Andy Roberts slams modern-day coaches

Former West Indies bowling great Andy Roberts has questioned the modern-day coaching methods of not letting fast bowlers bowl long spells during practice sessions. During a freewheeling chat with a select gathering organised by Sachin Bajaj’s Global Cricket School at the Cricket Club of India on Sunday night, Roberts discussed various aspects of fast bowling and his career.

When Mumbai chief selector Milind Rege asked him for his opinion on the domestic coaches’ emphasis on not letting fast bowlers bowl more than 30 balls in a net session, Roberts said such a policy was the main reason for pacers breaking down frequently nowadays. “Have modern-day coaches played cricket? Have modern-day coaches bowled fast?” Roberts said. “That’s why you have so many injuries these days because you are telling them you can only bowl five or six overs in practice. And on matchdays, you are going out on a cricket field and you may end up bowling 21 or 22 overs.

“If you are not used to bowling 21 or 22 overs in a day, you will get injured. That’s why you have to do in practice what you have to do in a match. We used to bowl two hours in the nets.”

Interestingly, Roberts, whose out-swinging bouncers had most batsmen running helter-skelter in the ’70s and ’80s, said he received only “six weeks of coaching” in his life, at the Alf Gover school, where he learnt “the value of follow-through”.

During his 40-minute interaction with the gathering, which included former India captains Ajit Wadekar and Dilip Vengsarkar along with former Test cricketer Balwinder Singh Sandhu and Kenia Jayantilal, Roberts billed Australian umpires of his era as the “worst umpires” and said match-fixing in cricket “came into being after the 1983 World Cup”.

GRV over Sunny

When asked about the best batsmen he has bowled to, he ranked “Viv Richards, Viv Richards, Sunny Gavaskar” in that order, but preferred to put “Gundappa Vishwanath ahead of Sunny when it came to playing on bouncy pitches”.

With West Indies cricket in shambles and the Caribbean team getting hammered all over the world over the last few years, the conversation veered towards the reasons for the top West Indies players not featuring in Test cricket. And Roberts, known as a man of few words during his playing days, shot back immediately with, “You should walk out of the CCI, walk out a few yards, enter the IPL offices and you will find the answer,” he said.

Soon after the discussion, Roberts elaborated on his concerns for West Indies cricket. “It doesn’t make me emotional; it is very sad and disappointing to see the level that West Indies cricket has sunk to,” he told reporters. “And, I am going to not lay the blame totally on the Board, but I will lay the blame on the feat of the players, because the players have to take up responsibility to develop their cricket.”