Former Indian left-arm spinner Sunil Joshi is the present spin bowling coach of Bangladesh cricket team. Recently, he shared his coaching experiences in Bangladesh and mentioned the most important barrier for the international coaching.
Since August 2017, Sunil Joshi is in the charge of spin bowling coach of the Bangladesh cricket team.
Recently, the former Indian left-arm spinner had a talk with The Indian Express. Talking about the facing difficulties in the initial stage of his coaching, Joshi said, “I had once played a couple of seasons in Dhaka Premier League; so the former Bangladesh players knew my capability. And since I know Hindi the boys gelled really well.”
Speaking about the most important barrier for the international coaching, Joshi mentioned, “In any form of coaching your language becomes the most important barrier. Your route to the language which they understand, that’s where the chemistry starts. I took my time to understand what it requires, maybe a couple of weeks. With international teams, they have base, the set-up and everything. They need to be stronger, mentally. Now, they need to understand how consistent they need to be and that’s where my role starts. My only thing is an individual player should know their game, the skills are secondary. You know the game, be self-aware, and everything will be fine.”
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When Sunil Joshi was asked to share his works with Bangladesh spinners, he shared the stories with Shakib Al Hasan and Mehidy Hasan Miraz.
Talking about the Shakib Al Hasan story, Joshi recalled the Mirpur Test against Australia that had been played in last August. He quoted, “In the Mirpur Test against Australia, Pat Cummins was on 40-odd runs and building a crucial partnership for ninth wicket. Shakib was bowling close the stumps. He was beating the batsman.
“I was watching for a while and I passed on the message during the drinks break. I said with same trajectory, he can bowl wide of the crease. When you bowl close to stumps, you beat batsman but you don’t get anything. But same angle you bowl from wide of the crease it will be different angle and batsman will be not sure whether ball is coming in or going out. After the message, Shakib got Cummins bowled, that’s what I want. Shakib waved at me after that.”
After that, he told about Miraz, “Similarly, Miraz is a good off-spinner in Test cricket but finds difficult to control his excitement. He gets too excited. I told him once when you are playing against the best of the teams, you need to control your aggression. He is getting better at it.”
When Joshi was asked about the Bangladesh players’ relations with the Indian cricketers, fans and administrators, the 47-years old told, “They have a good relationship. They keep asking me how Virat Kohli prepares, how Sachin Tendulkar and Rahul Dravid prepared. They knew that I have played with all these legends. The communication is happening.”
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Talking about the Bangladeshi cricket fans, Joshi mentioned that they are very emotional.
Joshi also revealed that how the former Indian leg-spinner Anil Kumble helped him to get the Bangladesh spin coaching job. He said, “I had already done first-class coaching in India and I was looking to coach international teams. Then this spin coach job came along. Anil Kumble, who knows me and my skills well as we were team-mates for long, probably a good reference to the Bangladesh CEO. I had applied, and then I spoke to Anil because Anil was in ICC, his reference somewhere helped me. The BCB also called my home association Karnataka and they also took reference of my coaching in Assam as well.”
Joshi also mentioned the part where he is presently looking to improve for Bangladesh cricket team. He commented, “My area of improvement could be in long time horizon, to improve the wicket-taking abilities away from home. They have the skill, they have to train hard. You are always comfortable when you are at home and once you go out of home, you know what are the difficulties and how to cope up with it.”
