- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Retired swing bowler Nathan Bracken wants Australian cricket’s coaching setup to be overhauled so players can spend more time with individual mentors.
Bracken signed off tearfully on Saturday, a battered right knee pushing him out of the game earlier than the 33-year-old had wished.
He reserved particular thanks for another left-armer, Bruce Reid, as the most influential figure in the development of a method that served Australia grandly in limited overs cricket.
Describing Reid’s advice as the kind that “made my career a lot easier”, Bracken said their relationship should be mirrored in more systematic terms around an Australian team struggling to match the feats of earlier generations.
A review of Australia’s dire home Ashes campaign, plus Troy Cooley’s departure from the role of pace bowling coach after the World Cup, offers Cricket Australia the chance to reinvigorate their model.
“Different people mix with different people better, and for me he was the perfect coach,” Bracken said of Reid.
“Troy Cooley is fantastic, analyses and knows bowling actions brilliantly, but everybody’s different.
“Some people Troy will say something to and he will say ‘it’s plain and simple’ and they’ll understand it and go do it. Other people won’t.
“Look at Mitchell (Johnson), he missed Adelaide, spent time with Truck (Cooley), walked out in Perth and swung the ball, every question that was asked of him he changed and did, so obviously Truck and the information he had for him worked.
“But where other players have struggled to do things at state or international level around the world, you mesh with certain people and maybe that’s where we look, having different people advising different players.
“Obviously with the same picture in mind, all reporting through the same manager of the team, information goes to him so he can outsource.
“The whole picture’s being met, everyone’s moving to the same goal, but it’s being done how it suits a player.”
Ranked the world’s leading limited overs bowler at one time, Bracken took 174 wickets in limited overs matches for Australia at a cost of little more than 24 runs each, but was less successful in Tests.
His most startling achievement was to claim 7-4 for NSW against South Australia in a Sheffield Shield match in 2004.
“It was funny, we prepared and we were all disappointed in the changerooms when we saw the coin go up and Brad (Haddin) turned around and went ‘we’re bowling’ and we all thought ‘here we go’,” Bracken recalled.
“But you have those days, and to me I was lucky it was a day where everything went well for me and it ran through and the team supported.”
Build your own fantasy cricket team and put it to the test with Draftstars daily fantasy competitions. Pick your match, pick your team and watch the points roll in to take out cash prizes on each match. What are you really gambling with? Set a deposit limit.