Lack of experienced bowlers is India’s main problem: Barnes

“You’ve got Sachin Tendulkar upfront, very dangerous. But Rahul’s obviously the key player because the team plays around him. Your key player necessarily doesn’t have to be a dangerous player, and if you get Rahul out, the team is going to look around and say, ‘who’s going to do that job?'” Barnes told The Indian Express during an exclusive interview.

That, of course, was proved last night at Durban after Tendulkar and Dravid fell in the space of two overs at the same score, leaving India at 62 for four — the match was over just 29 runs later.

And India’s bowling? The problem, he says, is inexperience. “I am a firm believer that experience wins big matches. World Cups, Champions Trophies, they are won by people who’ve been there, done it before. You don’t win it with your fly-by-night guys. I think that’s one of the problems with your side at the moment. You have got a young bowling attack, not a lot of experience,” says the 46-year-old from Cape Town where both teams landed today for the next one-dayer.

“But what I like about Sreesanth is he’s showing a lot of attitude. He’s got heart and a lot of fight in him. Munaf looks a bit more laidback, maybe a bit soft. I like bowlers who fight and have spunk,” adds Barnes.

Last Sunday, before the Johannesburg one-dayer was washed out, Barnes says he had a long look at Irfan Pathan, from up close — and found something interesting.

“I was catching for our bowlers, he was also bowling between them and some of the balls swung quite a lot and some of the balls didn’t. I could actually identify the balls that didn’t, what he was doing wrong. I won’t tell him now though,” says Barnes, laughing out loud.

But prod him a bit, and he loosens up. “It’s very simple, basic stuff but it’s not my job to tell you. Ok, look, I just saw from those few balls he bowled to me that his wrist wasn’t in a good position. If I was the bowler, I would want to know why. If the wrist is not in a good position, I would go from his wrist down to his feet, his run-up, his action. That’s enough for now,” he says, smiling again.

So does India need a bowling coach now? “It is important that if the bowler feels that something’s not right, he can go to someone and ask, ‘what do you think?’ Or somebody can come and say ‘Oi, what’s happening there?’ It is important and I think in this day and age, it is important to cover all bases. That’s what we are doing here, Australia’s doing it, England’s doing it. I think you have to try to get somebody in there. There’s no doubt there’s a need for it,” says Barnes, who’s officially tagged as assistant coach.

But ask him about his special relationship with his team’s pace spearhead, and Barnes unwinds. “There’s good trust and there’s a strong bond with Makhaya. He doesn’t mislead me if something’s wrong. Sometimes, he just wants to sit and chat. And we chat about all types of different things, not just about cricket. It’s just to make him a bit better, easier just before a game. I’ve got to know him well, his mannerisms, his personality. I know when he is nervous, when he is too casual, too laidback. Then I have to pull him in, rope him in and say ‘Control yourself, relax, or let’s get charged up here’.”

The former Western Province fast bowler then points to the little session he had with Ntini a day before that fiery five-wicket haul in Mohali against Pakistan during the Champions Trophy.

“Makhaya was running in at the nets, and I told him, ‘Listen, I will take a ball and bowl quicker than you because there’s nothing behind you right now’. His body wasn’t going forward, he was falling away, there was no momentum behind the ball, just no pace. And Graeme (Smith), the skipper, was getting quite upset because he needed his No 1 strike bowler to fire.

“I took Makhaya out in the middle, asked him to shut his eyes and visualise, then took him through our routine with a catcher at the other end. Boom! It worked.”

Barnes had done this before, too, in Guyana last year after Ntini fizzled out in the first Test against the West Indies. “He took 13 wickets in the next game (Trinidad), which is a record for South Africa. I know what it meant to him, he was man of the match. And in his speech, he said he’d like to thank me for showing faith and spending time with him. Those things to me, they are very special. He didn’t have to tell the world that. He could have just come to me and told me. Now those are special things in a person’s life. Thank you, to me, are special words.”

But handling South Africa’s pacers is hard work, he says, and a challenge. “I try to get them to understand their bowling. Makhaya, Shaun, Andre Nel, Charl Langeveldt, Jacques Kallis, Justin Kemp, Dale Steyn, all are different. The challenge is to get them to understand their own bodies, make them understand what makes them a fast bowler, swing bowler, seam bowler, stock bowler, shock bowler. That is the secret, that is my philosophy,” says Barnes.

Barnes is a “domesticated man”, married to Debbie and has a daughter, 18-yeaqr-old Kelly-Anne, studying psychology at Washington. But what’s with the cocker spaniel and Sachin Tendulkar? “Listen, there’s no disrespect. I love my dog like my own child. And I really admire Sachin and rate him very highly, him and Brian Lara. They are two of my heroes. In fact, I had another cocker spaniel earlier. I called him Baggio.”