Australia’s Indian spin coach Sridharan Sriram recalled all the memories in the much-acclaimed web series ‘The Test’ where he shared Australia’s journey from ball-tampering shame to Ashes glory. The ball-tampering scandal witnessed the ban of the then Australia captain Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft. However, the team fought back and retained the Ashes under coach Justin Langer’s guidance and Tim Paine’s leadership.
“What you see is all real, there were no retakes, all the visuals are raw and natural,” Sridharan Sriram recalled with a lot of fondness while talking to PTI. “I think it’s a brilliant story of our (the Australian Team’s) journey from Cape Town to the end of the Ashes. I consider myself very fortunate to have been a part of the journey.”
“The cameraman did a fantastic job and integrated into the team easily,” said Sriram, who featured in eight ODIs for India in early 2000 and was a batting all-rounder for Tamil Nadu, South Zone and India A teams for many years as well.
“What you see is what you get with our players and the management group. As I said, I consider myself very fortunate to be a part of this journey and this is a great group of people to work with,” the 44-year-old further added.
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For Sridharan Sriram, working with Justin Langer has been a great learning experience, which has helped him grow as a person and also as a coach too. In one episode, he said that the team before the final day of Australia’s Test match against Pakistan in Dubai were able to save the Test and they did that. Sriram added that he had faith in their batting unit.
“Working with Justin Langer has been a great learning curve for me. He is very honest, extremely hardworking and expects high standards from his staff and players. It doesn’t surprise me what he has achieved in this journey with the team,” said Sriram.
“I felt we had prepared very well for their bowlers. Yasir Shah was coming back after an injury and Bilal Asif was making his debut. A lot of pressure was on Yasir and Mohammed Abbas to bowl us out and we knew that if we built a partnership early, they would try a lot of things, which is what happened,” said Sriram.
Sriram also talked about the world’s No.1 spinner Nathan Lyon, who has shown that a quality spinner doesn’t depend on the surface, they can be successful in any place.
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“Luckily, I have a great relationship with Nathan and it has taken time to build. I now understand his bowling, what makes him tick, what I have to look for in his bowling and what is his best preparation for every Series,” he said.
“We have a great support team as well with Troy Cooley and Craig Howard looking after our spin philosophy, a really good data analysis team who give us all the relevant information. So, it’s a combination of a lot of things and good team work above all,” he concluded.
