Aye Aye Coach!

A story from Bob Simpson to Mike Hesson

For a team to work, or for that matter, a company, society or an entire civilisation to work, individual commitment to a group effort is absolutely necessary, he said. He also spoke a lot about mental toughness, discipline, the price of success, habit, faith, truth, results and winning.

He must have known. He was Vince Lombardi, the man who transformed the Green Bay Packers into the most dominant NFL team in the 1960s, and a shoo-in pick among history’s greatest coaches.

As the World Cup winds down towards the grand finale, we take look at the men behind the scenes, who have coached their teams to success.

“A leader must identify himself with the group, must back up the group, even at the risk of displeasing superiors. He must believe that the group wants from him a sense of approval. If this feeling prevails, production, discipline, morale will be high, and in return, you can demand the cooperation to promote the goals of the community.” – Vince Lombardi

Bob Simpson

Coaches were almost unheard of in cricket before 1985. If you ask someone from that era what a coach could or would have done with a Lillee or a Thommo, or a Holding or a Marshall, or a Viv Richards, the near-rhetorical nature of the question would raise eyebrows. It would also elicit a telling commentary on how the game was played in the good old days.

The gentleman’s game has seen no Bob Paisleys or Alex Fergusons. It didn’t need them back then. Not for cricket, drills such as running around cones. Even the 1983 World Cup winning Indian squad had only a manager, a man whose onerous tasks were to ensure hotel rooms are booked, and dinners with local Indian well-wishers in place.

Australia were one of the first to transform the way the game was played. They came out of the slump after being clobbered by the West Indies for years (the Windies won 12 of 21 tests played between the two teams in the period from 1978 to 1985), and the clumsy Kim Hughes era.

One of the men responsible for this transformation was Bob Simpson, who had captained the country in the past. Ian Chappell, an outspoken critic of coaching, is once said to have remarked that a coach is a bus to travel on. Simpson ignored Chappell’s predilection, and everyone else’s predictions, by getting Australian cricket back to the top of the world stage. The 1987 World Cup and the Frank Worrell Trophy were in the cabinet before he handed over the reins. His period also saw four Ashes triumphs.

Intikhab Alam

A burly man who honed his skills playing county cricket for Surrey, Alam was a diplomatic coach. That last part sounds a bit of a misnomer for someone from his part of the world. The team he managed had big egos in the form of Imran and Miandad, and plenty of young guns like Salim Malik and Rameez Raja, who would not take too kindly to coaching and authority.

He managed his role well enough, and his presence in the background provided the perfect backing to Imran’s leadership when Pakistan won the 1992 World Cup. He was also the manager of the team when Pakistan won the 2009 ICC World T20, making it a unique personal double.

Dav Whatmore

Another burly chap, Whatmore is one of the guys on this list who does not have much Test experience. He was born in Sri Lanka before he moved to Australia, so it was fitting that he took over the reins of the Lankan team for the 1996 tournament.

An affable man who does a lot of work at the grassroots level when compared to many others who simply pay lip service, he made a huge difference to the rag-tag outfit. By the end of 1995, Sri Lanka had won only 25% of the ODIs they had played in. That figure would soon go up.

He was one of the men behind the idea of using an attacking opening pair of Jayasuriya and Kaluwitharana as pinch hitters. It became a trend. Out went the dour Boycott types, and in came the smashers like Hayden and Gilchrist.

Geoff Marsh

Remember the clean shaven man playing alongside the moustachioed David Boon? He was a natural in one-dayers, scoring at an average of almost 40. The highlight of his playing career was the triumph in the 1987 tournament, a feat he repeated as coach with the team in 1999. He is, to date, the only one to have won the World Cup both as a player and as  a coach.

John Buchanan

A slender volume, it has 13 chapters. Some of them, as they appear in the Lionel Giles translation of 1910, are, Laying Plans, Weak Points and Strong, Manoeuvring and Energy. The subject ‘is a matter of life and death’, says the book, ‘a road either to safety or to ruin. Hence, it is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.’

People like Douglas MacArthur, the man who spearheaded the Allied Pacific campaign was said to have been influenced by it.

It influenced John Buchanan too.

Australia’s coach for a long period after Marsh quit, Buchanan used learnings from one of the oldest military treatises in the world, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, to motivate his team. Under his leadership, terms such as ‘mental disintegration’ became commonplace.

He did not give an inch. He turned team bonding sessions into army-style boot camps. He took the team to Gallipoli, the site of the ANZAC campaign in World War 2. He slipped match plans under the doors of journalists’ rooms—allegedly a case of hotel topography misread, but more likely an attempt at intimidating opponents through revealing secrets.

During his tenure, over an eight-year period, he toughened up the Aussies, already fierce competitors, and made them into a unit seemingly incapable of losing.

Gary Kirsten

He is one person who knows about hard work. And was not averse to a grind either. He once batted 14 hours after his team was made to follow on, showing focus and determination, the qualities that would come useful in his second career.

In the immediate aftermath of the 2007 world cup debacle, and the stifling Greg Chappell era, Indian cricket had to do a lot of soul searching. In came Gary Kirsten. He believed in strong preparation. He connected well with the players. He gave them enough room to express themselves. With his calm demeanour, he took the team to various triumphs including a series win in New Zealand after 40 years. Under him, India moved to the #1 position in Tests.

Mike Hesson

There are many others, such as Phil Simmons who have had a tremendous effect on the teams they are coaching. Under the current crop, the head coach of the New Zealand team, Mike Hesson stands out.

He started off as a coach at the very young age of 22. He had stints at places like Kenya and Argentina, and while at the latter he turned around their fortune, when they won three games on the trot after a string of 31 defeats.

That he blends very well with the Kiwis is visible. New Zealand are on the cusp of glory on the world stage.