Back To The Future

In Bombay, though, the image of Rarotonga and balmy breezes was strong enough as the Kiwis went on to win the game and level the series. It was near the end of his international career but what the incident did was explain his philosophy.

A philosophy that emerged over the 1970s and 1980s. When the ever-competitive Eddie Barlow led Derbyshire the same time Wright joined the English county, he remarked how New Zealand teams were entrenched in 1950s thinking and how amateur was their approach. Some Kiwi administrators were quite happy with this image, advocating how skills alone would win games. Being competitive was ugly Australian brashness, not for decent sportsmen.

It was about this time, helped by the Kerry Packer revolution and a growing determination to beat Australia, that players such as Richard Hadlee, Wright, Ewan Chatfield, Lance Cairns and Ian Smith began to change the image. Their thinking: the only way forward was being professional and to do that meant being more competitive. The world admired hard-nosed winners, not good losers.

Hadlee, Chatfield and Cairns also believed that to be more competitive was to be fitter and tough-minded when it came to developing their skills as well as stamina. They had to develop a playing style similar to the Australians. It motivated the Kiwis and created a culture of competitiveness that Wright brought with him to India.

When he took over as India’s coach, Wright knew the challenges. What was the use of developing top six world-class batsmen if there was no bowling to support the side to win matches? Where did the selectors come up with a new ball attack of Iqbal Siddiqui and Tinu Yohannan (against England in 2001)?

Surely it needed long-term thinking to overcome this strange policy that worked against the system of trying to develop match-winning teams and with it a culture? Identifying talent and a new direction was becoming an urgent requirement. Idiosyncratic selection policies had to be replaced by clear, logical thinking.

If Pakistan could do it, if New Zealand could also develop an attack based on quality swing and seam as well as pace and become a better team, why not India? To match teams such as Australia and South Africa outside the subcontinent needed a change of mind.

It needed a culture where bowlers took it on themselves to create their own standards and fit into the role that Wright and to an extent Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar envisaged.

It had never been part of the Indian culture of playing the game. It had all been about dominance by spin supported by a couple willing but average opening bowlers. Part of the problem was the type of pitches prepared by venue authorities in India. Wright and Ganguly had to impress on the bowlers to get rid of the old perceptions that training had to be geared around building body weight, creating stamina and thus the skills and ability to win matches. Irfan Pathan was a prime example.

Suddenly Australians began to take notice. They realised that not only had this Indian side a batting sextet of world class ability but also a bowling quartet to match and bowlers were still able to hit back when the new ball was taken late on the second day. That has been the difference.

The results suggest that Wright’s legacy of building Team India into a world force at Test level will have long-term effects.

One is direction and the second is an identity that millions can associate with: a side emerging from Stone Age coaching techniques to one where modern skills have made them the side to watch.