Andrew Symonds looking forward to take up coaching

Former Australian cricketer Andrew Symonds has expressed his interest in taking up the coaching job. He believes he has enough knowledge and is ready to take up the coaching job. He has played all-around the world and feels that it is the perfect time t give something back to the game.

I have played a lot of cricket and have played in a lot of countries, conditions and against some great players. I feel like I have enough knowledge that I can pass on to young players in the game now. I’m looking at getting into short-form coaching in Twenty20 cricket,” he was quoted saying to cricbuzz.com.

When asked about how his game changed after being in and out in the first five years in international cricket. He replied, “Ricky Ponting was instrumental in my career going forward. I suppose the 2003 World Cup was probably where it was most obvious that he wanted me on that tour.”

“I had not really scored a lot of runs to have warranted a spot on that tour, but he had a gut feeling that I was going to come good. Fortunately, on that tour we had Michael Bevan injured and Darren Lehmann out suspended so I had to play and I had some success and from that point on, I sort of worked out how to be a successful international batsman.”

He said that the ICC World Cup 2003 journey was special, as Australia had gone through a lot in the run to win the title. “I have never seen a more nervous Australian dressing room. It was so quiet and you could see everyone was so nervous. We were missing key players and this was the reason for the tensed atmosphere in the dressing room.”

Also read – Jonny Bairstow names his all-time XI

“Other teams could sniff that we were possibly going to have some weak areas and that this might be the weakest Australian side that they’ve seen for a while and they might have an opportunity to knock us off. In came players like Andy Bichel, Brad Hogg and that was when I sort of started to work things out a bit better. We went through that whole World Cup undefeated”, said the elated Symonds of their third World Cup title in 2003,” he said.

Ricky Ponting’s Captaincy:

Speaking about Ricky Ponting’s captaincy, he said that Ponting likes to keep everything simple. “He was very easy to work under. He would give me simple tasks that I could carry out. I found him excellent because I like to keep things fairly simple. That is the style he had – to keep things simple.”

For him, batting is all about finding the balance between not being over-aggressive and reckless but it’s about being aggressive enough. “The idea of batting is to score runs. But for me, it was about trying to find the right balance – not to be over-aggressive and reckless but be aggressive enough to be able to put enough pressure on the opposition. For me, it was finding that balance.”

Also read – Brisbane Heat re-sign Samuel Badree for BBL 2016

“I train pretty hard. Once I worked out that I was going to bowl a fair bit and wanted to be dynamic in the field, then having to bat, I got to a point in my career where I was incredibly fit and strong, so I could handle the workload and the rigors of doing those three things. For me, that was key. If I felt fit and strong, obviously I would do my skill work, but in my head, I was good to go,” he added.

Best Coach:

He said that Mike Young is the best coach, as he helped Symonds in becoming a better fielder in a short while. “Fielding was a very big part of our success. Catching, creating run-outs, stopping runs, was a big part of the pressure system we used to use in one-day cricket. Then in Test cricket, our catching in slips was something the boys would pride themselves on that.”

“The best coach that I probably had for skills was a bloke called Mike Young, who was a baseball coach, but came into cricket. He taught me so much in a short period of time, just about throwing and moving your feet, using your body; take pressure off your shoulder so you did not injure yourself… that sort of thing. He taught us injury-prevention, skills, footwork and all sorts of things. He is the best coach I have been trained under for those reasons,” he was quoted saying.

Toughest Battles:

He said that it was really hard to work the former Pakistan pacer Wasim Akram away for runs, and he never felt like getting into a hitting rhythm against him. “I always found Wasim Akram difficult. He was very skillful; he mixed his pace up, bowled well with the new ball and the old ball. I never felt like I could get into a hitting rhythm against him. He was hard work. Probably as a team, that changed over the years…we always wanted to beat England in the Ashes. We did that in my time quite well.”

He added that Australia had battled really hard to win series against India in India. “Beating India in India in their conditions was something that Australian teams have really battled with over the years. In my time, we had a fair bit of success against them over there, so that was a satisfying period. I suppose South Africa as well. They are always competitive and are an enjoyable side to beat when you beat them. They obviously, coming into world cricket had a lot of points they wanted to make probably and they did that. That’s probably an overall view of my battles.”

Harbhajan incident was the beginning of the end:

“I suppose my career paid out the due to the fact that I lost the passion and that drive to be in that environment”

When asked about Cricket Australia had let him down, he said that “The way that they handled the Harbhajan incident was poor, very poor. That impacted on, I’d say, all the players that were involved because of the way it was handled.”

“Considering that every year we had all these things jammed down our neck about drugs and racism in sport and all that kind of stuff, and then to have them follow through like they did was a real let-down for us. I felt responsible for my mates that were involved in the whole situation. That was a thing that weighed heavily on me as well. That was probably the beginning of the end,” he added.

He said that Trying to get into the side and hold the position in the team, scoring runs consistently were some of the biggest challenges he had in his cricketing career.

Full package friendship with Mathew Hayden:

Andrew Symonds scored his first Test century along with his close friend Mathew Hayden. He said that he also have a good equation with his wife, Kellie.

“I was lucky to have scored my first Test century with him. He’s one of my best mates. He helped me when I was in the Queensland side and I just wasn’t scoring enough runs. I felt like I was going to be dropped, so he took me under his wing. We really knuckled down training in a specific way and that really helped me turn a corner to the amount of runs I was scoring. We used to go fishing together and one day we sunk in together and then we had to swim back with another mate of ours. All those types of things strengthen your bond.”

Speaking about his family, “He’s got a young family that I get on well with. I watched his kids grow up and have a good equation with his wife, Kellie, she’s good fun. He was always a good man to play with; was always a good man to have in the trenches because he was so competitive and obviously so good. There’s not a lot of bad things to say about Matthew. He’s the full package.”

Learned patience from India:

Talking about his takeaways from cricket, he said that he learned patience from India. “With cricket, you play all over the world. You are going in and out of different cultures. Especially going to India, it taught me patience. There’s a language barrier there. People find me quite hard to understand sometimes. Just learning to speak to the Indian people slowly… simple things like just ordering food; you order something and something completely different would come out. You’d just have to keep your cool. So I think, patience is something I learned.”

“Then, respect. Going into a foreign country, you have to respect…we were briefed on what was acceptable and what was not. Just little things like that and now becoming a father, you’ve got to be patient with them otherwise, you drive yourself crazy. Probably one thing I’m still not good at is communication. I dislike mobile phones because they rule people’s lives. They are useful tools, so I’m currently working on my communication skills,” he concluded.