Ryan ten Doeschate, the assistant coach of the Indian men's cricket team, said that he was eyeing fine-tuning the skills of the present players against spin bowling so that they can become the best in the world.
His comments come after India's series against Sri Lanka recently, where they lost 2-0 in the three ODIs in Colombo while losing 27 wickets to Sri Lankan spinners. It was the highest number of wickets lost to spin in any three-match bilateral men's ODI series.
“One of the challenges I wasn’t expecting and I kind of overlooked is the playing of spin by Indian batters. We got undone in Sri Lanka. The mindset of India has been such that they’ve been so desperate to do well overseas.”
“The focus has moved to doing well in Australia, England (so) that we’ve kind of let playing spin, which was always a strength of the Indian team, fall back a little bit. That’s one thing I’m looking forward to helping with, getting to that position where Indians are the best players of spin in the world again,” said ten Doeschate, the former Netherlands captain, to TalkSport Cricket.
The 46-year-old Ten Doeschate joins Abhishek Nayar as the second assistant coach under Gautam Gambhir's leadership. The veteran moved into coaching after his playing career came to an end in 2021. His coaching experience includes stints with Kent in the English domestic circuit and Kolkata Knight Riders in the IPL, LA Knight Riders in the MLC.
Currently, ten Doeschate focuses more on preparation than the technical aspects. "I don't think much of what we're going to bring is technical knowledge to these guys."
“It’s more about mindsets, situational awareness, how we think they can control certain phases of the game. (It’s about) throwing ideas out there, de-briefing and keeping the mental space really good. That’s going to be really important.”
With the recent successes of India in the T20 World Cup victory, together with near-finishes in the ODI World Cup and the World Test Championship, ten Doeschate expressed optimism about the future.
“It’s exciting and kind of daunting at the same time. In terms of what we’re looking forward to, qualifying for the WTC final (next June is a goa). There’s a great opportunity with 10 Tests left, five in India (over the next couple of months) and then going to Australia (for five more at the end of 2024) is going to be great.”
“Then in the medium term there’s the Champions Trophy (in February 2025). With only three ODIs left in the prep phase, it’s going to be really challenging to switch between the formats and get the team ready for that, which again is something they’re desperate to win.”
“Then in the next (WTC) cycle, the tour to England (summer of 2025) is going to be fantastic and then prepping the team for the (2026) T20 World Cup. In terms of timing, it’s quite difficult to walk into a team that’s just come back with the (2024 T20) World Cup.”
“But in terms of what’s ahead for the next 18 months, it’s mouth-watering as a coach. It’s all the series you want to be involved in and all the challenges you want to come up against,” he concluded.
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