Basit Ali Hails Ravi Shastri As The Best Coach Of The Current Era

Basit Ali, former Pakistan middle-order batsman, has hailed former Indian all-rounder Ravi Shastri as the best among all coaches in the current era.

Ravi Shastri is in his second stint as the head coach of the Indian cricket team. During his tenure, India has registered its maiden Test series win in Australia [2-1 in 2018-19] and ODI series victory in South Africa [5-1 in 2018] besides qualifying for the semi-finals of the 2019 World Cup. Shastri has served as a director of the team [2014-2016] before his coaching stint in 2017.

Basit Ali was asked to name the best coach of the modern era on his Youtube channel. Barring Ravi Shastri, he also heaped praise on former England coach Andy Flower.

“I would highly rate Ravi Shastri among all the current coaches. If Andy Flower was coaching an international team right now, I would pick him, but he isn’t at the moment.” Basit Ali said.

“Ravi Shastri was such a big player. And his style of coaching is similar. I saw one of his press conferences and the way he replied back to the media – this is the role of the coach. To talk straightforward when someone is asking questions. A coach must also know how to give a shut-up call,” he further added.

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“To say that Ravi Shastri got a really strong team, hence his job is easier is not fair”- Basit Ali

Basit Ali went on to hail Ravi Shastri’s man-management skills, saying that it would not be a fair assessment if someone says that Shastri’s job is easy since he has got a really strong team.

According to Ali, a coach must have the ability to handle the egos of big players and strong personalities in the dressing room, something he feels Shastri has done with aplomb.

“To say that Ravi Shastri got a really strong team, hence his job is easier is not fair. A coach must also know how to tackle all his big players. In our team, we got Shoaib Akhtar, but there was no coach to tackle him. If someone had figured out how to tackle him, he would have been an even bigger player. This is the biggest task of coach,” Basit Ali further said.

‘We all have roles. Our job is to fine tune them in every possible way because when you are on the road, there is so much happening, there could be little things in your game that creep in which you don’t realise, which could lead to bigger things. So our job is not to have a stick in our hand and keep rapping them on the knuckles.”he added.

“You don’t have to go to a player and tell him something for the sake of telling it. If there is a reason why you have to tell him that and if you have a solution, then I step in. I will never go to a player and tell him what you are doing is wrong without having a solution to correct it,” he had added.

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