The challenges of coaching the Pakistani cricket team are well documented and as the PCB prepare to appoint a replacement for Waqar Younis, whose tenure came to an end on Sunday, PakPassion.net caught up with former Pakistan national coach Richard Pybus.

by Nasser Khan (21st Sepmber 2011)

The challenges of coaching the Pakistani cricket team are well documented and as the PCB prepare to appoint a replacement for Waqar Younis, whose tenure came to an end on Sunday, PakPassion.net caught up with former Pakistan national coach Richard Pybus. He shared his detailed thoughts on Waqar's contribution to the team, his own experiences of coaching Pakistan and the challenges his successor is likely to face.

Pybus begins by discussing the impact Waqar has had and the coaching role, “It's [position of Pakistan national coach] one of the toughest, if not the toughest job in world cricket, just because of all the factors that are impacting all the time on the coaching staff. I thought Waqar was doing a good job. There are always issues within the team, but I'd seen genuine improvement there. I was a bit saddened when I read that he was stepping down, which I also saw was for medical reasons. I hope he's okay and it's nothing too serious. I'd seen genuine improvement and I was really hoping he would continue for a couple more years.”

Pybus outlined the improvements he noted during Waqar's time, “there started to be more consistency in selection, although that does come down from the selection committee. I'm sure the captain and coach have a very strong influence on the types of players they are looking for. The biggest bane in Pakistan selection has been picking for failure rather than success – I felt there has been a move towards picking for success and sticking with them and giving guys opportunities.”

He continues, “through a seam attack who over the last eighteen months has become consistent, even with the loss of Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir, I felt there was depth in the fast bowling department and the batting was solid. I felt there was an opportunity there to keep on building. They did nicely at the World Cup.”

The captain-coach relationship has been highlighted as playing a key role in the success of team, and Pybus discussed the positive impact of the current captain. “With Misbah ul-Haq as captain, he's a really solid guy, he's a very calm captain. He's got a good sphere of influence with regards to his influence – some of the Pakistani lads can be emotional and get worked up about stuff and its good having somebody who is logical and thoughtful and doesn’t respond to every little thing going on around him. The ability to take a long-term view on things I have always felt is a positive thing for Pakistan cricket. So I'm hoping in the long-term Misbah can find himself a coach who will keep taking the side forward.”

What specific challenges will the new coach face? Pybus responded, “there are a lot of factors that are going on around the side. With most of the international cricket boards, the coach is mandated a responsibility for a national side and working hand in hand with the captain. They will have a strong bearing on the influence of the selection committee and they would be mandated with that responsibility and accountable for the performance of the side. Quite often the influence of outsiders of team management have gotten involved in the composition of the sides and the constant manoeuvrings behind it. You end up with players perhaps in internal groups who shouldn’t be there on performance, or they are there for political agendas. You end up carrying players and at times you have got completely the wrong combinations and they were the types of things that have hampered the progress of Pakistan cricket.”

The solution to such issues are also outlined by Pybus. “If you look at somewhere like England for example, who have made great gains in the last three or four years, obviously that was off a longer journey that started with Duncan Fletcher but since Any Flower has come in, they have a Managing Director of cricket Hugh Morris and he makes sure everything is in place in the national set-up and all selection below that is to make sure there is as much competition for starting spots in the test side and in the shorter format sides as possible. The success has been borne off the fact that they now have genuine quick bowlers who are fighitng for spots and they have had consistent selection. Most of the people in world cricket know that England have been one of world cricket's great underachievers for the last twenty-five years if not longer. So it's that kind of long-term thinking and stability and creating a safe psychological environment for the players and backing players to succeed. Then out of that you can weed out the guys who aren't going to make it or aren't hungry enough and get a really competitive cricket culture going through the side.”

What of the potential appointment of a foreign coach? Pybus replied, “a foreign coach can succeed in the Pakistan job. One of the things in hindsight, which I think is important is you have to communicate with the whole squad, even with the extended squad of players. I was very fortunate when I first came in, even though I had a couple of guys whose English wasn't particularly good, guys like Abdul Razzaq and Wasti etc., I had guys like Saeed Anwar and Mushtaq Ahmed who helped me to communicate ideas, whether it was to do with plans for games, strategy or technical points that were needed to be get across to players. They helped me with that because Urdu wasn't my first language and I had lot of senior men who were fluent in English."

He continues, "It was easy for me to share my ideas with a core group of players and I could get that across to about 90% of the group. As we went into the early 2000s, some of the players were weeded out, and I say that very judiciously, I lost Mushtaq and Saeed and Saqlain etc. and I started to get a lot of guys who didn't have English and it made it very difficult for me as a coach because my skills are to communicate my understanding and interpretation of the game and how I can help. I think in hindsight, if I was to do it all over again, I'd do what the football managers do and have an interpreter. Most of the top football manager in the world have interpreters for the various players that come in from all over the world, whether they come from Africa or South America, in Premier League football your group of players is eclectic, they're international not all English home-grown players. In fact, very few of them are and that would be something I would think is important. I also think a long-term contract with a long-term view.”

Cultural differences have been the downfall of many a coach, and Pybus has some advice for Waqar's successor. “You need your balance between Pakistani support staff, because a cultural understanding is very important. Also, the types of people he brings in must also have a very mature awareness of cross-cultural understanding. One of the things I don't think works very well is when you get coaches that try to project their own cultural interpretation of how the game should be played. In the last fifteen years, from the Steve Waugh era, when Australian coaches became the flavour of the month, if not the year because of the success of Waugh's team and John Buchanan. It's not an avenue that necessarily brings specific results because it is a very monocentric way of looking at the world. Subcontinental players are incredibly different to players who grew up in Australia, South Africa or even England. Culturally they're different, they have a different way of expressing themselves, they have a different way of playing the same game. You need somebody who can bring that kind of understanding and awareness to their work. But I really do think that an overseas coach or an international coach can do that."

He adds, "You need somebody who is really up for it at the top end of the game to cross that boundary. I would say though that I've got no doubt that there'll be some excellent coaches within Pakistan. The challenge is whether they can operate without either being compromised because of their previous history within the domestic structure or international set-up. Or whether they can get by without political interference because from a cultural point of view and the way the hierarchy works within the Pakistani society, there is a reverence for people who are older, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are wiser. It's something I know from my time with Pakistani captains, sometimes they found it very difficult to communicate to Board members or to the chairman of the Board their dissatisfaction because they were too respectful of the position. Quite often it would be the case where I would have to go and sort issues out because from a cultural point of view, it would be too difficult!”

Pybus also rules out the potential of returning to his former role with Pakistan. “I'm currently in the middle of a contract with Cape Cobras and I'm pretty happy doing that!”

As the recruitment process is initiated by the Pakistan Cricket Board, it's clear the successful applicant will no doubt face a number of challenges, both internal and external, in his new role.