T.A. Sekhar has had a singular life in cricket. A fast-bowler at a time when the style of bowling wasn't understood in India, Sekhar has since been a major part of a pioneering effort to popularise and demystify the craft. Although he has moved on from being synonymous with the MRF Pace Foundation — he is now the team director of the Mumbai Indians — Sekhar's passion for coaching fast-bowlers hasn't waned. He continues to derive great satisfaction from illuminating for others a path that was to him as dimly lit as the smokiest nightclub.
“Coming from Tamil Nadu, there were no fast bowlers to tell me what to do. I did everything wrong and still managed to play for India. By the time I realised it my career was over,” says Sekhar. “I got into coaching by accident. Dennis Lillee was my idol, I used to carry a photo of his bowling action in my kit, and I read in the paper that he was coming to set up a fast-bowling academy in Chennai. I was rehabbing from a knee injury at the time, and my friend asked me to go meet him, which I did. Then one day, (former India captain) Venkataraghavan came to my house and said he had recommended my name to assist Dennis.”
Just 31 and two years after he had played the last of his six international games — his fourth ODI against England in 1985 in which he took three wickets including those of Mike Gatting and David Gower — Sekhar decided to become the head coach of the Pace Foundation.
Becoming a coach
“I was apprehensive about coaching but Dennis made it so simple,” says Sekhar. “He never harped on theory. He was so open, he had nothing to hide. It was so good of him to share his experience of the nuances of fast bowling. He was a self-made bowler, someone who remodelled his action himself, so he learnt all about the mechanics of bowling. Great cricketers rarely make great coaches because they can't explain why they do something so well but Dennis is the exception.”
Learning under Lillee was rewarding. “What happened at the Pace Foundation, which didn't happen anywhere else, was that we stopped the process of video analysis at delivery and reverse-engineered it back to the run-up,” says Sekhar. “Instead of seeing the effect we saw the cause. Dennis could see it with the naked eye. We needed to use the video to do it.” Learning under Lillee was also tiring. “Dennis always emphasised the importance of running for fast-bowling,” says Sekhar, “so we used to run 10 to 12 kilometres every day, taking to the road, running in Egmore and other places. After a while, Dennis would start to sprint, and you just couldn't keep up!”
Part of being successful, especially when deviating from the wisdom passed down unquestioningly, is dealing with the criticism of those whose beliefs are threatened. How did he handle it? “I was very clear that we wouldn't produce someone who would consistently bowl over 150 kmph,” says Sekhar. “It needs a different type of body for that. I was happy if bowlers could operate at paces of between 135 and 145 kmph and swing the ball because Indian bowlers have always had the talent to swing the ball. And we managed to do that. It took about 10 years to get the formula right for Indian bodies, and between 2001 and 2007 we were very successful, with many of our boys playing for India”.
Dividing time
Sekhar now divides his time between Chennai and Mumbai. It's a busy life, but Sekhar wouldn't have it any other way. “A lot of my work with the Mumbai Indians involves planning,” he says. “Twenty20 is all about planning. As a bowler you need to identify your best deliveries and see how to allocate them in your two spells. As a batsman you need to know which strokes are your best. A part of my work is in co-ordination with Robin (Singh) and Sachin (Tendulkar) and Zaheer (Khan) in identifying which players do well at home, which ones do well away, which ones do well under pressure and ensuring the captain has all this information. I also look after the fast-bowlers; I don't want to lose touch with that.”
An ambition that animates Sekhar is the idea of a book on fast-bowling in Indian conditions. “I have plenty of material but I want to make it very simple,” he says.
“The reason why India, the land of spin, isn't producing many great spinners is because what our great spinners did, how they practised, wasn't documented. Now that the systems are in place for fast-bowling I want to make sure there is documentation of the training, the techniques. It'll need time but I'm definitely going to do it in the next two or three years.”