Former India fielding coach R Sridhar has revealed that getting along with Rishabh Pant and finding a way to work with him proved to be a tough nut to crack initially. Sridhar, who was part of the Indian coaching set-up for seven years, said he hit a bit of a roadblock with Pant when he burst into the scene due to their contrasting methods and had to change his approach to reach a common ground. Pant made his India debut in a T20I against England in February of 2017, and a year later played his first Test against the same opposition at Trent Bridge, Nottingham, but as Sridhar, head coach Ravi Shastri and captain Virat Kohli were leading India’s fielding revolution ahead at full speed, managing Pant was becoming a ‘challenge’.
A year removed from the 2016 Under19 World Cup, the flamboyant and fearless Pant was nothing like what India cricket had witnessed before. He was carefree – often reckless – but backed his unorthodox-yet-effective style. Initially rough around the edges as a keeper, Pant had a long way to go. Tweaking some of Pant’s methods were crucial for the India youngster to progress, but when the talent is young and has a set system in place, it’s easier said than done.
“It’s a simple coaching philosophy. If they don’t learn the way you coach, coach the way they learn. A lot of times you say something and think the job is done, but if athletes are not picking it up, then you’ve not done your job. You’ve got to change your style and suit it according to the requirement of the athlete,” Sridhar said on ‘Anubhav Talks’.
“With Rishabh this was an example because he was a young kid, a teenager, 20 years old. Just come after the Under-19 World Cup. He made his debut, but you know it was difficult for me to connect with him initially. It was a challenge because he had his ways, so you let it be. It took some time for us to build that trust and for that I had to change my style of approach to coaching a little bit and understand where he is coming from, what he wanted.”
Pant has a ballistic start with India in 2018, as he notched up a century in just his third Test and followed it up with another ton a few months later in Australia during the 2018-19 Border-Gavaskar Trophy. In between, he scored a couple of 92 against West Indies too. But while his batting took off, Pant struggled with his keeping. It took time, mentioned Sridhar, as he had to fall back on a famous coaching principle, and with the help of it, he and Pant were able to develop a mutual understanding of each other’s thought processes.
“There’s another coaching theory. Give them what they want, till the time they take what you give. I started changing my style of coaching. Usually more is less, but with an athlete like Rishabh, less is more. At that level, at a very elite level, more often than not, less is more, especially when it comes to the technical side of it. They know; there are geniuses, they are champions,” he added.
“I had to course correct somewhere midway. I said no, with this boy, ‘less’ is the way to go about it. Then I made myself redundant and that is when the trick happened and we connected. The next 18 months were great fun with such a wonderful, exuberant and energetic athlete. I am so happy that he is back and playing. It’s a better version; he is wiser.”
