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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, Subash 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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