Dinesh Mongia has praised India’s training camp which has seen Greg Chappell use a range of new coaching methods
Dileep Premachandran in Bangalore07-Sep-2006
Rahul Dravid: happy with the team’s preperation ahead of the Malaysia series © Getty Images
On the upcoming series in Malaysia
“It’s going to be a very good challenging series. Australia are obviously the best team in the world and I think it is exciting to play against them. We have not done well against the West Indies in the last one-day series and this gives us a good chance to correct that. I think we are very confident and if we play some good cricket, we will get results. The preparation we’ve had has been very good and it’s a question of implementing the lessons in the matches so that we play some good, tough cricket.”On not playing Australia for nearly two years? “We have played them a lot before. But I guess all these things happen in cycles and depend on the schedules. There will be times when you play the same teams very quickly again and sometimes there is a break. We seem to be playing the West Indies a lot now. Australia have been very busy over the last 18 months and we have also been busy. It is a bit of a surprisebecause with the amount of cricket you play, you tend to bump into someone over a period of two years.”On the boot camp in Australia, and a different sort of camp here?”People keep telling me it’s unusual. I don’t know what’s unusual about hitting a ball with a bat. Nothing has been unusual. It is just about giving different experiences to the players. I am so glad that we did it before Australia because if they had done it before us, then they wouldhave said we are just copying Australia. I think it’s just a chance to give people some new experiences. If you keep following the same routine, sometimes it does get stale. You just provide them with a different challenge for the same set of benefits. If you are trying physicaltraining, one day you might run around the ground, but if you do that every day you know it will become boring.So one day, you can run around the ground, one day you can run in Cubbon Park, one day you can run in Lal Bagh. It makes it a little interesting though you are doing the same things. I think the boys have really enjoyed this camp as well as the last one, and I give credit to the support staff. Greg Chappell, Ian Frazer and Greg King have really worked hard in these nine days.”On the practice matches to be played in Chennai? “We felt that we needed a couple of games to lead into the series. Normally when we go abroad, you get a couple of matches against local teams, but in Malaysia we didn’t feel that we would get that. A couple of games in Chennai tomorrow and day after will help the group to get some sort of match practice. Both the bowlers and batsmen have been practising a lot in the nets and it is just a question of implementing in a match. A couple of practice matches with the weather holding will be good to fine-tune the boys. Also, fielding for 50 overs is something that wehaven’t done for a while, so that would also help before we play the West Indies and Australia.”On whether such a camp will be a one-off or will it be a regular feature?”The rain and the called-off series in Sri Lanka gave us an opportunity to have some time off which we certainly hadn’t anticipated. It sort of came out of the blue, so we saw it as a great opportunity to give the boys some individual training. We keep discussing with the players where they would like to improve, what they would like to improve and we constantly get feedback. The coaching staff also have ideas on what they would like the boys to improve on. This was a great opportunity for the boys to get some individual and focussed training. I think the coaching staff did a fantastic job all through this camp. The boys came in batches for sessions of three days each, but the coaching staff were here for nine days, right from 7 in the morning to 5 in the evening. I think some very good things were achieved and it’s just a start. It’s something that we will constantly keep working on as the season goes on.” I am so glad that we did it before Australia because if they had done it before us, then they would have said we are just copying Australia On confidence levels after the camp? “We have spoken quite a bit with the boys through this camp. We discuss how the team is evolving and progressing, which direction it is going, and we also talk about how the players can help the team get better. After these discussions, the boys had thrown up some ideas, which helped the coaching staff identify areas of improvement. In this camp, the players got a lot of individual attention. Obviously, it’s important that they implement what they learnt and practised in match conditions.”On batting against a bowling machine, and batting with stumps”The focus is always on the basics. One of the things that Greg talks a lot about is not getting away from the basics. Some of these methods are just innovative ways of staying focussed on the basics. For example, if you are a batsman you are always talking about watching the ball closely, which is what you need to do if you’re going to hit a golf ball with a stump. Some of the drills we did for fielding were about staying low and keeping the body weight low, while the bowling machine was a way of ensuring that you get fully forward or fully back. In all the discussions with all the boys, everyone felt that the area that they wanted to improve most was in the fielding department. They were very happy with the fielding they had in the Sri Lanka and England series but in the West Indies we were not very happy. All the three groups did a lot of fielding drills here and hopefully there will be some results.”On being nominated for the ICC awards?”It’s nice to be nominated. I guess in the end it is probably a reflection of the performances of the year. There are great players in that list, people who have performed really well in the current year, and to be among them is a nice feeling.”On whether he was surprised that Dhoni didn’t figure in the list? “I am not really sure what the criteria is. Being nominated or not being nominated for awards is not what really excites me or motivates me. To be honest with you, this is a question you can ask Dhoni, whether it really matters to him.”On whether the team has problems with the opening combination”There is no problem as such. If you look at recent history, you would see that Sachin and Sehwag have performed excellently as openers. Unfortunately, Sachin got injured and because of that we had to make some changes. It’s not really important who bats where, what’s important is how we can get the right results. We will see how we can maximise the potential of each player and based on that, we will decide the batting order.”On the bowlers practising batting drills”See just because the lower order practised hard for two or three days, it doesn’t necessarily mean that all of them would become great batsmen overnight. It doesn’t happen like that. We keep discussing how we need more contributions from the lower order and one of the things that we found is that it’s not easy to always give the lower-order batsmen a lot of batting.
Dravid on Dhoni not being nominated for the ICC award: ‘Being nominated or not being nominated for awards is not what really excites me or motivates me’ © Getty Images
When we have 15 players, the bowlers keep bowling to the batsmen at practice and when the bowlers finally come to bat, there’s no real quality bowling around. They have to usually play the net bowlers or they are not getting enough batting. A short camp like this gave an opportunity forsome of the bowlers to get some practice in and we are expecting our bowlers to make some critical contributions in the lower order. Sometimes, they may not get a chance to bat for five or six matches and when they do, they are always under pressure. We have given a lot of emphasis to skills, like batting for bowlers. Those like Yuvraj, Viru [Sehwag], Dinesh Mongia and Suresh Raina are batsmen who can also bowl, so they have also got to do a lot of hard work on their bowling and bring different skills to the team.”How helpful is the focus-trainer gadget for the players?”I have used it a little bit. Greg King got it from South Africa. We have experimented with it, but things like these are very individual and players might find some benefits from it. We personally feel that to make a good player, you need to develop allround skills and the mind, relaxation and visualisation are very important parts of that.”On the ball-tampering furore”It’s hard for me to make a comment on something that happened when I wasn’t actually part of it. Sitting here and watching, or reading about it in newspapers, it’s hard for me to comment on that. It was sad and disappointing. Nobody wants a match to be forfeited but I think we have got to move on. England and Pakistan are playing a good one-day series and the game of cricket goes on. The authorities will find the right conclusion to the matter.”
