses in order to play in the highest levels to avoid unexpected embarrassment. Secondly, we should have a program as a part of the system, of hiring some world class batting and bowling coaches in a temporary basis (as we are not paying too much for the primary coach) regularly to work with our players and the assistant coaches under the guidance/supervision of the moderately affordable primary coach. After their stint, the assistant coaches can continue work on each of the players as suggested by the consult coaches. We can hire some retired very high profile bowling and batting personals, who has a good tracking record of our cricket and players, as a consultant as neither these consultants can commit themselves as a fulltime coach nor we can afford them. But their experience and assistance would be invaluable for our team and it won’t be astronomical to afford them because of its short nature, just like running an IT now a days. Another benefit is that these assistant coaches not only could carry on providing personal intensive training to our players to strengthen their technique and correct their weaknesses but it will also train/guide these assistant coaches to be a great resource for our youth level.


One high profile expensive coach won’t resolve our problem; there is no single silver bullet. What we need is a collective solution, a system where we can individually pay attention and correct and strengthen skills our players and that’s what we need for our highly talented young team. One by one it will help us build a strong team. To move a mountain, you start by moving each rock.


I believe in “thinking cricket”. Success will come when our players will learn to think. Please don’t loose your heart in our failure because failure is the best way we can learn our weakness. Without learning our weakness, we can never be successful as we watched it against the best teams. I may not be thinking in traditional way, but so is the modern cricket. We see now a day, the coaches are using baseball gloves, fielders sliding like baseball fielders and etc. Then why should not we start thinking much more innovative way which will benefit our team, our players, our bowlers, our cricket and it would be our custom solution….

[cricket_king]

All excellent ideas........but you havent stated how the BCB is going to afford all this.

[TheWatcher]

Shane Warne has proposed something of this sort recently -

Which brings me to my main point about coaches: I don’t think there is any need for them at international level. As Ian Chappell has said: “The only time you should need a coach is to drive to and from the ground.”

Rather than a coach, an international team should have a team manager, or co-ordinator, who acts as a facilitator for his captain. Beyond that, the captain should be in complete charge of everything to do with the cricket.

If something is going wrong, that’s when the manager has the responsibility of bringing in expert help. No one coach knows everything about the game.

When I need assistance, I talk to Terry Jenner [the spin-bowling coach], who knows my game inside out. If one of the Australia batsmen are struggling, they might consult Ian Chappell. The point is that by the time you become an international cricketer, you've been through most of the game’s ins and outs and you should know what you need. This may not be true of some younger players, but they can turn to senior players for advice.

Before long, I think that international teams will come back round to the role of a team manager. The big disadvantage of having so many powerful coaches is that players have forgotten how to think for themselves. Too many rely on others telling them what to do.

- Times Online

[TheWatcher]

However I don't think Warne's view can apply to Bangladesh - a team made of young and inexperienced players. In international cricket, you face many different kind of players in many different conditions (different size of fields, pitches, weather condition). You have lots of variables to work with here and it is very important for you to have someone wise and experienced to guide you through different situations.

[thasan]

hmm...the idea is new but im not sure whether it is the perfect solution. personally i would like to see more than one assistant bowling and batting coach under main bowling and batting coaches. also a fielding coach. all will be reporting to the head coach. but im sure BCB will be taking a conservative approach.

[thasan]

i dont think affording the coaches is going to be a problem. we have so many BIG companies now a days who will be more than happy to sponsor individual coaching departments (if that is realistic from marketing point of view!)

[imahmud]

In my posting, when I talked about "staff coaches", I meant our local coaches who can be part of it and learn from the invited temporary coaches. They could be our recently retired players and they are certainly affordable.

[Fortuner]

Excellent one. keep it up!

I hope BCB reads this or atleast thinks like this.

Actually, i wld say no wonder we need Richard McInnes only.

[roaring tigerz]

good to hear your 'perspective.' i do believe that cricket has already veered towards specialized training staff. most international teams have a whole crew comprising of specialist coaches , trainers and physios. and I agree, that assembling the right team of backroom staff would be more beneificial for our cricket than spending our bottom dollar on some celebrity coach.