'I Always Have a Winning Mindset'

The future of West Indies cricket would be in good hands, if those hands belonged to Ian Bradshaw. After a promising U-19 career, the left arm Barbadian bowler faded into the background, but he wasn't wasting time.

To the contrary, he was equipping himself with the necessary education and skills that have allowed him to have a decent life financially, something that not many cricketers who don't go on to play for the West Indies can say. He was also getting much needed First Class experience which lead him to more than adequately handle the pressure situation of that now famous Champions Trophy finals.

Bradshaw got the call at the ripe old age of 29. One could consider him wise. In fading light reminiscent of that September evening, Ian Bradshaw shared his wisdom with CaribbeanCricket.com, answering, among others, the important questions of what he would do if he were President of the West Indies Cricket Board, a position that is not beyond his capability, and whether the captain should be blamed for poor performance.

So, you're an accountant and you play cricket. Is that how you see yourself? As an accountant first and then a cricketer?

Unfortunately yes, because that's where I have spent most of my time. That's where I've been going on a day to day basis for the last six, seven years.

It is said that cricket is more of a mental game than a skill game. Agree or disagree?

I think that at the highest level you are expected to have a certain technical proficiency and I think the difference with being successful then, is how well you can mentally adapt to situations and use the skills which you possess. At the junior level you would more find that the skill aspect of it will help you through a lot more, because probably the situation game might not be the same.

For you personally, do you think that being educated to the tertiary level helps your game, considering too that you are not a fast fast fast bowler. Has your capacity to think as evidenced by the fact that you have completed a degree, helped you to be a better cricketer?

I don't think that necessarily having gone to that level would have meant that I would have been a better cricket per se. Obviously, being at a tertiary institution opened my mind to deal with different matters like management and man-management and so forth. I would have been exposed to stuff like that. But I think that as far as being a cricketer is concerned, you have to have an appreciation for the game, have to be a student of the game and that does not necessarily mean that you go to a tertiary institution.

You must spend some time appreciating what it would have taken for people to be successful at this level, and learn what are the expected and the traditional means of going about playing the game and being successful at the game.

What do you think it takes to be successful at this level?

I think first of all you have to be an honest, disciplined person. You have to be honest with yourself; honest enough to know what you are capable of doing; honest enough to accept your weaknesses and obviously knowing your strengths, and finding the best way of using your strengths and finding a way to protect against your weaknesses and not being exposed.

Why did you decide to complete the degree when you did, instead of trying to make the West Indies team in your youth?

I'm not going to say that what I did at the time was the best thing for me. In hindsight now, I believe that if I had possibly gone on and been exposed to a professional cricket environment at the age level coming after U-19 cricket, I would have benefited a lot more from that.

I think one of the things in the Caribbean is that we are kind of restricted. There are not a lot of options open to budding cricketers coming up. We have not yet opened enough avenues for persons who love the game to really make a living out of it and I not just speak of cricketers. I think there are so many ways that you can play a part in cricket. There are administrators, umpires, scorers, but it's not something that is really developed or exposed. Even in the field of journalism; it's not something that is really pushed.

When I left school, and not having a clear avenue to pursue down a cricketing line and having other options open for me, I chose to take the other option. I cannot honestly say looking back on it now, that I made the right decision. I know that as far as my life is concerned, I have not suffered because of making my decision, but I believe that if I had the opportunity to be in a more professional cricketing environment at that stage, my cricket would have developed.

Ok. I'm going to ask you to put on an administrator's hat. Let's say you were President of the West Indies Cricket Board, what would your top three priorities be?

My first priority is, I believe, to ensure that the West Indies senior team is a successful one, and putting things in place to ensure that the team is a successful one, because for West Indies cricket to be successful, the team has to be successful, because everyone feeds off of the team.

We speak of making sure that it is played in the schools and what not, but I know from my experience of going around Primary schools and I pick up my step son and sometimes I drive around certain schools. When West Indies team is playing cricket, youngsters play cricket. You see a lot of people playing cricket and that doubles when the team is successful, so I think my first priority would be to make sure that you have a successful West Indies cricket team.

Could you put your finger on one or two of those things that you would put in place to ensure a successful team?

First of all, you must prepare the team better outside of just an international tournament. I think that the regional teams ? I'm going to start from the regional teams first ? we tend to just look at preparing teams. We don't look at developing players. I find that national associations are happy just to have a successful team win a tournament, rather than see players develop and move from one stage to the next. So I think it's important that we look to develop players and prepare players well.

We realize now that the international calendar is so packed that it is important to plan properly and use the time outside of those tournaments to really work on players, because you don't have time within an international series for a player to develop because you're just going from match to match, travelling. Before a player realizes it, the tour is almost over. So if you are not prepared well, and you don't get off to a good start, you always find it hard to catch back yourself because there is so little time outside of the matches to prepare. So it's important that we look to prepare our team better outside of those games.

With the absence of retainer contracts, how would that be possible? You only retain players from tour to tour.

I hear that, but I don't think that any player would object to going to a camp to develop his game. I would be amazed to think that if something was put in place to develop a cricketer's game, that he would say 'no I'm not going to it', unless of course he had a prior cricketing commitment ? say a guy was lucky enough to get a contract to play somewhere else or something like that. But not many of our guys really do do that.

People will say that [lack of] retainer contracts is a stumbling block. I don't buy that personally. I think that if players are worked with, if things are put in place for players to do, you would see the benefit, and players would definitely come out and take to it.

You've travelled to South Africa, England and Australia and seen first hand their facilities. Are we that badly off where our facilities are concerned?

Well there is no doubt that these places are more developed in terms of their facilities. They ensure that their players have the best possible facilities. I think that is because the individual states or counties see themselves as a business, so they try to have the best facilities for that individual business. So you would find Warwickshire, they look to develop their facilities because they want to have a successful Warwickshire team because Warwickshire is a business.

I don't think our national associations are run the same way. They more just manage cricket. We don't see a bottom line of making a profit at the regional level.

Spoken like a true accountant.

It's true. We often just look to manage the game at the regional level, so I think that is where we might have fallen down in terms of seeing the need to have such facilities for our players, and I guess too it's the membership of the associations, so then the job isn't really just on the WICB's hands. If each individual territory took it upon themselves to have better facilities, I think you would see generally an improvement right around.

You've not played Test cricket. Shall I say 'yet'? Do you hope to do so one day?

Definitely. I have never heard of a young boy growing up saying 'I wish to play One Day cricket for the West Indies'. You look to play Test cricket and I don't think that any cricketer would have any lesser dreams than playing Test cricket and being successful at Test cricket.

Do you resent being pigeon-holed as a one day player?

No, not really, because I got my first selection at 29 years old, so I was happy at 29 years old to play whatever cricket West Indies picked me for [said candidly]. I saw it as a foot in the door rather than 'oh, I'm a One Day cricketer'. I told myself 'Ian, cricket is cricket, even though you play cricket and you do well, it improves your chances of playing Test cricket. If you could play one day cricket and don't perform well you've done yourself no good cause'. So I just look at it as a stepping stone.

At that moment, when you first got selected to the One Day team, you had a lot of First Class cricket under your belt. Do you think that helped you to be more successful than somebody else who had not played any first class cricket?

I guess in terms of how selections have been done recently, I had a lot of experience. But looking at it, I don't think I had that many games if you're looking at it an international level. I think it helped me to deal with situations; game situations, match situations. Having played against what I would have felt would have been quality players over the years, you know when I started, Desmond Haynes was in the Barbados team; I have played against Clayton Lambert at Bourda, Carl Hooper at Bourda, being in that environment that was a pressure situation ? a packed Bourda ground with people being passionate with their national team doing well.

I can look back at those sorts of experiences now when you go and play in a similar environment overseas, so I think situations like that helped me to develop. Unfortunately, some guys of late have been put into the international arena ? and I am not knocking the selectors for identifying talent and putting it out there, you know because if a selector on judgement, because you know selectors do things on judgement, if a guy on judgement feels that this guy has what it takes at this level and he's going to give him an opportunity I think that's great.

Unfortunately what happens is that he probably then has to learn to swim very fast. It's one of the unfortunate things that would have happened to some of our players. Some people would say they are the worse for it. I just think that it's an experience that they would have gone through and then it's up to them now to assess it and learn from whatever situation they went through while they were given the opportunity.

And as one of the older heads on the team, how do you help the younger ones? Xavier Marshall did mention that in Australia you were particularly supportive.

Oh. Well what I try to do ? and I guess I do it within the Barbados team, and if I do it here, I guess it's an extension, a natural thing ? is that I just try to rationalize things to people. I don't try to in any way give advice that I don't think that I merit giving advice on, so I wouldn't go and tell a guy what's the best way for him to face Brett Lee, but obviously in terms of dealing with man-management, being punctual, fitting in with the guys and things like that; things outside of the actual technical stuff.

I think that within the West Indies team we have enough guys with the experience like a Lara, a Chanderpaul, a Gayle, the guys that have been there, so they can assist those guys with that stuff. But if there is any way I know that I can help someone with things outside of that stuff, I try to.

As a slower fast bowler, if there is such a thing, what makes you take wickets? How do you compensate for your lack of pace?

I would say creativity and consistency. I have noticed that a lot of the great fast bowlers, they were still effective even when they lost some of their pace.

When they got older.

Right. Not necessarily that they were at that stage, well they were obviously still bowling faster than I am now, but I was always impressed by their ability to command respect even though some of their pace was lost. I believe you have to first of all control where you look to pitch the ball, have a certain command and confidence that you can put the ball where you want to put it, and then you know, tricks of the trade, use of the crease, variations of pace and assessment of situations and batters.

'We need a spinner'?.that is the eternal cry. When spinners are selected, do you think they get a fair enough run in the West Indies team?

Definitely not. Definitely not. I think unfortunately for our spinners, the weight of expectation is so great on them, that when they come in, they are almost expected to make a difference. I guess we have seen a lot of the international teams having effective spinners and the role that they have been playing, and I think sometimes unfairly, some of our spinners have been asked to come in and duplicate some of what the opposition's more experienced spinners have been doing, and I think that's very hard.

One of the main things about spin bowling is confidence. If you don't have that confidence as a spin bowler, it's very hard to be successful and often in cricket, confidence comes with experience. The more you play, the more relaxed you feel within your environment, the more confidence you have going out on the field, and I think that a lot of the spinners that have been given the opportunity to play have probably felt pressured of coming off first time, because the door tends to be shut so easily on them. It's unfortunate.

I think what will happen is that a spinner will come along and make a difference and break down those barriers. Like anything else in life, someone always comes along and breaks down the mindset and the barriers that are set.

Have you spotted anybody in the West Indies in the regional competition that might do that?

If I had to say if anyone will automatically become a world beater, I think that we have a lot of bowlers in the Caribbean that can develop to be good international bowlers, and who knows?. being in the international environment, that might even spark them to go on to greatness.

I will start with my homeland. I thought that Sulieman Benn was developing as a spinner, but I guess with the development of some of the fast bowlers within the Barbados team, it has placed a lot of pressure on him to maintain a consistent place within the Barbados team.

I look around the Caribbean; I saw there were two young spinners from Jamaica that I thought did quite well, that looked quite well this year. That was young Miller and Brown as well.

Brown the off spinner or leg spinner?

The leg spinner?[Odean Brown] I played against the leg spinner. I thought that for a leg spinner he had decent control, so he is somebody that could have been worked with. The last two years Jaggernauth from Trinidad, he's not been doing badly and there is Dave Mohammed who is always there or thereabouts.

I think what they need is confidence; confidence to know that there is a path set out for their development. I don't think that a path is set out for our young cricketers so that they understand that 'we are going down this path with you'. You are basically selected and told 'good luck, I hope you do well', but nothing really that says 'we are going to take you along this path to get to this point'. We need to do that with our young cricketers; let them see a path that they are working towards, so even if they are not successful they don't think, 'well that's the end of the road'. They know 'well this is just a stepping stone', that they are going along a particular path.

You captained the Barbados team for a few matches in 2001, but I noticed that the last two matches in that First Class season were captained by Sherwin Campbell? What were the circumstances surrounding that change of captaincy?

What happened is that Sherwin was overseas on international duty. I was asked to captain and I did it for a while and I thought I did a decent job at it. When he came back, he took over. Nothing strange. Just like work, if someone goes on vacation and someone acts in the position for a while, when that person comes back, that's their job.

How big a role does a captain play in a team's performance?

The captain sets the tone for what happens within the team set up. I believe that the captain needs to do his ground work not just on the field, but more so outside the game, so that he goes on the field with a knowledge of what he has, players have a knowledge of what he's expecting, and so it makes the job easier for everyone. I believe that that is the key role of the captain. Naturally, you have to have an understanding of the game to deal with situations as they come in the game, but I think that really the role of the captain really, is to get the most out of their players and that can only be done by the work that you put in outside of the actual game.

So when the team does poorly, should the blame go on the captain?

No, I don't believe so. I think there are far too many parameters in the making of a successful team than just to put it down to the captain. Certainly, being the focal point of the team, it is natural that a lot of the blame will be put on the captain. I think that anyone that is going into captaincy should appreciate that fact that hey, you are the focal point. What ever result comes, you are going to get the varying reactions so you have to learn to deal with that, but I think that a team is made up of 11 players and the success of that team will depend on the actions of those 11 players collectively.

Whilst the captain is supposed to give leadership and direction, it's only that ? leadership and direction. But at the end of the day, it's a collective effort of the team.

We've seen wholesale changes in the coaching and conditioning personnel within the last six months. What is it like to have these new set of guys now, as opposed to guys from the region? Is the culture different? Is the environment different?

I have been exposed to two sets of coaching and management staff and obviously there is a change within the two, but it's natural. Different people have different styles, different approaches to doing things. I have been quite happy under both systems. I just realize you just appreciate that things will be done differently depending on who is in place.

I think with regards to the environment that we have now, I think a lot more, how should I put it...they focus a lot more on the use of technology. I believe that's because of the culture they came out of where that was the norm coming out of their culture, so what we might see as new and different, they would tell you that this is just what we have been doing forever.

I think that right now the players have tried to embrace it, tried to get the most out of it. Doing things differently always excites people so I think that a lot of the different types of techniques that might have been shown, a lot of players have really taken to it, not that what has happened in the past, they were against, but obviously the way of coaching from a West Indian standpoint, we basically did things one way. If you go from Guyana to Barbados, you would generally find one method of coaching, and so to be exposed to a new change of thought and so forth, it's interesting.

And the role that the players will play in making the coaching staff successful? What must the players do to ensure that people aren't brought from overseas and the team still does poorly? What is your responsibility as a player, that's what I am asking?

I don't look at it as 'we bring people from overseas so we have to be successful'. I think that what is important is that any player who is given the opportunity to come into a West Indies set up must appreciate his responsibility, understand the duty that he must feel in putting on the West Indies colours and going out there and representing the people of the Caribbean.

So we must always have that commitment, that determination to do well, and to improve, and to be successful, because West Indians are a proud people you know. We like to do things well and in a big way and be flashy, but that is our culture. People go to church on a Sunday, we like to dress up and look good in 'Sunday best', so we expect a lot from our people, a lot from our perceived heroes and so forth.

Therefore any cricketer that is playing for the West Indies must understand that nothing less than your all is what people are looking for, and we are so passionate about it. if people could see that you are falling short of it, they are going to feel hurt; they are going to react towards it, not necessarily that they hate you, but we are just that sort of people and it is important that whatever coaching staff, management, whatever techniques are being used, that we show that commitment in play, in preparation, whatever.

Do you think we need more of a sort of orientation session, you know like in businesses where a new employee goes in, you have an orientation session where they get the culture of the organization, the do's and don'ts, what is expected to them. Do you think we need to do that better for when new players come in to the West Indies team? You can probably think of when you first joined the team.

As I said before, I think it's important that a person coming in to the team has an idea of what is expected of them and where they are going to go within the organization. Anyone running a business, if you hire someone, you don't hire someone and say 'you've got a job, sit down at that desk, lemme see what you can do.' You tell them 'your job is to do XYZ, if you are successful we will probably looking to move you up through the company', so that you understand where you are heading and have an idea of what you will have to do to be successful.

I think a greater effort must continue to be placed in giving people direction, especially young cricketers who're coming into the team, guys who're coming into the team at 19 and 20. Let them know that you are going to be a part of this environment for the next 15 or so years, this is the path that we are looking to take you down, these are the things that you will have to do to ensure that you are successful and in turn, the organization is successful. I think that if we take more of that path with our young cricketers, they will feel more comfortable, they will feel less pressured and you would see better results.

Look to the future for me. What do you see yourself doing in 10 years time in cricket?

I can't say necessarily administration...maybe administration, but what I am hoping to do is to form some sort of management company to assist guys to develop personally, to develop as international and professional cricketers. I think that's something that I have been thinking very seriously of, in the last year or so. A company whereby you could work with a player you help him to organize and manage his time so that what he has to do then is just to focus on playing cricket. More so you say things like you report to practice at this time, your gears and so on. Just to be like a big brother sort of, because cricket first of all is an expensive sport and it's not easy for young Caribbean people to afford to play cricket and often you hear of guys not having proper equipment, not being able to train properly.

I think that's the area that I would really like to find a way to help the young people to develop because I think once we can get young people believing that they don't have to do things on their own, that there is help for them, that there are options for them out there, then you would see more of them really looking to give their all into the sport, knowing that there is a light at the end of the tunnel for them.

Any plans to do a coaching course?

I might do some. I don't think I would go on to be an international coach or national coach or anything like that. I think it would be useful for me to do a course because I still plan to play club cricket, so it would be good for any youngsters coming around at a club level, I could still help them to develop, so I might do a coaching course when time permits.

Finally, I have to ask you about the Champions Trophy match. When you went out to join Courtney Browne with the team having lost quite a few wickets, what was your thought?

I remember before I went out to bat, I just could not see us losing the game. We were losing wickets but I always felt that we were going to win! We were set up so well to win the game. Once we played out the game we would have won. I remember going out to bat and the first thing I was going to face two balls or so, then me and Courtney met in the middle and we looked at the scoreboard and we said hey, this really is pretty easy, we should win this game. So we didn't see it as 'how are we going to win this game', it was 'we are going to win this game; this game is here is to be won'. As people keep saying, the score was so and so for 8 so we said 'let's not make a mistake to lose the game'. That's how we played it; we just kept saying, 'don't do nothing to lose the game', not to have to do something spectacular to win, and I think that's what pulled us through because there was never that mind set of losing?..no??.of being beaten. We could have lost the game; we could have thrown it away if we did something wrong, but we didn't see it as they had the upper hand and they were going to beat us.

Some people feel that that mindset came about because you and Courtney were coming from a winning Barbados team.

I didn't have the mind set of losing easily. I don't know if subconsciously it might have happened to some of the other members of the team. They would have to do a self analysis and say that, but I definitely know that I was accustomed to playing cricket and winning and finding ways to get out of holes, saying 'yes, we are in a hole now, but we are going to do so and so to get out of it', rather than saying, 'gosh how we get down in here', you know, so instead of worrying about the hole you are in, studying 'bout what is the way we are going to get out of this hole. I guess that is my mindset.