Gary Kirsten is keen to globalize cricket

The former South African opening batsman, Gary Kirsten, had coached the Indian cricket team to win the ICC Cricket World Cup in 2011 talks about his desire to take cricket to new regions in an interview to Sport360.

In his first coaching assignment with India, he had brought in an end to the 28-year wait of winning the World Cup and MS Dhoni has termed his appointment as “the best thing to happen to Indian cricket”.

As we know, most of the cricketers after retirement are happy with coaching or commentary assignments, but not Gary Kirsten. He is travelling all around the world to globalize the sport as much as he can, by taking it to countries and regions that are not really familiar with the game.

When asked about his cricket academies, he said, “We are very excited by the work we are doing, and it’s not just limited to the local academy. Whilst we do a lot of work in the Cape Town region, we invite players from around the world to come to Cape Town, it’s a great destination and we’ve had quite a few players from the English county circuit coming and preparing with us. We’ve also had players from India come and have the Cape Town experience, along with one or two players from the UAE as well.”

He had also travelled across UAE and UK several times and is about to go to Netherlands. Gary said, “A lot of work is being done in the associate countries.”

He also commented about the two kids from UAE, Riyaan and Utkarsh, who had trained under his guidance. “They enjoyed the experience. Just for them to have an understanding of what cricket is like in a different part of the world. Obviously, we had to work a little bit on their skills to improve them. We had a chance to work with them earlier also, in our previous visits to the UAE – so they were familiar with our work. They just wanted to come over and experience how it is like to train in South Africa. It was great to have them on board.”

#UAE duo to reap rewards after intense week at @GK_CA in Cape Town https://t.co/imz68YioRb pic.twitter.com/ZY2je76Dtl

— Sport360° (@Sport360) May 12, 2016

While globalizing a sport, it’s all about starting from the ground level, i.e. the school level and UAE cricket with the services of experienced players like Gary Kirsten can strengthen the school and grassroots structures. “I think it’s exciting times for UAE cricket because I think there’s a lot of interest in the game and if you can create good systems through cricket programs running in the schools and subsequently run your cricket league then I think there’s no reason why you cannot produce good talent.”

When asked about whether the aggressive T20 format of the game is a conflict where youngsters don’t focus on the foundations of the game. He agreed that nowadays he meets a lot of kids with T20 skills but lacks the fundamentals. “It’s a bit of a double-edged sword unfortunately. As coaches, we want to teach the fundamentals of the game so that your game can stand the test of time in all formats. It’s like saying to a golfer that you want to become a scratch golfer, but you need to know how to hit a seven iron very consistently.”

“Batting or bowling is no different. Have you got strong fundamentals in your game or are you just good for one format which is T20 cricket? We find that a lot of youngsters that we are working with come with a good set of T20 skills but lack good fundamentals in their game. So it’s for us to help them grow in that space.”

Indian opener during the time Kirsten coached the national team Gautam Gambhir in a recent interview had spoken about Gary Kirsten’s influence which helped him in his career. In 2008-2009, Gambhir was the no.1 ranked Test batsman in the world and it was the period in which he had a lot of success all around the world and Kirsten had a very good relationship with him and Kirsten said that “He was the first name on the team sheet, I wanted him in that side every time.”

“It’s nice to know that I have been able to make a significant difference to a player’s career. I remember spending a lot of time with Gautam on his game. We became very good friends because I saw in him a very similar cricketer to what I was and I valued his contributions immensely.”

After the World Cup win in 2011, Gary Kirsten left the team and they had a tough time in Test cricket and a lot of them criticized the skipper for that, but the South African said that it’s unfair to criticize the captain. “It is unfair. Something similar happened when I was with South Africa as well. We had a great Test run and then the Test team is battling now. Every team goes through that.”

When asked about the future captain of team India across all formats, Virat Kohli, he said that he has great self-belief in his own strength and he believes Kohli could be a really positive leader. “He’s a fantastic human being. What I like about Virat is his unconditional self-belief. It’s incredible to see the kind of belief he has in his own ability.”

“He wants to do well in the game, he’s got a strong desire and determination and some great presence. Players will want to play for him and there’s no reason why he cannot be a really positive leader for India, going forward.”

He also shared his experience grooming a group of young players including Quinton de Kock in the Delhi Daredevils camp. “It’s great to be able to work with young players and know that you can make a contribution to their careers. The team that we tried to put together at Delhi, it’s great to see someone like a Quinton de Kock doing really well. I think from a coaching perspective there’s nothing more exciting than that.”

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