ThePapare.com had the privilege to pick the brains of current Sri Lanka Cricket head coach Mickey Arthur on the ‘Cricket Chat’ segment on May 13th. Here are the excerpts from the interview.
How are you doing Mickey?
It’s been pretty frustrating. I’ve been in the Taj Samudra for 8 weeks just on my own. I’ve got a lot of work done, which is good, kept in constant communication with our players and analyzed the first 3 months I had. It’s quite hard to look out the window and look at the Galle face green and the beautiful Indian Ocean but not be able to go down there.
What’s the status on players starting their practices again?
We are certainly trying to get our players back as soon as we can, especially the bowlers. We have to get them back to their speeds and make them physically ready to go again. We had constant dialogues with Ashley (de Silva) at Sri Lanka Cricket and doctor Duminda (Chief Medical Officer). They are keeping us to speed with exactly what has been going on. We’ve set a target to get the players back on the 1st of June. Let’s hope that unfolds in the right way to get the boys back on the training ground.
How much of a challenge is it to rekindle the focus on the game in players who had their minds off of it for the last 60 days?
I’ve been constantly in dialogue with our players and we set them tasks, we prepared all of their player-plans. They’ve been training and doing as much physical training as they can. I’ve seen video footage of them. They are ready to get cracking and get going.
We set them individualized training programs based on what they had at their homes, ranging from Angelo and Thisara who have a gym at home to the guys who didn’t have those facilities. The attitude and the determination from our players has been brilliant. So, there should not be any need to motivate them, I think they are going to be ready.
From a coaching perspective, when you look at individual players like Angelo Mathews, Kusal Mendis, how much more can you add to these skillful guys to make them great players?
Every player I coach, I try to make them the best they can be. I use this phrase ‘you give them the roots to grow and the wings to fly’. Roots to grow is their technique, that’s to make them as sound a player as they can be. Wings to fly is letting them play in their character, that’s to let them go and play with freedom.
The key to that is providing them structure. I’ve had a good look at all of our teams; Test, ODI, and T20I, so far and we’ve got a bit of work to do. That reflects on our rankings as well. But I do know that if we give these guys the backing, allow them to play for an extended period of time without worrying that each performance could be their last, we are going to get greater belief and greater team unity.
We’ve now got a core group of players. So, we have to back those players to produce and be the best they can be. I’m confident that we’ll get some decent results because the skill levels are there in every one of them.
What are your short term, medium-term and long term plans for Sri Lanka Cricket?
I’ve spent a lot of time now in isolation, actually working on those exact philosophies. You know, obviously, international cricket, you’ve got to look short term because coaches don’t hang around that long. If they don’t get some short-term wins, then you’ve got to also have a long-term goal and an immediate goal. The long-term goal is the succession planning of the team. So, I always want to say as a head coach, when I leave the organization, I want to leave that organization in a better state than when I found it and also with some chance of having sustainable success.
The short term goal is on how we get some good results to build that confidence. That West Indies one-day series was so important for us because we found a brand. I wish we’ve identified a brand and we’ve built the players around that brand. So, it was quite important that we got some success.
With Zimbabwe, though people say it’s just Zimbabwe, look, that was a tough tour for us because the conditions were so tough. The wickets were flat and they didn’t take too much spin. So, you had to play very much a patient game. So, that was part of the brand that we tried to install. And then hopefully we can just see those players grow and that will turn into some success. Then you want that to turn into some sustainable success.
It will bring a core group of 18 to 20 players that can service all those teams so that when you one day you leave, you’ve left it with a good batch of players who are ready to take it up a notch.
What would you call a ‘long term’ plan?
I’ve always said that long term in Cricket coach’s term is from a World Cup to another World Cup because that gives you a certain period of time to build a team that can go and represent the country at the next World Cup based on the conditions that you’re likely to face.
I think with the way the International Cricket Council has now scheduled their cricket, with the Test championship and with the ODI Super League, it will make sure that every game of international cricket that we play from now on is towards something. So, every game has context. And I think that is so important because every game means a lot to everybody in terms of where you get in the rankings and where you get in terms of the test championship or the one-day League.
My short-term plan is to the end of my contract because we need to show some significant improvements in that time to earn the right to get another two years to take the team to the next World Cup. So, I’ve got those plans individually with every player. We’ve set every player with some realistic goals so that they know what they’ve got to achieve to be part of that brand of cricket that we want to play to ultimately achieve our goals.
The consistent selection has been the reason for the success of Sri Lanka in the past. Have you identified the core for 2023 yet?
I’ve got a very good dialogue with Dimuth who’s been a very impressive captain and Ashantha de Mel who’s been a very strong chief of selectors. With our test team and with our one-day team, we’ve identified our core that’s going to take us forward.
Obviously, there’s going to be young guys coming in. I was quite fortunate to be able to get some video footage and have a look at some of the under-19 players, just so I’ve got a feel for what that next wave of player looks like.
Hopefully, we’ve got the 2020 World Cup in October, November in Australia, we’ve got a lot of work to do with our T20 side. There’s no secret with that. We want to go and obviously do as well as we can at this one. But there is another T20 World Cup next year again and that’s in India where the conditions are somewhat familiar to us. So, we’ve got to keep that T20 side building now through this World Cup. Then we can hit that World Cup in India. We can hit that one pretty hard.
You spoke about being big on consistency, but one particular player in T20 cricket that I can single out has been Bhanuka Rajapaksa. What really is the reason for his axing?
It is a fair question and I’m sure that Bhanuka won’t mind me answering it as honest as I could. Ashantha (de Mel) involves me very closely with the selection. So obviously I work very closely in that regard. The player needs to know exactly where he stands at all times. I think that’s something I pride myself on as a coach. With Bhanuka, we took him to India. (I wasn’t here, obviously, for that Australian leg. And so I wasn’t sure what had happened.) I was kind of trying to find my way on the India tour.
The mantra for professional cricketers has been, you need to be at the best physical shape that you can be at any given time. That’s non-negotiable. You must control your physical conditioning. That’s the only thing you can control.
I didn’t think Bhanuka Rajapaksa was at the level required to play international cricket and I had a conversation with him. I didn’t think his fielding was good enough at the international level either.
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Since that conversation, Bhanuka has been outstanding. He’s been brilliant. He’s worked the house down. He’s changed his diets and his work ethic has gone through the roof. I’m very proud at how he responded to our conversation. If he continues along the line and he puts the performances in place, he will become a serious contender again for that T20 side.
Actually, that was one of my first conversations with our player group – that they had to maintain a level of fitness. Otherwise, they were going to deselect themselves. So, we had to be firm and fair in terms of the standards that I was prepared to accept as an international coach.
What are your plans for strategizing the power-hitting area in T20s? That’s been one of the areas we are lacking. How do you manage that?
Power hitting was an area we needed to look at. I thought with Avishka (Fernando) at the top of the order, to give bit of firepower there. We wanted Avishka with Kusal Janith because Kusal certainly can do that.
Then, you also still need your stabilizers. You need your guys who can do what I call the real batting. We gave that job to the Kusal Mendis and Angelo Matthews. They have to get stuck in there and do the tough grinding work to get us to where we could have a launchpad for the back into the innings.
The two players we identified as clean strikers of the cricket balls, are Thisara Perera and Dasun Shanaka. If Thisara bowls as he bowled in the West Indies series, he’ll become a very serious player for us. I think Dasun Shanaka can do that as well. So, we’ve clearly identified roles for every one of those players.
If we take it back to Pakistan, we didn’t have power-hitters there. We got ourselves to number one and won 11 series in a row by playing a brand of cricket that we knew we could be successful at. So, we worked out that if we batted ourselves to 155 plus, 85 percent of the times we had the bowling attack to win the game.
That’s why I’m being very prominent on trying to get an aggressive bowling attack because your bowling attack wins games for you by taking wickets. I’m really excited about our wrist spin options through the middle overs and then you could hold a couple at the back. Then obviously with Lasith (Malinga), we’ve got an incredible death bowler. So, we trying to develop something that could be quite successful for us.
Is it a concern that Sri Lanka doesn’t have a major domestic T20 tournament just like Pakistan or India?
I know the Sri Lankan Cricket Board is trying to get something like that up and going, which I think would be very beneficial to the players because it gives them another little bit of revenue stream. It also allows players to play with really good overseas players and to get used to the rigours of T20 cricket.
I think that we saw once the introduction of the PSL came for Pakistan cricket, it certainly played a role in fast-forwarding the performances of the 2020 team as well.
What’s your stance on the future of Lakshan Sandakan, Kusal Mendis, and Lahiru Kumara?
I think Kusal Mendis is arguably our best player. I think if you’re a good enough player, you can play all forms of the game. I think his hands are amazing. He makes some really good decisions. I think his record is not as good as what his talent is.
I want to give him all the belief to go out there and fulfill his talents because when we watch him play in the nets, our very experienced batting coach Grand Flower, our bowling coach David Saker and myself unanimously think that his touch and his positioning is brilliant. He’s almost seemed to have a little bit more time than everybody else. We’ve got to get him scoring big runs. So, I think he can play all forms of the game, no problem.
Lahiru Kamara is very exciting and he is going to play in all forms of the game as well. The one thing with Lahiru is, we’ve got to watch his workload management. I think that we’re starting to build a very good nucleus of fast bowlers and it’s very much white ball and Red ball orientated at the moment. Lahiru Kumara is the one that fits across all three formats. He’s going to be a vital cog for us.
On Lakshan Sandakan, I love him because he’s different. I think any cricketer that’s different, he has the ability to win games for you. We have to strike in overs 20-40 in one day cricket and overs 7 to 15 in T20 cricket. We have to have the ability to strike in those overs. We need to find a guy that can do it as well and allow them to be aggressive, allow them to take wickets. So, Sandakan will get a run at it.
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That’s why I’m so excited about Wanindu Hasaranga. He is going to do that for us in white-ball cricket. We mustn’t forget that Akila Dhananjaya. On the 29th of August, his suspension’s over. We’ve got to get him tested again and then he comes back into consideration as well. With Lasith Embuldeniya in Test Cricket, we have got a nucleus of really good spinners who are going to serve Sri Lankan cricket for a very long time.
we’ve got some good strong leaders too. Isuru Udana in white-ball cricket is a strong leader. We sit with Angelo, Chandimal who’ve got loads of experience along with Niroshan Dickwella who gives us that real good, hard fighting spirit.
Is Sri Lanka’s current status in international cricket more of a physical issue or a major issue?
I think it’s actually both. I certainly when I came in, I didn’t think the players were fit enough. we’ve pushed them harder to become a lot better physically. It allows you to turn those 50s into 80s and turn those 80s into hundreds, which becomes match-winning knocks. It allows our quick bowlers to bowl spells for longer and to get to their mental aspect.
You talked about the spinners, what is your take on the current seamers Sri Lanka got?
We’re very lucky to have David Saker as our fast bowling coach who’s worked with England and Australia. He’s been very impressed by the group of bowlers we have and he feels that he can improve there.
Rumesh Rathnayake also works with us in terms of getting those bowlers ready, like when we’re away with our test team, he works with our white-ball team. We starting to develop a message that’s consistent through all coaches without any mixed messages from different coaches.
I think Suranga Lakmal does an awesome job in our test team. He’s just a hardy cricketer. But we’ve got three other young bowlers with Lahiru Kamara, Kasun Rajitha and Vishwa Fernando, who are all slightly different in what they give. They are all going to be there for the foreseeable future.
I’m quite comfortable that we’re building the depth in each department and you have to have that depth in each department to ultimately have that sustainable success at the end of the day.
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You’ve coached South Africa, Australia, Pakistan, and now Sri Lanka so far. Do you prefer to coach a high-profile team or a weaker team?
First of all, to answer that question, I don’t think you’ve coached as a coach until you’ve coached in the subcontinent, the emotions, the passion, everything that goes with coaching in the subcontinent is second to none and I have loved every minute of that.
There were up and downs in my tenures at South Africa and Australia. But I always say that the best three years I’ve had in my coaching career so far has been in Pakistan because we developed a team and changed the way the team played. We developed a culture and the players who were so respectful. They had such great values just bought into exactly where we wanted to take the team and the similarity between Pakistan and Sri Lanka is uncanny in my mind.
Video – Sri Lanka Head Coach Mickey Arthur – Cricket Chat 05
I think my coaching is best done when I come in and develop a team for sustainable success. That’s where I do my best work. I love looking at it as a brand. I love looking at goals. I love working out how we going to get to those goals and which personnel are going to get us there. That’s that for me is the science of coaching and that’s something I love.
Finally, what’s your message to Sri Lanka cricket fans?
All I can say to the fans is that since I came in, I’ve seen that the amount it means to every one of their players to represent the country and to represent you, the fans. I’ve seen their work ethic and it’s second to none. I’ve seen ambition and a passion in them to become the best they can be. sI’ve seen a certain determination to get Sri Lanka cricket to where it rightfully should be, at the top of the world, and competing for trophies.
