What isn’t broken shouldn’t be mended is the mantra of new India bowling coach Morne Morkel, who loves how the Indian cricket set-up runs on auto-pilot, and says his new assignment will involve helping that system “get better in small ways”.
Morkel, who has worked with current head coach Gautam Gambhir in Lucknow Super Giants (LSG), has been
in India enough times and seen it from close quarter to understand how it works and where he would fit into the ecosystem.
“Coming here, this is a set-up that operates by itself and so to protect that and make it better in small ways is going to be the goal,” Morkel told BCCI.TV, making it clear that his focus is on minor tweaks rather than overhauling what works.
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He also feels that super seniors like Rohit Sharma, Virat Kohli, Ravindra Jadeja, Ravichandran Ashwin and Jasprit Bumrah will always lead the charge and his job will be to be the sounding board as part of the support staff.
“We are quite lucky to have quality senior players and they will lead the charge. Our responsibility is to support them and give them best sort of advice that we can give,” said Morkel, who turns 40 soon and has played alongside legendary Dale Steyn.
Morkel, who has 544 international wickets across three formats with 309 of them coming in Tests, was “blown away” by how Indian cricketers went about things and “how professional they were”.
“That’s a good sign and hope we can build on that,” Morkel said.
He joined the pre series camp in Bangladesh and currently, he wants to build a trust with players and see how he can help them.
“For me, this is important to connect well with the guys, played a lot against some of the players, seen and connected with some of the guys during IPL and to be in the camp and form friendships and relationships with players is very important,” said the former Proteas speedster.
“….trying to understand the guys and their strengths and weaknesses and help them set goals for the upcoming series.” He hoped that he can channelise the enormous level of talent that Indian cricketers possess. “It’s one thing having talent and skill and how can you make those guys feel welcome in an intimidating environment. India playing in blue shirt is a lot of expectations, so for me, having the experience, going through that, passing that sort of knowledge and helping them settle in will be the goal,” Morkel said.
“As soon as players have that comfort and feel they belong here, that’s when the performance comes. I am looking forward to that and obviously up-skill them and get them up to the standard.
“I understand that there will be expectations of winning and luckily I have experienced that in my playing days and I can share that knowledge,” he added.
Morkel said that after his discussions with the BCCI about the bowling coach’s job were finalized, it took some time for the confirmation to sink in.
“So when I ended the call, I sat for about five minutes in the room. I spoke to my dad first and didn’t even go to my wife. Normally, they say you tell the wife first, so quite a special moment for me,” he said in jest.
“I enjoyed it 5-7 minutes with myself and then shared with the family about the opportunity and about eventually what might happen, so happy that we eventually got things over the line and this happened, looking forward to great journey and time with India.” Morkel is also a fan of Indian cuisine.
“I love Puri, breakfast I love my dosas, malai chicken but as a coach you need to show players that you eat healthy, players would follow,” he said.
