Dubai: India’s former Test star Pravin Amre is a much sought-after man for his ability to groom young talent. Some of India’s emerging stars are being mentored by him. Many cricketers approach him for one-to-one coaching sessions and among them are India’s vice-captain Ajinkya Rahane, rising star Shreyas Iyer and the prolific Robin Uthappa. He served as the assistant coach of the Pune Warriors team in the Indian Premier League and is currently with Delhi Daredevils.
Amre spoke to Gulf News from England, where he was overseeing a few youngsters from India alongside the G Force Cricket Academy coaching camp at Epsom and also shared his thoughts about the many rising stars whom he has guided over the years.
“Rahane is a coach’s delight. It is nice to have a student like him who is organised and trusts fully. He is always there to give his best whenever called for a session. What I have seen in him over the years is only growth, step by step. In his journey, he has faced a few failures and had even reached a stage where his place in the team was in doubt. He has handled them well and has grown as a player that he is now the vice-captain of the Indian team. Today people look at him as the main stayer in Tests and shorter versions. To be dominant in all formats you have to be aggressive. His role model is Rahul Dravid but, like Sachin Tendulkar’s early days, he can be aggressive too. If he can be a fusion, then it can be helpful for him and for the team,” said Amre, who is among the very few Indians who got a century on his Test debut on foreign soil when he hit 103 runs against the formidable South African team at Durban in November, 1992.
Amre also grooms 22-year-old Shreyas Iyer, a prolific run-getter in India’s domestic cricket, who is on the verge of becoming an international player. “Shreyas is hugely talented. When I spotted him, he was 19 years old and I realised that he has got a different flair. He was already aggressive and my job was not to curb him but mould him the right way where he can perform better. Usually Mumbai batsmen are always told to play in the V and stay on to play bigger innings but Shreyas was one with some special talent always wanting to dominate. As a coach, one must understand the current scenario where the boys have to play three different formats and all are equally challenging them to do well. So what I felt good about him is that, in the second year itself, he became the second highest run-getter in India with 1,300 runs. First year, he got 800 runs and, after his 1,300 runs, he scored 750 runs. In the last three years, he is the highest run-getter for Mumbai. So the challenge is not to stop their natural game and disturb their mindset.”
Amre has also watched the rise of Indian skipper Virat Kohli as the India A team’s coach.
“I saw him as an under-17 at the MCA camp way back in 2007. He was a kid who always wanted to improve his game and will do anything to achieve it. He can give any [number of] hours to improve his game. One thing I observed in him when I went as India A coach to Australia in 2010 was his love for challenges. We were in a situation where we lost four games and we had to win all the remaining games and I changed the batting order and asked Virat to open and he came up with two hundreds and, ultimately, we won the final. When we see the development in a player, we look at not only his game but character too. His love for challenges was what made me happy to promote him,” said Amre, who himself was coached by renowned coach Ramakant Achrekar, who groomed Tendulkar and Vinod Kambli.
Amre began his one-on-one coaching mainly after Uthappa approached him five years ago.
“As a coach, it is our first duty to help a player who approaches with an idea.
“Robin wanted to stay a longer period at the wicket and wanted to improve his game from scratch and he was ready to wait. Today’s biggest challenge is that players feel there is no time and there is no tomorrow but, I feel, if you do your foundation right, tomorrow will be yours. I have worked with Suresh Raina, Naman Ojha and Dinesh Karthik as they come to Mumbai and work with me,” he said.
When asked about Raina, Amre said: “I am hopeful that Suresh Raina will come good. He came to me to work on playing the short ball. He is the most consistent batsman in the IPL scoring over 400 runs. He knows how to play well the shorter version.”
What does Amre consider as the biggest challenge as a coach? “Even if a player is not doing well, you have to provide them with calmness because they are looking at you and we cannot be upset. We have to be very positive. For them, most times, I am like a mirror — if they are wrong, they are wrong; if they are good they are good. Sometimes they need to be given that feedback and then they will know where to work on,” said Amre, whose knock of 246 for the Rest of India against Bengal is still the highest by any bastman in the Irani Trophy tournament.
