New Delhi: Former India fast bowler Paras Mhambrey… National Cricket Academy (NCA) chief Rahul DravidTrusted Lt. in the last six years. He is in charge of India Under-19, India ‘A’ and a bowling coach at NCA.
As Indian cricket gears up to resume domestic cricket and junior cricket, Mhambrey offers TOI a glimpse of the challenges ahead for the NCA to retain the strong pool of cricketers it has enjoyed over the past year. Indian cricket has been seen through the pandemic.
There is no traditional coaching manual in NCA…
“You need to work with what you have. We have some players who haven’t gone through age group cricket and formal coaching. It’s not about changing anything or going by the book, but just a player. It’s about making it more effective. We have to see that according to a coaching manual, you change something and then there is a possibility of the player getting injured.”
With so much competition all around, educating upcoming players on the workload…
Everyone including Rahul (Dravid) sits down with the players to discuss the statistics and statistics on how many balls they have bowled in practice. You educate them saying that players usually get injured in two or three weeks from a certain point. For example, in 2017-18, Mohd. Siraj He bowled a lot and he took a lot of wickets. There was a match in Bangalore in which we were playing against South Africa ‘A’. The trainers felt it was a good time to pull him back. Any player who is in and taking wickets obviously wants to build on that, the opportunity to play for the team arises. We explained to him why we were doing this and finally he was convinced.
planning the pace-bowling transition for team india…
We need to see where the seniors are right now. How long do you see Ishant or A? Shami are playing. We are seeing how much cricket this youngster needs to pass this experience to the next generation. It’s all about giving enough experience to the little one. They need to play more. It is about creating an environment where these young boys like Siraj, Shardul, Avesh and Deepak Chahar thrive before moving into the next lot.
The challenge of preparing an all-format bowler…
We have reached a point where we need specialist fast bowlers across formats. We would be happy to have a way out for maybe two formats, not all three. you have someone like that Bumrah Immediately. He played the longer format but for a long time it was only the short format. But he has a lot of work to do off the field. If you have people who are willing to work really hard to get through the workload, I think you can create an opportunity.
Fast bowling all-rounder…
It’s always going to be difficult. We don’t have them at the grassroots level. At the U-19 level, we had a few of them, but they couldn’t. We need to bring them under one umbrella and focus on them. Even state associations need to work here. There is a definite challenge at the higher level that these all-rounders worry about getting injured and hence they don’t put too much emphasis on their bowling. They need reassurance from the support staff that they will be taken care of. If they can work through it, there are rewards.
Working on U-19 cricket with WC three months away…
The challenge is discussing in person what the special child has gone through over the past two years. There is no record. Some people were able to practice a little more than others. Then comes strength and conditioning and there will be an assessment in terms of fitness. We have to assess quickly whatever time frame is available to us.
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