If the advice of former India captain Rahul Dravid holds any significance to the teams like Delhi Daredevils and Kings XI Punjab they could hope a turnaround in the upcoming season of the Indian Premier League as the veteran star knows the ‘success mantra’ for them. Dravid suggests the IPL teams should hire Indian coaches and use their local knowledge for success.
“If not the chief coach, the Indian coaches should be appointed as assistant coaches and I am sure their knowledge would be helpful in changing the fortunes of many teams,” Dravid said on the sideline of the Under-19 ODI between India and Afghanistan here on Thursday.
“I think a lot of IPL teams miss a trick by not using more domestic talent in the coaching area and the talent identification area, even if it is as assistants. That’s my personal opinion.”
Delhi Daredevils is being coached by former Australian captain Ricky Ponting, whereas Kings XI Punjab has Brod Hedge at the helm of affairs in coaching. The two teams had eighth and seventh place finish last season. The new season of the cash-rich event starts on March 23 next.
“Honestly, there are so many Indian players in the IPL, there’s so much of local knowledge (among our coaches). I feel a lot of teams could actually benefit from using a lot of our Indian coaches in the IPL,” he said, adding, “They know the Indian players better, they understand them better. Even as assistant coaches… there is a lot of talent and ability. It just needs to be given opportunity and flourish.”
“I believe we’ve got some very good coaches, a lot of good people. I’m fully confident (in their ability). Just as we have a lot of talent in the cricket department, we have a lot of talent in the coaching department,” Dravid said. “We need to give them confidence and time to flourish. I’m sure they will do it. It does sometimes disappoint me when a lot of our boys don’t get opportunities as assistant coaches in IPL.”
Not only helping the cricketing talent of India grow, Dravid, now the director of the National Cricket Academy (NCA), also believes in helping the coaches at the NCA too. “Through the NCA we’re also going to try and help a lot of our coaches. We’ve hired Sujith now, who has come on as head of education. A part of our goal is to create a programme for coaches as well, so that we can give them certain skills in which they can develop – and hopefully then get the opportunities to work at a slightly higher level.”
Showering further praise on Indian coaches, Dravid said the Indian coaches were doing a fantastic job even with different foreign teams. “Well to be honest, Indian cricket’s coaching staff is completely Indian and they are doing a fantastic job. It’s not for me to decide for franchises and head coaches what they do, but I think they miss a trick by not involving more Indian coaches. Indian coaches understand and know the system, and they know a lot of Indian players.”
“Every IPL team has at least 17-18 Indian players. It’s my personal view, but I would love to see a lot of our boys get the opportunity to be in and around that environment. Hopefully we can work with some teams to try and ensure that.”
Dravid, who is here to monitor the preparations of the Under-19 team for the upcoming ICC Youth World Cup at South Africa in January, said the success of Team India bowlers, especially seamers, has been a great source of inspiration to the younger generation.
“I think when you have role models and you have heroes like the senior team… I think what Ishant, Shami, Umesh, Bhuvneshwar Kumar and Bumrah are doing is they are actually in a way becoming role models for a lot of younger generation of boys who believe now they can be fast bowlers, bowl fast and be successful as fast bowlers in India. I think it is great to see that.”
“Obviously we had people like Kapil, Sri (Srinath), Zaheer and all that in the past. But now as a group probably this is you know one of the best fast bowling attacks we have ever had. I think that’s a great inspiration for a lot of these young boys.”
“Now at the Under-19 level we have very good fast bowlers. Last time in 2018, we had three of them – Kamlesh Nagarkoti, Shivam Mavi and Ishan Porel. This year you will also see some good fast bowlers in the team. So I think that’s been fantastic.”
