Gary Kirsten, the former South Africa opening batter who was recently appointed as Sri Lanka‘s head coach, opened up on his tenure with India from 2008-2011, revealing his initial conversations with the Master Blaster, Sachin Tendulkar. Kirsten, who oversaw Men in Blue’s 2011 World Cup triumph, said that Tendulkar wanted to retire from international cricket after the 2007 World Cup debacle, when India crashed out in the group stage.
It’s not a secret that Sachin was not pleased during Greg Chappell’s reign as the head coach, with the right-hander being shuffled up and down the batting order on quite a few occasions. Hence, when Kirsten took up the India head coach role, he went straight to Sachin first and asked him about his expectations.
Tendulkar did not make flashy demands; he just wanted Kirsten to be his friend, nothing more. The former South African batter said he did just that, and that it resulted in Sachin scoring 18 international centuries during his tenure as coach.
“There’s no word of a lie in that. That is exactly his comment. I want you to be my friend. But then you’ve got to look at the context of that comment. And the context was he’d had a tumultuous two years with the previous coach. Wanting to bat him in different places in the batting order, and he didn’t like that. And just playing, in fact, to the point where he actually wanted to retire then,” Kirsten said on the TalkSport Cricket Podcast.
“So I found that out as well, that he actually wanted to retire from the game then. I mean, it’s crazy to think that just by being his friend, he helped himself. In the three years that I was with that team, he helped himself to 18 international hundreds. So the coaching recipe of just being your friend worked. Get the fact that he was already a pretty smart player,” he added.
The partnership of coach Kirsten and skipper MS Dhoni paid rich dividends as India won the 50-over World Cup and became the No. 1-ranked Test side. Before Kirsten, Indian cricket was not in good shape as the Chappell era brought its fair share of controversies, with the biggest one being Sourav Ganguly’s removal as the captain and then his ouster from the playing XI. Several former players have also said that the dressing room was not a happy place during Chappell’s tenure.
Coaching styles
Kirsten, who will soon join Sri Lanka as the coach, said that in the current day and age, the primary role of a coach is to helpplayers thrive and realise their true potential.
“There are seven or eight verticals in coaching skills at the moment that you would need to cover. And if you take those seven or eight verticals, which is the most important one? Is it just man management skills? Is it your ability to build a really good strategy for your team? Is it the ability to create a great team culture and team environment? Is it the ability to be really organised and plan your training and your preparation really well? Is it the ability to manage upwards where you’ve got real challenges and external noise? And it’s probably a combination of all of those. Is it the ability to pick good cricket teams? You know, it’s a combination of all of those,” said Kirsten.
“I think our primary skill is to get the players that are playing under your watch to thrive. And you’re probably not going to get every one of them to thrive,” he added.
