BOB WOOLMER has always been one of cricket’s greatest enthusiasts and students but he is relishing his present role as coach of Pakistan as much as any of his various jobs since coming under Colin Cowdrey’s benign influence as a young man in Kent. As usual, he is causing a bit of a stir and, as usual, too, he is getting things done.
His great good fortune, as Pakistan’s coach, is that he was appointed by, and works closely with, the most enlightened chairman of the board since Abdul Hafeez Kardar ruled the roost with an imperious and often rather capricious hand after he had ceased to captain the national team in the early years after the Partition of India. It was Shahayrar Khan, the Cambridge-educated career diplomat, who persuaded Woolmer to move on from his roving role with the ICC and in the 18 months since, the chairman has supported most of his schemes to bring some order and logic to the chaos that previously passed for a system in these parts.
The ideas are no different from those being applied in other Test-playing countries by other independent coaches, but in some respects there was more ground to be made up here. A team ethic, continuity in selection, a settled set of fit players at the top, a video data-base of the most promising cricketers below the top level, greater attention to developing the right muscles and the physical stamina of youthful fast bowlers are the essential features of the Woolmer plan, using all the modern technical and scientific aids.
Meanwhile, Shahayrar has been trying to find officials in each of the main cricket regions who can be relied upon to act in the interests of Pakistan cricket rather than feathering their own nests. For the time being, all provincial teams are picked by the national selectors under the chairmanship of Wasim Bari, the former Test wicketkeeper.
Nowhere is there more natural aptitude for cricket than on the sub-continent. Since July, Woolmer has been doing his best to sort out the many options emanating from the relatively small pockets of population in the north, presiding over some outstanding performances by the A team, notably in outplaying their counterparts from Australia on a lively pitch at Rawalpindi, thereby winning a two-match series. “They can all play really well,” Woolmer said. “It is just a question of sorting out which of them have the temperament and special skill to become consistent Test cricketers.”
Woolmer’s base is the National Cricket Academy at the Gaddafi Stadium in Lahore, where the facilities, inside and out, are as good as anywhere. With characteristic thoroughness, he has learnt some Urdu and studied Muslim culture. He and Inzamam-ul-Haq, whose once faltering English has improved, understand each other most of the time. If ever they do not, there are educated men in the dressing-room, notably Salman Butt, the left-handed opener, to translate. Inzamam is held in awe by his players: when he enters the dressing-room they stand up like schoolboys before the headmaster. Woolmer has experienced a similar aura of authority in the dressing-room of a national team: Hansie Cronje was as revered as Inzamam before his mighty fall.
Since irritating the Australians with long, patient, yet elegant hundreds — his three Test centuries were all scored in Ashes meetings, in 1975 and 1977, before he effectively scuppered his Test career by signing to play in Kerry Packer’s World Series matches — Woolmer has put all his energy into coaching, starting with schools in Kent, then moving to the first deliberately multiracial club in Cape Town, his wife’s home town.
In his more high-profile jobs at Kent, Wawickshire and South Africa, his great skill has been to treat each player on his own merits and idiosyncrasies. Brian Lara needed only gentle encouraging to turn up on time to make his regular hundreds; Allan Donald preferred much closer attention to the mechanics of his superbly athletic bowling action. But he is happy to give as much time to the lesser lights, especially if they are prepared to learn.
Two he thinks will make it at the top level are Asim Kamal, the 29-year-old left-handed batsman averaging 39.55 in Test cricket but so out of form that he is likely to miss next week’s first Test, and Mohammad Asif, a fast bowler “with something special about him”, who is in the A side to play England in Lahore from Sunday. Others are less receptive to the coach’s promptings. “I spent three hours one morning with a young Test batsman working on a flaw in his technique,” Woolmer said. “The next time he appeared he had forgotten — literally forgotten — what we had been trying to do.”
In the highly political atmosphere of Pakistani cricket that still prevails, Woolmer is careful to emphasise that the name is not for publication. That would be to invite trouble in a land where there are plenty of former internationals willing to have a go at the foreign coach. This week Mohammad Ilyas, the former Test opener, urged him in The Nation to stick to the technical. “Woolmer feels he is running Pakistan cricket but he must be aware that he is only here to coach the Pakistan team,” Ilyas was quoted as saying. “He is not here to run Pakistan Cricket Board or the game in this country.”
The affable “Wobbly Bob”, a little trimmer after several months of touring the country, can afford to let it all wash over him. At 57, he has signed on until the end of the World Cup in May 2007 and thinks that will be enough. Only in the very unlikely event of a humiliating defeat by England is he likely to part company sooner with the hired car in which he has done what no other Pakistan national coach has probably even attempted: driven himself amid traffic that completely ignores the order and discipline of most aspects of life in Pakistan.
WHEN EXPERTISE GOES OVERSEAS
Other Englishmen to have coached foreigners against the national interest:
Jack Charlton: The World Cup winner in 1966 inspired Ireland to victory over England in the 1988 European Championship finals, and to a draw in the 1990 World Cup.
Tony Pickard: The former Great Britain Davis Cup captain had more success coaching Stefan Edberg’s assaults on Wimbledon. He is the only Englishman to coach a world No 1.
Roy Hodgson: Football was coming home with Euro 96, but Hodgson, as manager of Switzerland, held England to a 1-1 draw in their first match, at Wembley. He also took Switzerland to the 1994 World Cup, a tournament that England missed
Mike Spracklen: The man who guided Sir Steve Redgrave to his first two Olympic golds defected to Canada in Athens last year
PATRICK KIDD
