Bringing through the next generation of pacers

T.A. Sekhar was India's fastest bowler in the eighties. Despite his talent and consistent domestic performances, he only played a few games for India. Refusing to give up his passion for the game, he went on to become one of the world's finest bowling coaches. Today he is responsible for shaping the careers of Indian pacers like Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan, Shantakumaran Sreesanth, R.P. Singh, Munaf Patel and young Varun Aaron. Learning the art of coaching bowlers from the legendary Dennis Lillee, he grooms hundreds of top-class bowlers. Even top Australia quicks Brett Lee and Glenn McGrath sought his guidance. Sekhar, who has been coaching bowlers at the G Force Cricket Academy for the last three years, was in Dubai to conduct a clinic at Zabeel Park. He spoke to Gulf News about his career and how he overcame the set backs and went on to establish himself as a coach. His views turned out to be a journey into the various intricacies that shape a good bowler. He also threw light on the numerous skills a bowler has to master. GULF NEWS: You were once hailed as India's fastest bowler in the eighties. How did it feel to earn that honour? T.A. Sekhar: It was quite thrilling. I consider myself very lucky because I never got any formal coaching. I played a lot of street cricket and not structured cricket for a long time. God gave me strong physique and height and I believed in bowling as fast as I can and never thought about swinging the ball. Unfortunately for me I happened to be from Tamil Nadu which had no tradition of producing fast bowlers. My state was known for its great spinners like S. Venkataraghavan and V.V. Kumar. So in the formative years I had no guidance as to what to do and what not to do. Frankly only after I became a coach did I really learn about fast bowling. Does the absence of a pace culture in the state affect the growth of a pacer? Yes. India's North Zone always had a history of producing fast bowlers. Even the West Zone and Mumbai had a couple of fast bowlers. In fact pacers from Mumbai used to go and play in England but in our state no one knew whether one should play in England. Moreover, I came from a conservative family and so I did not have any guidance as far this is concerned. You took nine wickets in an innings in a Ranji Trophy match and produced great bowling spells in zonal matches. How did you accept the neglect shown by the selectors towards you? Whenever Sunil Gavaskar captained India he always wanted me to be bowling alongside Kapil Dev. I am really indebted to Gavaskar for having supported me. I played only when Gavaskar captained India. In 1983, Gavaskar was the captain and in 1985 when I played against England too he was the captain. I missed the World Championship of Cricket in Australia very narrowly and when I was not selected England players like David Gower and Mike Gatting came and asked me how come I could not find a place in the squad as they too believed that my bowling would have been ideal on Australian wickets. In your last one-day match you took the wickets of Gower, Gatting and Cowdrey so how tough was it never to play international cricket again after such a performance? It was the same night after that three-wicket spell the selectors picked the one-day team to go to Australia for the World Championship. Everyone thought I will be in the team but when I was dropped I was literally in tears. It was really sad because I was looking forward to that tour. Australia is a place where you can cement your place in the team because in those days there were not many fast bowlers coming up and Kapil Dev was the only one and all others were medium pace bowlers. I missed it but still I continued to play. How did you overcome the setback and when did you decide to become a coach? In 1988 I got the opportunity to join MRF Pace Foundation as a coach. There I learned a lot on what I did not learn during my playing days from. Dennis Lillee was always my idol. Even when I played for India I used to carry his photograph in my kit. So when I got a chance to be associated with him at the MRF Academy I jumped for the opportunity and took it. I told MRF that I will continue to play first class cricket despite being their coach and they gave me the permission. After one year of association with Lillee, I came back into the Indian reckoning in 1989 for the West Indies tour but again I was dropped. Then I decided not to continue. Moreover I did not want to be a competitor to my own trainees at the academy and I gave up playing first class cricket in 1990. How satisfied are you as a coach? I am very happy with the kind of satisfaction I derived as a coach. I felt nice when my trainees began to play for India. In 1990, Vivek Razdan went on to play for India and later on so many of my trainees like Zaheer Khan, Irfan Pathan, Sreesanth, R.P. Singh and Munaf Patel began to get chances. I also spotted Varun Aaron in 2005 as an under-15 and also got to groom Umesh Yadav. I could help so many players get a good career. Today I am happy that India has got a potential pace attack. It is time India cricket board worked really hard on its fast bowlers. India has won Test series abroad mainly because of its fast bowlers. Many fast bowlers from abroad also approach you. What do they seek from you? Brett Lee and Glenn McGrath came in 1983; England's Simon Jones and West Indies' Jermaine Lawson and Andrew Richardson came to study on how to bowl on Indian conditions. The MRF Pace Foundation had facilities and Lillee trained only there. So along with Lillee we helped them solve their problems. What is it that makes Lillee the finest coach of fast bowling? Lillee as a fast bowling coach is light years ahead of anyone. I have interacted with great pacers like Richard Hadlee, Andy Roberts, Michael Holding and many others but nobody is anywhere near Lillee as a coach. He keeps things very simple and he is not a guy who talks too much about theory. Through the video analysis he can tell exactly where one is starting to make a mistake and how it manifests into a major defect. What is the most important lesson that you learned from him as a coach? Most of the coaches watch only the bowler's delivery stride. Lillee taught me to watch the delivery stride and then do reverse engineering. He guided me on how to go back and observe not the effect but the cause. It was he who taught me that in coaching there is always a cause and effect factor. If you can find the cause then it is easier to fix the effect. If you see only the effect and do not know how it is happening then it is very difficult to correct a bowler. The crux of a good coach is to be able to find a fault and to give a solution to correct that fault. A good coach need not be one who has played 100 Test matches and taken 400 wickets. If you look at coaches around the world you will realise the truth that great players need not necessarily be great coaches too What is the basic problem of that every pacer faces today? Injuries are a problem because fast bowling is inherent of injuries irrespective of your technique and fitness. There are certain movements in fast bowling which are not designed for the human body at all. So how can one avoid injuries or are injuries not avoidable at all? Constant monitoring of technique can help to prevent injuries. You cannot be without injuries because one can get injuries due to wear and tear. If you have a coach who knows the basic techniques very well he can find out where he is going wrong and or why is he drifting away from his basis techniques. If you find a bowler at the under-16 level we must build his basic techniques which is the foundation. Only then the other subtleties can be taught. Today some of the coaches are not giving emphasis on basic techniques and focus mostly on their line and length and this many reduce the speed of a bowler. So do you think many pacers are losing pace because of the emphasis on line and length? Yes many boys are losing their speed and not bowling at the same speed like when they came into reckoning. For example, Munaf Patel used to bowl at 147km/h but today he bowls at just 120 to 130km/h. To me if a fast bowler has to be successful in international cricket he should bowl at a minimum speed of 135km/h and if he cannot bowl at 135 or 130km/h he should be able to move the ball at will. If a bowler is young and is capable of bowling fast, he should bowl fast. There is an age to swing and bowl slow but when you are 20 or 22, you must bowl as fast as you can. Along with Lillee you once conducted a search for pacers in India through the Gatorade Pacers camp and nearly 3,700 aspiring pacers emerged in the under-15, under-17 and under-21 categories. Is there enough talent in India? There is enough talent but the problem is that there is no proper coaching methodology available in India. What has happened is everybody is now given a level one, level two and level three certificates to kill. Through a one week course on coaching I cannot understand how one can go and coach. The most important factor is the knowledge of the techniques and how to explain it to the boys. Basically what happens in India is if a boy goes asks a question then the coach gets very agitated. I want the boys to ask more questions and challenge me. Coaching is a two way street and boys should be able to ask questions to the coach and coach must be able to give solutions to whatever the boys are asking. How important is diet for a pacer? Everyone should know what one has to eat a day before the match and also on what he should eat if he is training. If you eat lot of junk food it is going to affect the metabolism of your body leading to muscle injuries. By overeating you are not going to be stronger so you should eat the right food so that the body assimilates all the proteins and minerals. This will help you to build your body and then stamina will set in automatically. What other factors are needed for a good stamina? A pacer should also do lots of running because 70 per cent of the effort in fast bowling is on run up. So for the run up to be smooth one has to run and that will improve his cardiovascular endurance and his stamina. This will help him to gain the correct momentum and bowl at a good speed. So gym, swimming pool and running technique are very important for a fast bowler. I have worked with Brett Lee and Jason Gillespie and if some of the great batsmen see them working out I think they will get a fright. They work out at the gym for one and half hours, thrice a week. Now you have joined the Delhi Daredevils team as the vice-president and how do you see its performance in the next Indian Premier League? We have a very potent Indian pace bowling attack. I have worked with Pathan, Aaron, Ashok Dinda, who is the highest wicket take this year. We will emerge stronger. We have Virender Sehwag who can single handedly win the match from any situation. Be it Twenty-20, Test or one-day cricket he plays the same game and does not change his style. All opposition bowlers are worried over where to bowl to him. He is our biggest asset.