Geoff Lawson reflects on his brief stint as coach of Pakistan and looks ahead to the tour of India

Osman Samiuddin29-Oct-2007

‘They [Pakistan] are good professional guys but we’ve got a long way to go in a lot ofaspects’ – Lawson © AFP
You’ve been coach now for just over two months. How have you progressedwith the team?Geoff Lawson: Pakistan are a really good group. They are goodpeople and that is the first thing: before they are good cricketers theyare good people and that is important. They want to do well and work hardand we’ll make them work hard. We’ve still got a long way to go – we, beingDavid Dwyer [trainer] and myself as the imports so to speak – but the players are9-12 months from being as fit as they should be.Because we’ve had so much cricket and you can’t train when cricket is on,we think they are that far away from where they should be as professionalcricketers. They are a long way in front of where they were on 20th August[when Lawson began] so now we’re getting there and we’re happy with that.Players are responding to hard training and that’s terrific.They are good professional guys but we’ve got a long way to go in a lot ofaspects. They are comfortable with their habits and some habits are easierto break and some are harder. That is what frustrates me most. We do somenew things really well and then we fall back to old habits. That will takesome time. I look back at the last ten weeks and am reasonably happy withthe progress.This is your first stint as an international coach. Has there been abig adjustment from domestic level?Before, I was dealing with Glenn McGrath, Nathan Bracken, BrettLee, Stuart Clark. They are the guys I have always dealt with -international players. As a commentator I have covered international cricket and have always been analysing it. I have been involved with international cricket since Iretired.You’re not inside the dressing room but to a degree, because you deal withthe players that I have just mentioned, you certainly have knowledge ofwhat goes on inside the dressing room. It’s great to have a perspective outside thedressing room and that is very important to bring to coaching sometimes.I’ve spent my life watching and analysing cricket so it’s not particularlynew to me. The big surprise has been just that the players have respondedas well as they have. I thought that might have been more difficultbecause of the habitual stuff that they have. That’s been the biggestsurprise but the nicest one. We can’t just transplant an Australian system into Pakistanbecause Pakistan cricket is different. It’s got different building blocks,different attitudes, it’s a different culture Moving on to the series just gone against South Africa, do you thinkthe targets you set before it have been reached?If you had asked me after the third ODI I would’ve been muchhappier. A part of what we have to do is a process – it is ongoing. Yeswe’ve got to win every game but there are a whole lot of other things wehave to do. We’ve come a fair way in that.We’ve done some really good things but the Multan ODI was reallydisappointing. Not just that we got beaten but that we need to beconsistent and we did most things wrong. Even when we were behind, wedidn’t show enough enthusiasm and energy in the field and you can’t affordto do that. That was really disappointing, probably a step back. So we’veprobably taken two steps forward and one step back.Given the fast bowling pool available in Pakistan, was it a mistake torely so heavily on spin during the Test series?We would love to have a batsman like Jacques Kallis who can bowlseamers, that would’ve been perfect. But anywhere you go in the world youhave to pick the team depending on what the conditions are. We probablyneeded another seam bowling allrounder.We have spin bowling allrounders and that is what you get in thesubcontinent. In Australia and South Africa you get a lot of seam bowlingallrounders because that is how you grow up. The wickets produce thatsort of player. In retrospect we might have played three seamers in theLahore Test but that wicket was so flat it would’ve ended a draw anyway.We just didn’t play well enough in Karachi, without much luck. Six daysbefore that we were playing a Twenty20 final so it’s unfortunate you endup losing the series, yet you have done so well just the Monday before.You have to play a Test just after losing a Twenty20 final but it stillsays 1-0 in the scorebook unfortunately. We tried to get over it [theswitch in format] but it was a difficult thing to turn around. It was thefirst time in the history of cricket that any team has had to do that sowe started slowly. Ultimately you just play the bowlers who you think willdo the best job.But there’s still a lot of fast bowling talent around…Absolutely. We have six really good ones in the squad at themoment and probably two or three just outside who look really good. Thatis a really nice situation to be in. With more cricket on, we have talkedabout when we’ll have to rest players but it’s just nice to know that youhave some good fast bowling talent to work with.One of the biggest series in cricket is just coming up with India. Hasthat affected the players in this series?It’s certainly been at the back of their minds. One of my tasksis to make sure it is not at the front of their minds because we have towin this series. Maybe we were thinking at Multan that we’re 2-1 up and itwas a nice comfortable place to be, and we’re looking ahead.Maybe we just needed to concentrate on the game and winning it. Obviouslythey were on the way to picking a squad there and people wanted to be init. It will be a fantastic series and people have a high level ofanticipation for that series. But we’ve got to get through this one and myinterest as a coach is to be mentally in this game tomorrow. If we win,that will be the biggest stepping stone to India.

From what I can understand, how he [Malik] interacts with the players is a bit different to how it used to be traditionally in Pakistan and that is a good thing © AFP
New faces are coming in on both sides…It’s kind of nice, a changing of the guard and great playersleaving. That is always a little sad because people miss great players.But there’s some new talent in both sides coming through and that willmake this series very exciting. The fact that we played them in theTwenty20, played a tie, then lost by a few runs, there’s not muchbetween the two sides in that format of the game. The apparent evenness ofthe two sides and what happened in the Twenty20 has just whettedthe appetite on both sides even more than these encounters always do. Ithink the very recent history between the two has been even more excitingand the addition of good young cricketers just adds more to what willalways be a good contest.How is Shoaib Malik coming along as captain?We have a very good understanding and we get on very well. Wesit down and discuss whatever, how practice is going, certain players, who’sin the team etc. We’re very good that way. The fact that he is a young captainhelps both of us. He hasn’t got entrenched ideas. He listens, takes thingson board. He likes to do things a certain way. But he’s only going to getbetter. He has done two Tests and a few ODIs but he is going to getbetter.He is even better with the players. From what I can understand, how heinteracts with the players is a bit different to how it used to betraditionally in Pakistan and that is a good thing. It’s more towards – forwant of a better word – an Australian type of system. Everyone in theAustralian cricket team is basically equal: yes there are senior playersbut a player making his debut can have whatever conversation he can havewith the captain any time. That is what we have to get to.In this group we have at the moment, we’re getting the hang of that. Ifyou exchange ideas you become better cricketers and that is the bottomline. That is why we want more communication within the team and whateversquad we pick.Has communication with the players been an issue at all?My Urdu is coming along – they love it when I use Urdu. But no,there is very little problem. I just have to speak slowly becauseAustralians speak quickly anyway. Just a couple of times if there has beena problem with some of the guys whose English isn’t quite that good, theother guys will make sure they know. So that’s almost been no problem atall. As long as I speak slowly and pronounce my words clearly which youshould any time, there is no problem.What can Pakistan take from the Australian system of cricket? Should ittake something?That’s a part of why I have been given the job. But we have gotto be careful: we can’t just transplant an Australian system into Pakistanbecause Pakistan cricket is different. It’s got different building blocks,different attitudes, it’s a different culture.The trick is to take the best of the Australian system and how they goabout their cricket and introduce it to Pakistan. I’m still learning a lotabout how the culture affects their cricket. Just the way they go abouttraining. If you go to a club practice in Australia, even though they areamateurs, those guys practice at 1000 miles an hour. Fielding is done withintensity whether you are playing third grade or fourth grade cricket.Here the guys sort of stroll around and do a few and I find that reallyannoying but that is what they are used to.So we want that Australianness – it’s probably the same in South Africa -but we want that intensity into how we go about practice. We’re gettingthere gradually, but you want the bits of an Australian system that workthe best with the Pakistan system. Pakistan cricket has got some thingsthat are fantastic and you don’t want to change that. You want to makethat better.