Former Indian assistant coach Ryan ten Doeschate admitted that delivering a message at the right time is crucial for a coach. The Dutchman said the coaches need to find the right time to have the conversation with a player regarding the technical changes they can make to their game.
The former Indian coach observed Virat Kohli from close quarters and revealed how he initiated a conversation with the veteran batter.
“I think a lot of coaches are afraid to make interventions because it can be seen that you are, you know, trying to justify your job, or you’re interfering, or just saying things for the sake of saying it,” Doeschate said on talkSPORT Cricket podcast.
“There’s always a risk that you sort of unsettle his frame of mind. You know, he might be in a really good place, and now you say, ‘You know, I’ve noticed when you’re pulling… you’re just taking your eye off the ball.’ Technically, you might want him to watch the ball a little bit longer, but now all of a sudden he’s thinking about pulling, and he’s got to go out and face Mitchell Starc. So that’s not the time to do it,” Doeschate said.
Meanwhile, Kohli was getting caught behind on the Australian tour in the Border-Gavaskar series when he was trying to play the cover-drive on the sixth-seventh stump line. Doeschate had a conversation with Kohli regarding his troubles but unfortunately, it didn’t brought any change in fortunes for the veteran batter.
“So I had thought about it a lot, and I thought how I could deliver it. You know, I’m not going to go to him and say, ‘Mate, you’ve got cover drives all over the show.’ But I then worked out a time-it was during a rain break-where I could deliver it in quite a non-confrontational way. And credit to him, the way he took it on ended up being a really great discussion. Unfortunately, it didn’t deliver the results we wanted towards the back end of the series, but you know, I’d say if you can deliver it to someone like him, you can deliver it to anyone. Just finding the right way of dropping your message is really important,” Doeschate said.
Kohli scored 190 in five Test matches against Australia at an average of 23.75 in the 2024-25 series.
