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Why Australia will never catch India in Tests
MICHAEL CLARKE'S personal batting coach believes Australia's growing obsession with Twenty20 could cost it any chance of regaining a place among the top Test-playing nations.
Neil D'Costa, who is in his third year coaching state-level juniors in India, believes the lure of T20 riches has infected Australia's talented young players, who seem more interested in hitting fours and sixes than learning the fundamentals of the game.
''A lot of junior state cricket in Australia is now T20 cricket and that could kill Test cricket in this country,'' said D'Costa, who is in Sydney to work with Clarke and Phillip Hughes.
''In India, it's very different. There is no T20 in the junior state programs. We don't train for it, don't play it, don't promote it and the players have nothing to do with it. It's only at the higher levels, where there are players who have learnt their game and can make improvisations, that T20 is introduced.''
D'Costa, who was cherry-picked to coach at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Academy in Nagpur, said all coaches of junior players in India regarded their jobs as firmly about teaching their students the basic skills of cricket.
''The job of all junior coaches in India is to teach players the fundamentals of batting,'' he said. ''And you find that the guys who perform best at Twenty20 are those who know the fundamentals of the game best, anyway.''
D'Costa was stunned when he met with several of his teenage students during the week to learn that their priorities had changed. ''They tell me they want to score faster and hit the ball harder,'' he said. ''It's a real concern because everything in Australian cricket at the moment seems to be about Twenty20. It's all about the Big Bash, how we can get more people to the games, how we can make money out of India. It's not really about how we can make better cricketers.''
D'Costa raised concerns about the direction of the Centre of Excellence program, saying more advanced players were being taught to become ''clones'' because their individual talents were not being taken into account. D'Costa has always staunchly backed Hughes to play his natural game, despite many saying he needed to change his style. In March, Hughes revealed to The Sun-Herald that criticism of his batting technique over the previous two years had deeply affected him and he vowed after reconnecting with D'Costa that he would never again sway from the style that had earned him a Test call-up.
''The stuff that he was told was not in sync with how he'd made runs all his life,'' D'Costa said.
''The fact that he scored a couple of centuries early on showed there were some skills there. He had to refine them within his way of doing it. But the information given to him didn't take into account his way of preparing and playing.
''You don't coach a Premier League soccer player how to kick a ball. And you don't get a landscape artist to paint portraits. They are coaching our most talented players with the same principles as you should coach a junior. These guys are past all that. It's as though they're trying to create clones. They're not coaching players according to what they specifically need.''
D'Costa warned that the gap between Australian and Indian cricket was growing wider.
''The energy that's being put in, the planning that's going into the development of Indian cricketers, is amazing,'' he said. ''At the same time, Australia's spending time and money just trying to work out our problems.''![Yahoo :yahoo: :yahoo:](/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/cute/yahoo.gif)
MICHAEL CLARKE'S personal batting coach believes Australia's growing obsession with Twenty20 could cost it any chance of regaining a place among the top Test-playing nations.
Neil D'Costa, who is in his third year coaching state-level juniors in India, believes the lure of T20 riches has infected Australia's talented young players, who seem more interested in hitting fours and sixes than learning the fundamentals of the game.
''A lot of junior state cricket in Australia is now T20 cricket and that could kill Test cricket in this country,'' said D'Costa, who is in Sydney to work with Clarke and Phillip Hughes.
''In India, it's very different. There is no T20 in the junior state programs. We don't train for it, don't play it, don't promote it and the players have nothing to do with it. It's only at the higher levels, where there are players who have learnt their game and can make improvisations, that T20 is introduced.''
D'Costa, who was cherry-picked to coach at the Vidarbha Cricket Association Academy in Nagpur, said all coaches of junior players in India regarded their jobs as firmly about teaching their students the basic skills of cricket.
''The job of all junior coaches in India is to teach players the fundamentals of batting,'' he said. ''And you find that the guys who perform best at Twenty20 are those who know the fundamentals of the game best, anyway.''
D'Costa was stunned when he met with several of his teenage students during the week to learn that their priorities had changed. ''They tell me they want to score faster and hit the ball harder,'' he said. ''It's a real concern because everything in Australian cricket at the moment seems to be about Twenty20. It's all about the Big Bash, how we can get more people to the games, how we can make money out of India. It's not really about how we can make better cricketers.''
D'Costa raised concerns about the direction of the Centre of Excellence program, saying more advanced players were being taught to become ''clones'' because their individual talents were not being taken into account. D'Costa has always staunchly backed Hughes to play his natural game, despite many saying he needed to change his style. In March, Hughes revealed to The Sun-Herald that criticism of his batting technique over the previous two years had deeply affected him and he vowed after reconnecting with D'Costa that he would never again sway from the style that had earned him a Test call-up.
''The stuff that he was told was not in sync with how he'd made runs all his life,'' D'Costa said.
''The fact that he scored a couple of centuries early on showed there were some skills there. He had to refine them within his way of doing it. But the information given to him didn't take into account his way of preparing and playing.
''You don't coach a Premier League soccer player how to kick a ball. And you don't get a landscape artist to paint portraits. They are coaching our most talented players with the same principles as you should coach a junior. These guys are past all that. It's as though they're trying to create clones. They're not coaching players according to what they specifically need.''
D'Costa warned that the gap between Australian and Indian cricket was growing wider.
''The energy that's being put in, the planning that's going into the development of Indian cricketers, is amazing,'' he said. ''At the same time, Australia's spending time and money just trying to work out our problems.''
![Yahoo :yahoo: :yahoo:](/styles/default/xenforo/smilies/cute/yahoo.gif)