The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : `Australian academy moving in the right direction'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Aug 08, 2004

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Sport - Cricket

`Australian academy moving in the right direction'

By K.C. Vijayakumar

BANGALORE, AUG. 7. The Commonwealth Bank Centre of Excellence (CBCE)-Australian Cricket Academy, now based in Brisbane has lent muscle to the Australian cricket juggernaut and head coach Bennett King believes that the institution is moving in the right path.

King spoke to The Hindu at the Chinnaswamy Stadium here on Saturday.

"Recently Cricket Australia reviewed the academy's progress and we have moved from Adelaide to Brisbane. The players now come for 14 weeks in winter and then get back to their States. It was deemed that Brisbane was the best place to relocate, primarily because of the weather," King said.

It is more than a decade since the academy started at Adelaide and King reiterated that `producing better cricketers' is the lone benchmark.

King stepped into John Buchanan's shoes as coach of the Queensland cricket team and guided it to two Pura Cup titles before joining the academy. A few seasons back he turned down the offer to coach West Indies.

"I thought that I would develop best as a coach if I stayed back. In the future if there is an international assignment, I will have to see how I am positioned at that time. I have a family with three kids and I need to be with them," said King.

Australia is staring into a future without McGrath and Warne but King is unruffled. "It is important that we create new individuals who can make their own history. Comparing players is unfair because there is only one Don Bradman, one Greg Chappell and one Dennis Lillee. I think there will be players who will step in though getting 500 wickets is tough," King said.

On the current Indian tour, King said, "my players are learning hard lessons on Indian wickets but I guess if they can spend may be a month playing here then they will become better players."

King believes that the forthcoming series between India and Australia will be `wonderful'.

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