R Sridhar, the former fielding coach of the Indian cricket team was a very internal part of the team’s success during Ravi Shastri’s tenure as head coach. It was during this time that India rose as a superpower in modern cricket, especially in Test matches.
During Ravi Shastri‘s era as head coach his support staff comprised of bowling coach Bharat Arun, batting coach Sanjay Bangar and later Vikram Rathour, and fielding coach R Sridhar. Though India did not win any ICC title during his tenure the team as a whole made massive developments in terms of being a brilliant fielding unit.
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R Sridhar Recently Launched His Book On His Days With Indian Cricket Team
With Virat Kohli as captain for the majority of the tenure, fitness became an integral culture of the team bonding process and the emergence of Indian pacers under Bharat Arun also happened during Shastri’s tenure.
India had six to seven bowlers who were always ready to take the field and bowl at any given condition and against any opposition. The fast bowling culture is now being carried forward by Rahul Dravid.
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Meanwhile, R Sridhar in his recently-published book ‘Coaching Beyond: My Days with the Indian Cricket Team’, mentioned facing the wrath of Ravi Shastri during the early days of his career.
R Sridhar Recalls Being Frightened By Ravi Shastri
He talks back to 2015 when he was hired for the role by BCCI. He recalled that Shastri had thought of a small pre-game exercise for the 2015 World Cup, wherein every player would talk about their plan for the match and how they would tackle various situations.
“Ahead of the World Cup, Ravi decided that the players would speak at the team meetings. That at every meeting, the batters would speak of their game plans, how they would approach different situations, what their plans are for each bowler in the opposition. After that, all-rounders Ashwin and Jadeja would hold forth, and at the end, the fast bowlers would express their thoughts. It was a very good system, I felt because ultimately it was the players who had to perform out in the middle,” he said.
He added saying that he spoke to bowling coach Bharat Arun about this practice and that doing it regularly would cut down its value as he wanted it to be done before specific key matches.
“We had a similar exercise the day before the game against South Africa at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. That evening, I was at my old friend Noel Carr’s place in Melbourne for dinner when I got a call from Arun, asking for my views on this new introduction. I knew I could speak freely to Arun, so I told him, ‘It’s a great concept, but we should be careful how often we do it. It’s a golden goose, we should not kill it. If we do this before every game, its effectiveness will diminish. I feel it’s better if we have such sessions before key matches,’” he added.
Sridhar further added saying that during this whole conversation with Bharat Arun, he was unaware that the phone was on speaker and that Ravi Shastri was hearing all that he was saying. That is when he remembered hearing a mouthful from the former India head coach.
“I didn’t know, of course, that I was on speaker phone, that Ravi was listening in. I was fairly new to international cricket, and Ravi and I didn’t really know each other all that well. Apparently, he wasn’t very amused by what he heard. ‘Baadi,’ he thundered, referring to Arun by his nickname, ‘I told you these young coaches have no idea what I am doing. I had told you at the very beginning not to recommend such novice coaches. was rattled. I knew there was merit in what I had told Arun, but I was unnerved by Ravi’s reaction and didn’t sleep very well that night,” he recalled.
R Sridhar concluded by saying that after India’s 130-run win in the ODI World Cup game against South Africa, Shastri applauded him for his efforts and started taking his suggestions more seriously.
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