When Morne Morkel stepped down as Pakistan’s bowling coach after the World Cup last year, tearaway Naseem Shah put a picture of the pair with a caption “More than a coach for me.” The youngster was the biggest beneficiary of Morkel’s stint, in which he transformed from a gifted but erratic quick to a genuine, persistent tormentor of batsmen. “He taught me to be selfless,” he would say.
When Naseem and Shaheen Shah Afridi bowled, Morkel would monitor them from his perch on the edge of the boundary cushions, sprawled on the ground, sometimes stretching, a coat of face cream creased on his face, as though he were shaking off rust for the next spell. If he noticed anything, the South African would get up, jog towards the bowler and whisper something in his ear. It was a familiar sight at the Lucknow Super Giants (LSG) dugout too, but with a different cast of bowlers. It would soon be a usual sight during India’s games too, as he has been appointed the team’s bowling coach.
Morkel was, without a doubt, head coach Gautam Gambhir’s first choice, the latter’s admiration stretching back to their playing days. In a conversation with celebrity host Gaurav Kapoor six years ago, Gambhir revealed the toughest bowler he had faced: “I thought he (Morkel) was the toughest bowler I have faced. When he was playing for Delhi (Daredevils), and every time I would face him, I would come back and say ‘yaar, I wish we had Morne Morkel.’”
The pair were locked in gruelling red-ball battles too. Morkel got him out twice in three innings in India in 2010, but Gambhir fought back with three gritty half-centuries on the trip to South Africa the next year. Though Morkel’s returns were relatively modest at Kolkata Knight Riders, Gambhir had little hesitation in summoning the bowler he feared the most as LSG’s bowling coach when he took over.
Great bowlers do not necessarily make great coaches. Morkel’s coaching graph is still in its early stage to provide a conclusive verdict, but there is little doubt about the values he brings to the team. In his playing days, he was the ice to the fire his more celebrated partner Dale Steyn was. He was mild in manners, seldom swore at batsmen or exchanged bloodshot stares. He could don the same role in the IPL dugout too, the face of calm aligned to Gambhir’s intensity. He revelled in the background of Steyn’s intimidating personality, but Steyn himself often admitted that “I have been bowling behind him. He’s been the spearhead.”
Morkel got along well with teammates — Faf du Plessis would say that he had no hang-ups or ego — and was friendly with the juniors. “He made me feel comfortable in the dressing room in my early years,” Kagiso Rabada would say. All these virtues could benefit him in his new role too.
Getting better with time
Unlike Steyn, born with an aura, a supremely natural athlete, Morkel had to learn to piece his gifts together to become the bowler he became. He was tall and muscular, purchased frightening lift, but struggled to locate the perfect length, or swing the ball away from the right-hander and had a tendency to overstep. There was a phase in his career when his ears were bored of hearing the he-is-too-unlucky consolation, like Ishant Sharma would. But he found the required solution — by the time his career ended, he was masterful with full lengths too — and progressed to become a prolific wicket-taker, the fifth-most successful for South Africa in Tests. He thus is the person to unlock the potential of someone like the beanpole Prasidh Krishna, blighted by injuries.
Morkel too suffered multiple injuries — none more severe than a back ailment in 2017, when he was told that his career was literally over. Every fast bowler recovers from injury, but only a few return to their lethal best. Morkel did, and he knows the importance of preserving a fast bowler’s body. It’s the reason he insisted on handling Mayank Yadav, LSG’s 155-kph tearaway, with care, give him due recovery time, and not hurry him into action after injuries, even if that meant losing a few points. “We need to manage him, look at his bowling loads, his recovery, educate him and help him find a routine that suits him,” Morkel would say.
The 22-year-old Mayank is among a herd of young fast bowlers Gambhir and India would hope Morkel grooms into world-beaters. Chiselling out the new brigade of India’s fast bowlers would be Morkel’s biggest vision. The senior line in Tests and ODIs look settled — Jasprit Bumrah, Mohammed Shami and Mohammed Siraj. In T20s, Arshdeep Singh has blossomed, though Morkel could harness his red-ball potential too.
But the pool of talent is not as deep as it used to be a few years ago, when Ishant Sharma was around, Umesh Yadav matured. and Navdeep Saini was making rapid strides. However, Ishant and Umesh have slipped down the horizon, Saini has plateaued, and Shardul Thakur is not conditions-proof, leaving India with a group of promising but raw pacers. There are green shots of promise —apart from Mayank, there are Akash Deep, Harshit Rana, Avesh Khan, Prasidh Krishna and Umran Malik — that need nurturing to shine.
It would be another fortnight before Morkel takes up his first assignment with the team, when India host Bangladesh. There is time (relatively) for him to bed in, as there are not too many high-stakes white-ball tournaments around the corner. The priority task would be to condition them for the Australia series later this year, before a trip to England, where India has not won a series in 17 years, in 2025. By that time, Gambhir and India would hope that some of the fresh crop of fast bowlers would reproduce the caption on Naseem’s Instagram wall: “Morne is more than a coach.”
