‘Everything that captain Shreyas Iyer has touched has turned into gold’: Punjab Kings bowling coach | Cricket News

Mumbai:Punjab Kings’ return to the IPL playoffs after 11 years is rightly credited to skipper Shreyas Iyer and head coach Ricky Ponting, but bowling coach James Hopes also deserves immense praise for his tireless work behind the scenes. Hopes, a trusted lieutenant of Ponting, has guided the PBKS bowlers well in a tournament where batters have dominated. Excerpts from an exclusive interview with TOI…You have worked closely with Ponting in Delhi Capitals and now Punjab Kings. How would you describe his coaching style? PBKS have made it to the IPL playoffs after 11 years, so clearly, he has had an effect on the campaign as a reputed head coach…I’ve been with Ricky for a long time now, since 2018, when it was our first year in Delhi. He’s acutely aware of what’s required at a certain time, whether he needs to be a bit more intense or whether he needs to be a little bit more laid back. He’s got a very good feel for when he has to be in those moods. And he’s just done what he did in Delhi as well, what he’s done here now: he brings a lot of confidence to players and creates a very relaxed environment.Our guys (players) work hard, they train hard, and I think they really respect Rick because he doesn’t differentiate between player No. 25 and player No. 1 in the squad. He treats everyone the same way. He never gets too disappointed or excited. He’s a world-class coach.When the IPL resumed after a break, Ponting and you guys in the support staff changed your departure plan and chose to stay back at the last minute. Can you walk us through that experience? It showed a lot of commitment that you guys have for the Punjab Kings, especially Ponting, who has clearly managed to convince the Aussie players to come back…Yes, they were a weird couple of hours. I hadn’t left the hotel yet; Ricky had gone to the airport and was in the lounge, getting on the plane. When the ceasefire came through, the first information that we were getting was that the IPL had a chance of restarting as soon as Thursday night.So, for me, that (departure date) was on a Saturday night. I wouldn’t have gotten home until late Sunday night, and to get back for a first training session meant I would have had to leave home on Monday afternoon. So, getting home for 12 hours, I didn’t think it was worth it!

I think that would be harder on my kids than me not getting back there at all. So, that decision was made, and Rick coming back, he knew where he was staying, so he got de-boarded off the plane and came back and was pretty heavily involved with the conversations about when the restart was going to happen, how it was going to happen. And that’s the other thing we’ve got to remember as well.Yes, we’re overseas coaches; we’re not here to coach the overseas players. And if the Indian players were going to get up and train to go on Wednesday, we were going to be here for them!You had no security concerns, obviously, when taking this decision?No, Delhi felt very normal. There were no security concerns. Even the evacuation that we had from Dharamshala, to me, felt like they were doing the best they could. They were getting us out of there the only way they probably could have. So, we had to go by bus, we had to go by train. The fact that it was coordinated within a very short space of time was a credit to the security.Who’s that IPL player?Clearly, much of the credit for PBKS’s successful runs this season must go to captain Shreyas Iyer. He’s obviously led the team and performed well with the bat. So, how would you describe his role and his equation with Ponting?As a captain, it’s like everything he’s touched has turned into gold. There have been times on the bench where I’ve thought… ‘I think we should be going a different direction here with the ball,’ and we get a wicket with whoever is bowling, and that seems to be happening a lot this year! He’s tactically very good. He’s obviously a world-class short-form batter, in particular.He’s grown. When he was captain in Delhi, when I was there, he was still a kid, a baby. He’s got extensive experience now, including winning the IPL with Kolkata (Knight Riders).

I said the other day in a press conference, we’re blessed to have him in our team, to be honest. I think he’s one of the better captains in India. And he commands respect, not only from the Indian players but from the overseas players too.He just commands respect because of the way he trains, the way he is on the field, his calmness. He’s as calm a captain around the group as I’ve ever seen. He’s very, very good in that space.He has his moments, but that’s normally with the (coaching) staff and what we need to be thinking. But his general demeanor around the group is absolutely brilliant.”How has it been working with Arshdeep Singh? He’s obviously one of the leading bowlers in T20 world cricket right now.He’s great, highly skilled, very coachable, which I’ve found, is really nice. He’s open to just trying subtle new things. You find sometimes that guys with high skill, like he has, can be very happy in the spot they’re in. But he’s always wanting to expand: ‘What about if I hold the ball like this, it’s a bit different?’ And just trying to change subtle things, because he’s been around a while now and people know what he’s going to do.But he’s brought out a couple of new things this year with the way he’s swinging the ball, a little bit different, which has caught some players by surprise. He’s still young. He’s got so much T20 cricket left in his life, so much cricket left in his life. So, I think when we get to the end of his career, we’re going to be talking about him as one of the most dominant bowlers of all time.Are you looking forward to perhaps seeing both Iyer and Arshdeep in England this summer at some point?I think he’s (Arshdeep) perfectly suited for the English conditions. He can swing the ball both ways; he can bowl reverse-swing if that’s required. He can bowl around the wicket as a left-armer (seamer) and still take it away from the right-hander.Shreyas is ready to get back into the Test arena. I think he’s worked hard on his game over the last 12 months. He uses his hands so beautifully, which can be a real asset when you’re playing over there (in England). Yes, I think they both should be seriously considered for the (India) squad.The Punjab Kings have qualified for the IPL playoffs after 11 years. PBKS have never won the trophy. Do you think this could be the year when that long wait ends?Well, I think to win it, you have to be there, don’t you, at the end? And we’ve already secured that, but we’ve been speaking for a while, probably since Game 5 of the season, when we played Bengaluru in the back-to-back games, about how qualifying (for the playoffs) is our aim.But we want to aim just a little bit higher than that. We want to finish in a top-two spot, and we want to give ourselves two chances of getting into the final. And we’re close to doing that. We’ve got a couple more games, and we understand the importance of these next two (league) games. Yes, we’ve already qualified, but we do want to finish in a top-two spot. And we’re going back to Mullanpur (for the playoffs), so we’re going to our home stadium. We’d love it and wanted to be there!The IPL has now introduced a new rule—an extra hour has been added to the matches to counter the threat of rain. However, KKR have opposed the change in the playing conditions at this stage of the tournament. What do you feel about it?I see that (KKR) point, but I also see the point that this is a little bit of an unprecedented situation, and we know we’re heading into the rainy season in this part of the world. With games being moved, adding an extra hour, I honestly think they’re doing as best as they can just to finish the tournament and not have it affected (by rain). We can’t use reserve days going into the final. These guys (the Indian players) have to go on a Test tour of England.The MLC (Major League Cricket) starts nine days after the (IPL) final. The guys are trying to get over there. So, I think they’re doing as best as they can. You’re not going to hear any complaints from me. They’re just trying to finish the tournament.As a bowling coach, how tough is it to motivate the bowlers and get the best out of them, in an IPL where their scores are totalling 200-plus every match?On the 200-plus scores, we’re not focused on that. I know our bowling group, we’re not focusing on that. Even the other day, I think Arshdeep bowled four overs for 60. We spoke to him after the game about how well he came back. It’s funny to say that, but he came back into the game well and actually bowled a couple of (good) overs at the end. That sort of closed the game down for us.So, what we’re talking about to our bowlers is that when you get in a moment where you can make a difference, make a difference in that moment.It doesn’t matter what’s happened before it. Like, Arshdeep bowled two overs for 40 the other day, but still came back and made a difference in the result of the game, and that’s what we keep talking about.‘Don’t worry about whether it’s 230, 200. You just need to make a difference in the moment,’ and I think they’ve stuck to that pretty well.As a former all-rounder, do you feel that the Impact Player rule takes the all-rounders out of the game to some extent?We’re looking at it a little bit differently in that we’re trying to play as many of them as we can, so that we can bat as deep as we can and get as many runs as we can, and so far that seems to be working. It does help when we have the quality of Ash (Arshdeep Singh) and (Yuzvendra) Chahal, who are world-class bowlers, and then Marco (Jansen) is obviously having a pretty solid IPL, while Azmatullah (Omarzai) is coming into his own now as well.We haven’t bowled Mitch (Owen) yet, but even now, Marcus is back now in the mix. So, yes, we’re trying to play a lot of batters and bowlers.So, that’s our theory about the whole taking all-rounders out. We’re trying to play as many as we can.As a bowling coach, would you say that PBKS’ best match was the one in which your team defended just 110 against KKR at Mohali?Yes, that was… as me personally as a bowling coach, no, in Delhi we defended a couple of scores, like 120, 125, which were… The one, I think the big thing about the Mullanpur game was that I think they were two for 72. It’s just staggering that they got bowled out there for 95. We were talking at one stage, ‘Well, if we make them get 15, 16 overs, at least we’d limit the damage on their run rate.’But then (Yuzvendra) Chahal bowled that over, and then it was almost like, ‘Well, we can’t lose the game now unless ‘Dre Russ’ has a night out.’ That was a fun experience to be part of that night, and that was where I think that leads to a little bit of the excitement of us going back there as well as what the crowd was like that night and how much they were behind us. I think the boys got pretty excited about getting back there.Whom would you tip to win the India-England series, and the World Test Championship final between Australia and South Africa? With Jasprit Bumrah leading the Indian bowling attack, do you think that India will have the fast bowling resources to win the series?Yes. I think he’s (Bumrah) the X-factor in the whole thing. If he plays five Tests and bowls as well as he can bowl, I think India will be very, very well-placed. I think it’s going to come down to which batting group stands up in conditions where the ball might move around a little bit.On the World Test Championship, that’s going to be the battle of two bowling attacks as well, and it’s a real hard one to judge because there are just a couple of Australian batters that are playing some county cricket, but outside of that, they’re not coming in with any helpful preparation, really. So, that might be a shootout for the two bowling attacks as well.