Harper: 'We're Ignoring the War'
Tue, Aug 17, '04
"Good length off-stump, leg-stump four of them, the length was good for most of them, but you have to get a little more consistency with the line. I think you had some on the leg stump or outside the leg stump area that you have to tighten up on. To the left hander, you had more deliveries on off-stump area. As you go on, you will get better and better."
That's the sound of Roger Harper, head coach at the Shell Cricket Academy in Grenada, giving feedback to a young fast bowler after a net session one Saturday afternoon. His last assignment would have seen him giving similar advice to fast bowlers during his three-year stint as West Indies team coach. At the Academy, he keeps the youngsters on a tight leash, not in a draconian manner mind you, but strict enough to let them understand that being at the Academy is serious business.
Over the course of two days, in the interview which follows, Harper talks about what the authorities need to do to improve the quality of players entering the West Indies team, his time as coach with that team including coaching Brian Lara, and his thoughts on the new proposed team structure recently announced by the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB).
MM: Do you prefer working with this age group?
When they get to this age, if the foundation, if you have the values and the attitudes right, I think the other areas are likely to improve faster because we'll have greater work ethics, we'll have a greater appreciation for what it really needs in order to attain the sort of heights and standards that is necessary to really compete at the international level.
I heard the top prizes were for 'Most Disciplined' and 'Best Work Ethic' last year...
Yes, because the thing is while we appreciate ability it's something you didn't earn, you're born with. It is given to you by the Creator, by your parents and that sort of thing. It's what you do with that ability and usually it's the people who work hard on a consistent basis that's with the greater work ethic, greater discipline, and the right attitude that go further, longer.
Well I am sure you preached that in your three years of coaching the West Indies team. Did you feel that little by little people were beginning to understand that?
Well, yes. In some cases, yes. It was a tremendous experience for me, and I would like to think that in some way, I have been able to make a contribution to the players, the team, I think some more than some definitely. I think what is sad is that we talk a lot but in terms of setting up a framework to make that team more successful, it is not happening really and I think that what needs to happen is that if we are to have better players at the top, we have to pay more attention to what's happening below. What I mean is - we have the competitions below but we've got to prepare our players better for the competitions below.
Our cricket at the lower levels, at the club level, has to be better, has to be more competitive. The players there have to be better trained and prepared. If we have competitive cricket at that level, if you have quality players at that level, the standard at territorial level and international level will only get better because the better players will get to the top.
The other thing is that we have to set standards in all departments. We try to set it at the West Indies level but that's too late. If you don't have it at the territorial level, your fitness standards and your disciplinary standards and your skills standards or your performance standards, how do you expect to achieve it at the West Indies level? Guys have to get used to meeting standards and exceeding them.
Does it mean that, not having these standards at the lower level, the position of Coach is a redundant thing at the senior level? What can a West Indies coach change?
It's much more difficult. Let's take fitness as an example. If you don't have a fitness standard at territorial level that players have to meet in order to be selected for their territories, then when they come to the West Indies level, they are not going to be at the level that you desire them.
Everybody is complaining that West Indies players are not fit, but you are wasting time. You're wasting time, because the West Indies players are fitter than the guys at territorial level so unless you put a standard there where everyone will know that if you played First Class cricket, this is the minimum standard that each person is at, then we are wasting time. As well, we have to have performance standards in place. We have to do that.
For example?
Well, I think that guys have to perform at a certain level, on a consistent basis, to earn a place in the West Indies team.
Would you disagree with for example the selection of people who haven't played any First Class cricket?
Let me put it this way, in the 1980s, there were players selected who had probably played one season and did reasonably well and people thought they had potential to perform, but that was an established team and it was not the norm. You had one player being selected and he would not get into that Test team right away. On tours, you had a lot of First Class games where that person would have the opportunity to play most of them, gain experience, play with these experienced world class players and be able to develop and learn.
Now, guys are being rushed straight into the international team and you are sort of relying on them to make winning contributions. I think they need better grounding. I think one of the things we have to do is to decide whether we want to win the battle tomorrow or the war down the road.
What do you think it should be?
The battle doesn't count. It's the war, and we have to plan to win the war, so you have to plan long term.
The Head Coach sits on the selection panel only during tours?
I will answer the question this way. When I was coach of the team I was involved in selection at home, I was a member of the selection panel and I chaired the selection panel which comprised of the Coach, the Captain, the Vice Captain and possibly a senior player on tour, and when the Chairman started touring, he chaired the meetings so I was totally involved and I think that's the way it should be.
In terms of your opinion of the selection of inexperienced players expressed earlier, did you then make that point very vocally in selection meetings, when other selectors may have wanted to introduce younger players who didn't have First Class experience?
I don't think that during that time we had a number of young players who came in totally without any sort of First Class record or anything like that. I think the closest one would have been Marlon Samuels on that tour to Australia.
Your stint ended after the World Cup. Why didn't you extend for the Australia series?
Like I said, it was three tough years of very intense work, travelling, being away from home. I just thought I needed a break, really.
I thought as well, what was very disappointing in a sense, and this is aside, because I think that the need to have some time with my family and get away from it was greater than anything else, what I was disappointed about was, the position of Coach was advertised, I think that's the policy of the WICB, fine, but I think if you are going to advertise a position, you should have an idea and get some feedback from the person closest to that position as to what you think the strengths of the team are, what you think the weaknesses are, what you think the greatest needs are and you know.
I was very disappointed that that wasn't done. You get the impression that everyone else who is not directly involved, who sit everywhere else and whatever, they know exactly what is going on. We have to give greater respect and allow the people in technical positions to function as they should. We keep talking of making strides but I don't think we are going to make the sort of strides that we keep saying we want to make. I think the commitment has to be in the actions and not in what we say.
Did you spend three years saying what needed to be done to better the team's performance and nothing happened, or not much was done? Did you always feel you were up against a brick wall?
Well certainly to an extent. You write reports, which is very demanding because it takes up a lot of time preparing reports, but then what's done about it? You attend de-briefing sessions all those things but, really, you know...
The debriefing session is held with the President or the CEO?
The President, and the CEO and other cricket related people.
So you felt nothing was done by those persons?
Well I wouldn't say nothing was done, but I don't think that a lot of the things that were discussed and highlighted were really implemented.
What about the question of an Assistant Coach? Do you think it is a necessary position?
I think that certainly with more hands on board, it's an opportunity for more of the players to have individual attention and I think that it can certainly make a difference. However, I think you need to have the right combination of people. We have a way of wanting to throw people together. I don't know if that's the right way to go about things. I think it would be better if you put someone in charge, find out what his needs are, what he would like to see and then based on that you determine who is the best person, not only with just the technical skills but the right qualities as well to fill those positions. We have to complement the things that the person in charge is doing and help to build and take the team in the direction it needs to go.
In a lot of teams that person is the Coach. Are you saying that that structure should be the same for West Indies cricket that the Coach has the ultimate and last say on what is needed who we should get, what mixture of skills and talent.
Well, certainly from a performance perspective.
The WICB recently announced a new proposed team format where, essentially, the Head Coach would be a member of the selection panel with the casting vote and the principal authority on the selection of the final XI. The Head Coach will be held accountable for the team's performance. In the present situation, how do you see this new structure unfolding?
I certainly think that it gives the Head Coach a lot more responsibility but I also think he needs a lot more support from below in terms of the structures in place to ensure that we produce quality players. But I think that he's the man on the spot and like I said, he's got a lot more responsibility, a lot more say in terms of what he thinks the team needs and who he'd like to see in there.
Your former team mate Gus Logie took over from you. Did you have any sort of handover with him?
You mean formal handover? No.
Informal handover?
Well I know Gus pretty well and we talked.
Did you let him know what stage the team was at, what the strengths and weaknesses were as you saw them, what the needs were?
Well, basically we have chatted and whatever he needed to know I was more than willing to tell him. We met.
The new proposed structure also defines clearly the role of the Team Manager whose responsibilities would include matters of finance, marketing, communications, operations, transportation and development. How is this different from the functions of the Team Manager during your three year stint with the team?
Let me put it this way. When I interviewed for the job I was told that the reason they are going for a non-cricketing Manager was that they wanted to separate the role of Manager and Coach. The Coach would have full responsibility for everything to do with cricket, and the Manager would handle the administrative side, but in actual fact, what actually happened was very different from what I was told then.
There were reports of strained relations between you and the former Team Manager Ricky Skerritt. To what extent are these reports true?
I think we just had a problem with the demarcation lines. I was under one impression based on what I was told and he was obviously under another impression.
Do you think that the poor relationship was noticed by the players and in any way might have affected the team's performance?
You know, a lot of this was really in the early stages I thought, and I think in some cases, the odd player may have noticed. It's difficult for me to say whether that directly impacted on the performance, I don't know, but I think it certainly meant that we didn't operate as smoothly as we should have as a Management team, but I think as we grew, we found a way of dealing with it.
You have said elsewhere that as Coach, you couldn't really coach a player like Brian Lara. What did you mean by that?
That may not have been all I said. That may have been a part of a sentence.
How do you coach a player like Brian Lara?
Brian knows the game, he understands a lot about his game. I think coaching Brian is more about reminding him of things that really are important to him and his game at times. It's more mental. It might be technical as well but I think it's not things he doesn't understand. He may be ignoring it for whatever reason or may just go away from it and you just have to try and bring him back.
People have painted a picture that Lara doesn't respond to coaching. Is that fair?
I think it depends on his frame of mind at the moment and at times too it depends on how you go about it as well, from the Coach's perspective. I think in most cases, it's better that someone like him initiates if he has a particular problem, him initiating the actual solving of the problem. He would be a lot more receptive then.
But you didn't take a 'hands-off' approach with him?
You can't. I don't think you can ever take a totally hands-off approach with anybody in the team.
Sir Viv Richards, former Chairman of Selectors, has been made out to be somewhat of an ogre by the WIPA. What's your take on that situation?
I wasn't there so it's difficult for me to comment on that specifically. However, I just get the impression that the players complain about everything. That's my impression.
Unnecessarily so?
I just think that they can be a bit tougher.
What would you say that you brought to coaching the West Indies team?
Let me tell you what my focus was when I went to the team. My focus was on making the team a more disciplined, more organized team. And understand this - when I speak of discipline, discipline is not primarily and only an off-the-field thing about punctuality and being properly dressed. No, no, no. I'm talking about a team that is well organized, that plans well, that works at its plans and that sort of thing and I think that we did get a little better at it, but I think that we still have a long way to go.
Some people have commented that while you were Coach, the situation of no-balls was reduced...
Oh, people actually commented on that?
Yes.
Yes. We had reduced it tremendously because placed a lot of emphasis on it. Actually Garfield Smith, the analyst, would log all the bowlers at practice, not only in terms of no-balls, but in terms of the length and lines. He would have a separate sheet for each bowler and would actually give each bowler their own sheet and we focused specifically on the no-balls.
I realized that a lot of the guys were bowling no-balls because they weren't paying attention at the start of their run up. Simple as that. They were not consistent in hitting the mark. But we reduced it. It came to a point where you told a guy he bowled two no-balls in an innings he would say "who me? I didn't bowl two" and that's what you want. Guys were very conscious of it and we had reduced it tremendously.
How would you rate your performance as Coach? What performance measures did you use?
Well certainly, I think one of the measures you would have to use is the overall performance of the team. I think too you have to look at the growth of the players as well on an individual basis. I think you would have to look at what you thought the learning of the team was, what they were able to gain. I think in all those areas I have managed to make contributions and have an impact and I think I got better and better at it too.
What were the most significant factors preventing you from being more successful in that role? I imagine one of the things you would say is the levels that the players come in at.
But you see, there again Michelle, success is something you have to define. Now how do you judge success? How you measure success?
Well people will certainly measure success by how many series we win. How many Test matches we win. How many One Day Internationals we win.
So if I put the best sprinter from Guyana to run against Maurice Greene, and he gets beaten by 10 yards, but runs faster than his personal best, has he failed?
No, but Guyana has failed because Guyana hasn't got a medal.
You see again, I think you've got to be realistic. We've got to understand what our objectives are. I think success is the realization of pre-determined worthwhile goals and I am just making that point because I think that even at the moment, we are still, as I think I said elsewhere, we are still striving to win each and every game and as a result of that, we are trying any and everything, rather than planning.
I think I may have said 'we are trying to win the battle instead of planning to win the war'. I think that certainly you have to look at where you were and what strides you've made if you're going to determine success. If you have a team that really, when it stacks up against another team you know it's very difficult to beat the other team, you have to look really at whether that team has performed as well as it's capable of performing or even a little better than you're expecting to determine how well they've played.
So basically it's a benchmarking situation where you mark where you come in.
And I think that's the way we have to approach it at the moment.
How do you respond to people who think that because your career was not as sparkling as that of say Sir Vivian Richards who was in charge temporarily before you took over, you might have had more success. The thought is that the players might be so in awe of Sir Viv, that that would hinder them responding to his coaching.
I don't necessarily agree with that. I don't agree with that at all. I don't think your actual career has anything to do with your ability as a coach. In some cases it may work for you if you had a really outstanding career, providing you understood exactly how you managed to achieve those things. You took time out to really understand the nuances about the game, all aspects of it, and then you could break it down and pass it on. If however, you just managed to do things naturally and didn't really take time to understand how you were able to do it, how you were able to achieve it, then it might be difficult.
Did you have that coming up as an issue, where players referred to your modest career, where people were questioning your ability to coach them based on your career?
I think some players might think that way, definitely.
Was that ever expressed to you?
Not directly, no. But you will have that, because I think that's what sometimes they hear from the public. You have a call-in show, a man would say "but he wasn't a batsman, how he can coach the team?" But John Buchanan, he coaches the most successful team in the world. You tell me what his record was. There you go...
The current team manager has said that the goal is to get to the number 3 spot in the next 18 months. Is that possible? Is that realistic?
Well he's very close to the team. He must know based on what he's seen there, to set that as a goal. Having said that though, I think that the team certainly has a lot of ability. Eighteen months? Eighteen months is not a very long time, but certainly I think the batting line up we have has a lot a lot of talented players in there; very, very capable players.
The bowling has some growing to do though. I think that's the worry. I think that one of the things you definitely want to see is players who get to, not Test level, to First Class level, being able to put five balls down, four balls at least, on the same spot in an over. That's one of the basic things you have to be able to do and that's what you want to see at First Class level so that when they get to Test level, they're much better at doing that.
You're 41 now, still relatively young. Apart from being Head Coach at the Shell Cricket Academy, how will you be spending your time in cricket?
I have no definite plans at the moment but I am still looking around for the right opportunity.
You mentioned about things not being right at the Club level and the First Class Level. Are you going to try and get the things implemented that you think should be implemented at those levels? You talk about not having standards at the territorial level for example.
I can't go implementing those things. Those are things for the authorities. I can probably sensitize people and try to encourage people to do that sort of thing.
Are you going to assist with coaching?
In Guyana, we have a Territorial Development Officer who is Clyde Butts. The National Coach position is not a year round thing. He's only mainly employed during competition, maybe just before. I don't really see myself just turning up. What I would try to do is help out my club - Demerara Cricket Club. The other thing you have to remember is that I am a professional.