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Cricketfundas.com's Interviews : M.R.Baig (One
of the Senior Cricket Coaches in India) |
We are pleased to have
interviewed M.R.Baig, former Ranji and Duleep
Trophy Player and a well known coach for the
past 30 years, based out from Hyderabad. Our
Reporter Srinivasan V.R. was able to talk to the
former Ranji player and veteran coach in an
exclusive 45-min chat.
Introduction:
 Mr.
Baig played first class cricket from 1958 to
1970, mostly for the Services Team. Owing to
some sterling performances in the Ranji Trophy,
he was selected to represent the North Zone in
the Duleep Trophy, when he played along with the
likes of Rajinder Goel as an off-spinner of some
repute. However, he has made his living as a
cricketing coach after obtaining his
“coaching-training” from NIS, Patiala.
Throughout his coaching
career spanning more than 30 years, he has
directly or indirectly been involved in the
development of several international cricketers,
particularly from the South Zone.
Our interview focused on
his early cricket career, his coaching career,
his thoughts on coaching, and different
methodologies of cricket coaching and other
opinions of his.
On his
playing career:
Cricketfundas.com: Sir, tell us about
your earlier playing career. What/Who inspired
you to take up cricket as a career?
Baig: I started my Cricket when I was
in 8th-9th. I started playing Ranji at the age
of 17-18. I used to play at the Lal Bahadur
Stadium. I was inspired to take up off spin
bowling by watching Ghulam Ahmed bowl. In fact I
used to imitate his bowling action, which made
people call me as Ghulam Ahmed 2(smiles). I have
played Ranji Trophy for Services for a period of
nearly 10 years. I also played in the Duleep
Trophy. Some of the illustrious names that I
played against and with, were Pataudi (Pataudi
Jr), Rajinder Goel, Dani (HT ‘Bal’Dani) etc. I
played against the likes of Pataudi, Polly
Umrigar, and Vijay Manjrekar. I did get beaten
for 100's of runs but we felt proud that only
such great batsmen hit us. I have even bowled
alongside Rajinder Goel in the Duleep Trophy and
it was a great learning experience for me to
bowl with him.
Cricketfundas.com: Please tell us
more about Rajinder Goel. We keep reading that
he is one of the best players who never played
for India. We feel that it was because spin
talent in Indian cricket during those days was
extremely abundant. Are we right?
Baig: See..Rajinder Goel has more
than 500 Ranji Trophy wickets!
(Cricketfundas.com reminds him that Goel has 750
First class wickets). There was so much to learn
from him. We used to plan dismissals very
carefully while bowling in those days. In my
opinion, the spinners in my era were much more
competitive and very much better than today’s
spinners. I never regretted the fact that I
never made it big, because the standards of
spinning in that era were very high. During my
time, we had Venkataraghavan and Prasanna
playing in the Indian team as off-spinners and
they were superb.
Another point I would like
to make is that most of the cricket followers
call Shane Warne as the best spin bowler in the
world. I don’t quite agree with the hype and
their opinions. In my opinion, Subas Gupte, who
was the best spinner in my time, is also the
best leg spinner ever. I have nothing against
Warne, but Gupte was a greater spin bowler. He
didn’t get his due recognition, which is why he
migrated to the West Indies. He was the person
who took 9 wickets against a very good side of
West Indies. Other great spinners who inspired
or played with me were Ghulam Ahmad, Chandu
Borde and Salim Durrani (who played for
Rajasthan).
Cricketfundas.com: Who was your
favorite cricketer during the days you played?
Baig: Those days there were no ODI's.
We had only Test Matches. So a person who batted
long used to be liked by everybody. I loved the
way Vijay Manjrekar played. He played for
Rajasthan and I remember seeing him bat. It was
a pleasure.
Cricketfundas.com: You were an off
spinner. So, I believe this question should be
of relevance to you. What do you think about the
chucking controversy vis-à-vis Murali’s Doosra?
Baig: Whenever a bowler is doing
really well, everybody calls it chucking. But
when he is not very famous or not doing well,
nobody raises any objections.
Cricketfundas.com: That might be a
perspective about the cricketing /cricket
watching world. But what are your thoughts on
Murali’s action? Do you think that it’s illegal
when he bowls the doosra?
Baig: I feel Murali is not chucking
because when you bowl and if your elbow is bent
at an angle of
90 degrees then you can term it as chucking, but
in Murali’s case the elbow bends in this fashion
(bends his elbow... trying to imitate Murali’s
action)... In fact Prasanna used to bowl the
doosra in the 60s in first class cricket. I also
can demonstrate how to bowl it. Saqlain was a
master till not long ago of the doosra but he
seems to have stopped bowling it well these
days.
Cricketfundas.com: Tell us something
about the value of coaching and some thoughts
you have about coaching in India, the reputation
that the profession has, etc.
Baig: Coaching is a very important
profession but unfortunately many trained
coaches who have produced dozens of
international cricketers who have went on to
become good, are being neglected and are not
given their due. Coaches are the ones who groom
the players from younger ages to international
class-ready. But when it comes to plum postings
such as coaching state/national teams, only
those are appointed as coaches who have played
the game as players and without any formal
coaching experience. The result is that there
are a lot of mistakes made at international
level which could have been prevented had
trained coaches been considered. For example, in
Multan, the person who was closest to the
stadium, was born and brought up in that city,
Inzamam, took 3 fast bowlers in the side when he
should have taken 3 spinners. This shows that
players cannot read the pitches well. This is
related to coaching too. Players who have
captained squads but have not won any major
trophy are made coaches without formal
experience. This is not fair at all. Coaches
need more recognition for their efforts.
Cricketfundas.com: You are from
Hyderabad and the city has produced a lot of
illustrious players right from M.L.Jaisimha to
Mohd Azharuddin to VVS Laxman of today. You must
have interacted and coached a lot of players
from the city. Have you noticed any significant
change in them throughout the years?
Baig: Yes. There is a significant
change in the way players play today from the
past. In those days players like Nadkarni used
to bowl 14 odd overs and all of them were
maidens. That shows how much control he had.
When the shorter version of the game came,
players like Kapil and Binny used to give 5-8
runs an over at a maximum, then Prabhakar and co
would give up 17 runs sometimes and now Agarkar
gives up more than 20 runs in an over sometimes.
The height is, Shoaib Akhtar bowls 14 ball overs
with a lot of no-balls!. On the other hand,
batsmen are also scoring a lot of runs. Now a
days teams are scoring 700 runs out of which 300
is scored by a single batsman. Players are
scoring even 400 runs.
Cricketfundas.com: But again, isn’t
this because pitches are prepared very flat
keeping in mind the spectator interest and other
such factors. What we feel is that cricket is
played with a very batsman-friendly focus and
bowlers are finding it very difficult against
batsmen on wickets tailor-made for batsmen.
Baig: Well, wickets were flat even
during our days. And conditions were more
difficult for bowler then too. The seam of the
ball would cut our fingers and they would bleed
during the month of December in Delhi. The fact
remains that spinners in my era were more
superior. Jasu Patel got out Australia for a
mere total of 69 runs off him with 9 wickets.
Nowadays the spinners do not spin the ball
enough and that’s why they struggle to get
wickets.
Cricketfundas.com: Tell us something
about your coaching career.
Baig: I coached 25 players who made
it to the Ranji Teams in the South Zone. I was
made a recognized coach by BCCI from 1977 to 85
when I used to go once in 3 months to Kerala,
Goa and Andhra and I was in charge of coaching
Ranji team probables and other players.
Cricketfundas.com: Can you name some
players whom you have coached directly?
Baig:
-
L Sivaramakrishnan, WV
Raman and other players from TN,
-
Sadanand Vishwanath,
Raghuram from Karnataka
-
Laxman, Azharuddin,
Venkatapathy Raju, Arshad Ayub, Noel David,
Vanka Pratap, Faiz Ahmed, MSK Prasad from
Andhra have also been coached by me directly
or indirectly. As also Vanka Pratap who made
to the India A team in Holland and many
others.
I have also coached
cricketers like Sanjay Manjrekar, Kirti Azad who
is now an MP (smiles).
Cricketfundas.com: Do you think that
Indian cricketers need to be coached in a
particular kind of way?
 Baig:
To answer that, I would like to tell you about
the different methods of coaching which is
related to the way each country plays. England
play 100% text-bookish cricket, very orthodox
and they follow a very rigid technique.
Australians, however play a game that is 30%
natural and 70% text bookish, with a lot of
emphasis on the onside. The West Indians I
should say are 50% natural. Their hand and
eye-co-ordination is a feature of their natural
game. They have a great reliance on their
physical powers and so they know exactly when to
take a break from the game. That’s why Richards
and Lloyd retired early in my opinion even
though they could have played for far more. Now
looking into all these, coaching is designed for
such players. In the Asian case, which I call
Oriental cricket, we follow a mixture of all
these techniques while coaching the players.
However in the recent
years, coaching is being taken up by former
players instead of trained coaches. This is why
there is a slight fall in quality in some areas
in cricket especially in areas such as fitness.
We cannot make Indian players go through
Australian methods of training. For example,
Australian bowlers are made to bowl with chest
on action, while we are more comfortable bowling
side-on. How many fast bowlers since 1970 have
been injured for India? Players like Kapil Dev,
Abid Ali, and Dattu Phadkar were never injured
and only got injured in their late careers. Now
our fast bowlers get injured so soon. Look at
Zaheer. He was made to lift a lot of weights and
that is the reason why he is so unfit. Only
properly trained coaches who have lots of
experience should be made to coach squads.
Cricketfundas.com: What do you have
to say to Ian Chappell’s statement that coaches
aren’t exactly essential for National sides?
Baig: No I don’t agree with that. A
captain can set the field, chose the opening
bowlers, select a team etc. But can he teach
Kapil Dev how to bowl, or can he teach Kumble
how to bowl when he is not bowling well.
Even geniuses like Maradona
improved better because of coaching and fitness
training. So coaches are very necessary.
Cricketfundas.com: Most of the high
profile Hyderabadi batsmen have been stylish and
very elegant and classy. Could you look at your
students and identify that aspect when you first
saw them? How did you go about coaching them?
Was it because of the seniors that the juniors
played stylishly?
Baig: Yes, I could. There was a talk
on the TV about VVS Laxman copying Azharuddin.
That is not true. Laxman has his own way of
playing, which he has perfected because of good
coaching. It is similarly with Azharuddin. Both
have got their training from the same coach. For
me if the boy is talented, I would like him to
get better at his talent and that’s what the
coaching will focus on.
However, only some players
are good enough to make it big. Cricket is like
graduation too. Once someone comes through good
coaching from basic levels, he progresses on to
the next level where he learns and tries to get
better and then reaches graduation level and
then on to lecturer to professor etc. Only a few
like Azhar who hit three back to back centuries
on debut and Laxman have become “professors” in
batting because of their ability to get better.
It is a continuing education.
Cricketfundas: So, you mean to say
that there is a different method of coaching for
different players?
Baig: Yes. A marathon runner cannot
swim a lap in the swimming pool. A man who
crosses the English Channel cannot bowl 10 overs
in cricket and so on. Every different sporting
activity has its own stamina levels and coaching
should concentrate on that differentiation.
Cricketfundas.com: Thanks a lot for
this very interesting talk. Can you give a
message for Cricketfundas.com?
Baig: In our days we could not watch
the Matches on Television. We just used to play
it. Nowadays due to electronic media and other
sources and Television people and even very
young children are able to watch the Matches
like World Cup and can watch people like Sachin
play on TV.
Some people who find it
boring to go to the libraries etc. go to
cricketing sites and so Cricketfundas.com is
doing a wonderful job by sharing knowledge and
spreading it through out the world.
You can pass out this
knowledge to every corner of the world. Passing
experience to other people, the thing which I
have done in 25 years you are passing it in 25
seconds which is wonderful and so I wish
Cricketfundas.com all the best.
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