India’s assistant coach, Ryan ten Doeschate has talked about the current issue faced by the Indian Cricket Team. The team is losing the ability to play spin, shifting the mindset towards playing high-quality fast bowling. The Indian Cricket Team was known for a long time for its defense against spin bowling, but recently the situation has reversed and the team is struggling to stand against it. This has recently been seen in the ODI series against Sri Lanka where they lost 27 wickets to spin.
The assistant coach, Ryan Ten Doeschate said “The Indian mindset has become so driven to do well overseas that the focus has moved away from what was once their strength-playing spin,”. One of the challenges I wasn’t expecting and overlooked is spin playing.
“[We] were undone in Sri Lanka, and I think the mindset of the Indians has been such that they are so driven to do well overseas. I think the focus has moved to doing well in Australia and doing well in England, and we’ve kind of let playing spin, which was always the strength of the Indian team, fall back a little bit. So that’s one thing I’m looking forward to, helping get to that position where Indians are the best players of spin in the world again.
Ten Doeschate, along with other assistant coaches under head coach Gautam Gambir, is keen to address this issue. However, he mentioned that their approach won’t be overly technical.
Ten Doeschate is one of three assistant coaches who will work under new head coach Gautam Gambhir. Where Morne Morkel is expected to contribute heavily to the bowling arm of the side, the responsibility of addressing batting issues will be divided between Abhishek Nayar and ten Doeschate. The Dutchman said the remedial work was unlikely to get overly technical. “I don’t think much of what we’re going to bring is technical knowledge to these guys,” he said.
“It’s more about mindsets, situational awareness, how we think they can control certain phases of the game. It’s about throwing ideas out there, de-briefing, and keeping the mental space good. That’s going to be important.”
The new coaching staff takes over at an interesting juncture of the team’s journey. India has just been crowned world champions of the T20 format and has major targets viz. the World Test Championship and the Champions Trophy to compete for in the near horizon. “It’s exciting and kind of daunting at the same time,” he said. “In terms of what we’re looking forward to, qualifying for the WTC final. There’s a great opportunity with 10 Tests left, five in India [over the next couple of months] and then going to Australia [for five more at the end of 2024] is going to be great.
India has a packed schedule with 10 Tests remaining in the current WTC cycle, including five at home and five in Australia. The team will also prepare for the Championship Trophy with only three ODIs left in the lead-up.
