Avishka turns new leaf in coaching

Chris Dhambarage

ormer Sri Lanka dashing opening batsman Avishka Gunawardena turned a new leaf in his coaching career when he inspired MAS Kandurata to win the Bank of Ceylon Inter Provincial limited overs cricket tournament recently.

Twenty nine year old Gunawardena stated that his experience of having played alongside the same players in the recent past made his task much easier and is looking forward towards building a successful career.

Following are the excerpts from the interview.

Q: What does it mean to you by winning the Inter Provincial 50 over tournament?

A: It’s mean a lot to me because it is the first time that I am working with a team that has been given to me by the Cricket Board and actually one of the major teams. So it was a big challenge for me and I thought I handled it pretty well.

Q: How difficult was it to coach a provincial team?

A: It was very easy for me to interact with the players because almost everyone had played cricket with me except for a few youngsters. So it was easy for me to handle them and get around them and get them to do what I wanted them to do.

Q: What is the difference you see in coaching a club team and a provincial team?

A: The difference is the standards and obviously you are working with the guys who had played for Sri Lanka and who have been playing for Sri Lanka for a long time and the other guys are almost there. So basically in terms of coaching I think there is not much that I could do in terms of technical part. My basic role has been preparing the players for matches the tactical part of it and obviously motivating them through one on one sessions. More than the technical part it has been getting them prepared for the game and the tactical part I use in a game.

Q: You mean it is much easier to handle a provincial team?

A: It is not easy. When you are coaching a club side there is lot of youngsters there are lot of newcomers and you need to look into a lot of things. You need to look into their technique, how they read the game, how they look at the game, how they handle the situation and all that. When you are coaching a provincial team the guys who are there are very much experienced and obviously they are one step above a club player. So you get the cream of the club players playing in the provincial tournament. The work load is more. In terms of the coaching aspect it is little less. But the tactical part of it has to be precise.

Q: How did all things start for you as the coach of SSC and Kandurata Province?

A: Initially when I took over the captaincy of SSC in 2003 we did not have a coach. So I was the one who was organizing practices, I was the one who was giving them fielding practices and basically I was the unofficial coach cum captain. So that went on and obviously I had help from few others as well. That’s how I started coaching and once I decided to go and play in the ICL tournament in 2006 I decided to quit first class cricket. Then the club asked me whether I would like to take over as the official coach which I accepted.

Q: What was the early experience for you as a coach?

A: I really enjoyed coaching because it is a challenge and I love to face challenges in my life. When it comes to cricket I like to face challenges and coaching is a big challenge for me. My goal is to produce many cricketers for Sri Lanka.

I would love to see everyone whom I am coaching go ahead and represent Sri Lanka. That has been my ambition. That is what motivates me. And it was nice to see in the last Test tour there were eight of SSC player who went on the tour. It was nice to see half of the team who was playing for SSC and the guys who have been coaching. So it was a milestone in the early days of my coaching career.

Q: Did you ever have an idea of ending up as a coach?

A: When you look at the way I bat people might not think that I am a good tactical man and that I read the game really well. That’s the way I played cricket. At 16 years I was the youngest to captain the Sri Lanka Under-19 team. I captained the schools team when I was 16. Then there itself I always thought I had a cricketing sense, my decision making and I always read the game well. Earlier in my career I never thought I will end up as a cricket coach. But later on I thought again I should give something back to cricket.

Q: Don’t’ you think you could have played for few more years before taking up coaching?

A: I actually stopped playing cricket at my prime time. At 29 I stopped playing first class cricket which I thought could have gone and played more. But at that time I started enjoying coaching more than as a player. I had to decide whether I am going to continue playing or whether I am going to be happy with myself doing what I like. At that time when I decided to stop playing first class cricket I was enjoying my coaching more.

Q: Who actually inspired you to take up coaching?

A: No one encouraged me to coach. Everyone was pushing me to play when I started coaching because they thought I had another three four years of cricket left. But now I think everyone has seen me coaching, seen the way I handle players and the feedback I get from them and seen that I think most of the others are pushing me to continue coaching.

Q: What is your immediate goal as a coach?

A: Everything I do there should be a job satisfaction. So my satisfaction would be to produce many cricketers for Sri Lanka. At the moment my goal is that. At the moment I need to get more experience as well. I need to assess and improve my tactical part. I watch a lot of cricket and I experiment a lot.

Even when I am at home sometimes I sit down get a piece of paper experiment the field placing and what we can do. I will take the most successful batsman in the last three months in international cricket then obviously I will have a look at them and see why he has been successful. In which areas he has scored most of the runs and why. So I just sit down and analyze.

Q: How did you handle the Kandurata team in the provincial tournament?

A: I always look for the players comfort. Nowadays these players are involved in loads of cricket. So they know about themselves more than me. So I always go upto the player and ask him and I have told everyone if you need more practices tell me, if you think practices are too much you tell me, if you need a break you tell me.

I have always looked for the players comfort. Some players they come and tell me coach I don’t want batting today. It is their comfort and that’s what they want. The best part is the communication between the players and me I think probably is better than any other coach because I have played around with these guys. So to communicate with them is easier for me. That is the biggest advantage I have.

Q: How would you manage the team during the 4 day tournament?

A: Few of the key players will be going for the IPL. In the same time I got a few youngsters in the squad who still haven’t got a game in the one dayers or in the Twenty20’s. I have told them to be patient they also know that they will get a chance when these guys go for the IPL.

They are a talented bunch of cricketers and I think this will be a great opportunity for them to go ahead and perform and cement their places in the provincial side for the next tournament.

Q: Your comments on the provincial tournament structure?

A: I seriously think most of these cricketers need a break. They even don’t have time to recover from an injury. This is of course the best tournament we play in Sri Lanka at the moment. But the gap in between the matches should be little bit more therefore even if someone gets an injury there is bit of time for him to recover.

So the tournament structure is good nothing taken away from that but it has been tiring for the players for the amount of cricket they have been playing. Therefore the only thing is to have a bit of a gap between the matches so that players can recover from an injury.