The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : Take the good with the bad: Philpott

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Apr 19, 2004

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Sport - Cricket

Take the good with the bad: Philpott

By Our Special Correspondent

MUMBAI, APRIL. 18. Former Australian leg-spinner Peter Philpott said part of playing cricket was accepting the good with the bad and if one were unable to do that one would never progress to play first class or Test cricket.

"In the long run the mental approach one must have is to get on with the game and do his very best, enjoy the fact that he is performing to the best of his ability and if anything good comes from it, then it's a bonus. If he is playing for the only reason that he wants to play for India or Australia, he should find another game,'' said Philpott, whose career coincided with that of Richie Benaud's and hence was capped by Australia only eight times.

The 69-year-old Philpott arrived here on Sunday to conduct a three-week clinic for 20 leg-spinners. He became a cricket coach first, then a history teacher. "After teaching history for 50 years I had to quit because it was interfering with coaching,'' said Philpott at the Brabourne Stadium.

Philpott who has coached in Australia, South Africa and England said he was quite different from other coaches. "Basically what I have done all over the world for quite a long time now is first of all, look at how you spin the ball hard, look at what your spinning ball can do and how you can master the variations. And then look at the ways by which you can improve your accuracy, because if you can spin it hard and if you have got variations and you are accurate, you are a good bowler.

"I am very strongly against the kind of coaching where the first thing people do is to look at your action and technique and all these type of things, particular the people who try to make them all the same. Throughout the history of the game every leg spinner has been different.

"When you look at the leg-spinners who have played the game, virtually none of them are similar in any way except that they spin the ball hard, they have good variations and they are accurate. So these are the factors I work on very hard with each boy and then look at the kind of fields and tactics he can apply,'' he added.

Philpott worked with 26 leg-spinners between the ages of 16 and 23 last October. "India has outstanding talent. Of the 26, ten have the potential to play first class cricket. The greatest limiting factor is that during their developmental years, they are not allowed to bowl enough. Captains rely on medium pace containment.

"That's why I am delighted to hear in India that the Board has abolished limited overs cricket in the under-17 group. Limited overs cricket is not a good developmental game; it's more of a post-graduate game after you have learnt to play. I take the analogy that the best way to be a jazz pianist is to learn classical music first. Once you have your classical technique you can switch to jazz. Similarly in cricket you have the learn the classical game first.''

Evidently Philpott likes the way Sachin Tendulkar goes about bowling leg spinners. "I told people last October here that India can beat Australia and I wanted to see Tendulkar bowl leg spin. But he obviously doesn't want to be a bread and butter leg-spinner. And you cannot have a part time leg- spinner in the side,'' said Philpott who has authored a book, Art of Wrist Spin bowling. He starts his clinic for the first batch of 10 boys at the Brabourne Stadium on Monday.

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