Andy Flower‘s coaching CV is like a Blue Chip stock. Decorated, dividend-rich and one to hold on to forever. He took over a fragmented and struggling England team in 2009 and helped them win three Ashes series (2009, 2010-11 (in Australia), 2013. He was the coach when England clinched their first global trophy in the form of the 2010 T20 World Cup in the West Indies under Paul Collingwood and was coach when they clinched a Test series win in India in 2012 after 28 years. He was also a consultant to the Australian team in the 2023 World Cup in India when under Pat Cummins, they broke a billion hearts. And, he guided Trent Rockets to victory in The Hundred in 2022 and guided RCB to their maiden IPL victory last year. Flower will coach London Spirit in The Hundred this year and took time to chat with TOI on various topics. Excerpts. Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!Good luck for your stint with London Spirit. Barring 2022, when Spirit were in the race for qualifying for the play-offs, the team unfortunately has not performed as well as people would like it to. As a coach, how challenging is it to take over a franchise that did not enjoy decent results?Look, to be honest, in a way, it is a little easier to take on a team that did not enjoy great results in the past because the only way is up. Quite frankly, Mo Mobat and I know each other quite well now. We worked together on and off for quite a long time, and we both really like a challenge. We are really excited about the challenge ahead of us in bringing success to London Spirit and to Lord’s. It really motivated us when we joined RCB, and it really motivated us with the prospect of trying to do something special with London Spirit. When Mo and I talked about those challenges, straight away I could see how excited he was with the idea of it, and immediately I felt the same excitement.
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With your experience of sitting in the auctions and planning and building teams, will that help you when The Hundred goes in for the first-ever auctions this year? Have you got a shopping list ready? We will very shortly be announcing our first 4 picks, our direct signings/retentions. I hope that the London Spirit fans will be excited by what they see with the first four picks. Yes, the experience of being involved in drafts and auctions prior to this first Hundred auction will be absolutely important in how we do it, and the auction process and outcome is very important to your chances of doing well. Mo and I both like applying ourselves to the preparation process for the auction and challenging ourselves to get the best people in the room, in the dressing room, which gives you a really good chance of taking that into the training ground and into competition.When I say “we”, let me speak for myself. I will very much be relying on some really good people around me, Mo being one of the very influential ones. Freddie Wilde, our analyst, is another one. He works with us at RCB, of course. I think he is an outstanding analyst, and using his analytical brain in the auction process is important. We also have some really good coaching staff, and DK (Dinesh KArthik) is one of the crucial ones there. His brain is wired in a slightly different way, but he is a great number 2 to have on board, working with us, and really useful in the auction environment. I am looking forward to that whole process. I find it quite fascinating, and then we will see if we can get some really great guys into the dressing room. Andy, you were associated for so long with England, and you obviously coached teams at Lord’s. Having had that amount of experience, how did the traditional Middlesex members and crowds warm up to The Hundred? Quite frankly, in my direct answer to you, I am going to plead a little ignorance because I did not pay that much attention to that side of it, given that I was with Trent Rockets and threw myself into that job. But from what I can see, and from my knowledge of Lord’s, and as an MCC member for a long time, I think there is enthusiasm for The Hundred. I know there are various detractors in England, but I am genuinely excited about what the independent investment into the game is going to do for The Hundred in England. I am not going to say it will transform it, but it will give it a huge injection of energy and status, and I am really looking forward to it. I think it is going to be a brilliant tournament, full of great energy, in the middle of the English summer, and I think it is going to feel quite different and genuinely vibrant. I cannot wait to get started in the English summer. Do you think eventually a 100-ball event will overtake the popularity of T20, and will other countries embrace the format? Firstly, I do not know. I am not a soothsayer. What I would say is The Hundred was very popular in England. I think the purpose of introducing The Hundred, and not making it a T20 competition, had various reasons from the ECB. Number 1, the 18 counties did not want a direct competitor in the same format. I think also the BBC wanted a shorter game on their channels, and I think the ECB really wanted to seize the opportunity to try to attract a different demographic to the game. I do not know the exact numbers, of course, because I did not research it that closely, but from what I understand, in a lot of ways that was successful. More women watched the game, more children came to the game, there was a slightly different feel in the stadium for those who were in the stadium, and it was a more family-friendly atmosphere than you might encounter in some of the other formats. A few of the tweaks to the game made it more interesting for a slightly different audience, and I think the ECB were successful in that regard. What cannot be ignored is that in the five years The Hundred has been going, the value that was created was pretty amazing, if we are talking about financial value. I think it was very successful. Whether it will transfer around the world or not, I do not know. I do not think it needs to. I think it can be an English thing, and I do not think the ECB introduced it with the intention of it being copied around the world. T20 cricket is very popular around the world, and I think some mature acceptance of its success in England is more than sufficient at the moment. You said you were involved with Trent Rockets, and you had such a large coaching experience in terms of T20 franchises. We saw a lot of innovations come in with both bat and ball because of ODIs and T20Is in the five-year history of The Hundred. As a coach in one of the franchises earlier, do you think any particular innovation came through because of The Hundred? A couple of the more obvious innovations are bowling two overs, or two sets, in a row, and that also quickens up the game because you have half the number of over changes, or change of ends, should I say. It was quite interesting to see how people used that. I do not necessarily think there was a huge change in the game because of some of these innovations, but I do think that any shortened game heightens the value of each ball. I coached in the T10 as well, and tactically these formats are very interesting because, as you get shorter, you can almost plan a little more because there are fewer events, so it becomes slightly simpler in that regard. When you shorten a game and there is heightened pressure on each ball, or heightened value on each ball, I think those are great training grounds for players. Each ball is an event, and I know in Test cricket it is still the same, but the heightened pressure on each ball because there are fewer of them is a brilliant training ground for players to learn how to play under pressure and how to think clearly when they are under the pump. We saw what that can do for the confidence of players. With the heightened status of some of these formats, the growth of young players in those environments, with top overseas players, and being put under the pump when they know there is a lot of scrutiny on each match, those are brilliant growth environments for young players. We saw the growth of Indian cricket via the IPL, and we will see similar things with young players coming through in high-pressure games in The Hundred, with IPL investors now with at least 4 of the teams. Do you think we could have Indian talent also come and play in The Hundred one day? That would be great. I do not think that is going to happen. I am not involved in the politics of the game, but I do not see that happening at the moment, for well-publicised reasons. Of course, having Indian players involved in any contest brings a different dynamic, brings high skill, and brings a lot of interest, and it would bring finance. That would be great. You talked about innovations coming into the game, and you were a terrific Test match batter also. As someone who almost legitimised the reverse sweep by playing it so successfully and efficiently, even in Test match cricket, why did it become such an effective shot even in red-ball cricket? I had to do it because I did not have the power to bang people down the ground like some of these other outstanding players. It is such an effective shot because you can play it successfully to the bowler’s best delivery. Usually the best bowlers, especially spin bowlers, bowl a good length. You can play good, aggressive sweep shots at good-length balls, which is really off-putting for a bowler. The same now applies to scoops and things that are being played. A good-length ball is fairly simple to scoop because the ball is bouncing quite nicely. You get under it, you give it a little momentum upwards, and it is gone. That is one of the main reasons why scoops and sweeps are really effective, because they work to the bowler’s best balls. The other thing is you do it a couple of times and the opposition captain needs to adjust the field. The bowler finds it quite hard to combat because it is his best type of delivery, and they start changing their tactics. It is great to see it become more popular in the Test game as well. Of course, it carries a high risk, so balancing risk and reward is something you always have to do in any format. The guys who are better at it have a better chance of it coming off. Those guys who can be unpredictable and have other parts of their game that are powerful and skilful can choose when to use it, and not be forced to use it. I think those are the more successful practitioners of that art. Out of curiosity, I just wanted to ask you, did you ever get dismissed while playing the reverse sweep? Yes, absolutely I was. I remember getting out to it in a Test match in Galle. I think Sanath Jayasuriya was bowling left-arm spin into the rough, and I remember getting out to it and being mortified. But I think the risk-reward for me was absolutely justifiable because I had a high success rate with it. You are always going to get shots. You are going to get out to forward defences or leaves, and it does not stop you playing them. You have to become skillful at it, practise it enough, have the courage to use it in matches, and then do it judiciously. You coached so many teams and so many players across countries. As a coach, and as a very successful coach, what makes a player coachable? Firstly, I would say for all of us, coaches and players, the trait of being curious is really valuable because it means you open your mind to possibilities. Curiosity about your own development is a really good trait, and I am speaking from a coach perspective but also from a playing perspective. However, you need to balance that with being confident enough in what you have to compete today. One of the mistakes I see sometimes is that some players are never satisfied with what they have. One of the by-products of that is you say to yourself, “I am not quite the finished product,” or “I am not quite ready.” What you might hear internally, from a confidence perspective, is “I am not quite ready,” and that is not the ideal performance state you want to get into in a high-quality competitive situation. You want to be able to say to yourself, “I am trained up, I am ready, I did everything in my prep, I am fit, I am strong, I am mentally sharp, and now I can trust myself to react instinctively.” Those decisions you make instinctively will, in the main, be really good ones. That is the sort of state you want to get yourself into. If you constantly say to yourself, “I need to develop my technique here,” or “my decision-making there,” or “my game sense,” you have to get that balance right. At some stage you need to say to yourself, “Right, I am ready, I have enough.” If you are a batter, you say, “I am going to keep my eyes fairly still, I am going to watch this ball, and I am going to react instinctively.” You have to put consequences out of your head at that moment, and you have to trust yourself. So, your question was around coachability. I think it is important to be curious and open to improvement, but it is also important to push pause on that for a while and go, “Right, I accept this is where I am today, and tonight I have a big game, and I know I have enough in my locker to thrive out there in competition.” Get that balance right and you are on the right track, I think. What are your views on coaching players one-on-one, like we see in tennis? Were you ever approached by players to work with them one-on-one? Yes, absolutely. I have coached since I was in my early 20s. I played a lot of club cricket in England, and I played a couple of years of club cricket in Holland. When I say club cricket, I am talking about club cricket, not First-Class cricket. I was always in a coaching situation in those environments. In Zimbabwe, myself, my brother Grant, Alistair Campbell, and Dave Houghton were initially employed as coaches and paid as coaches, not as players, even when we played international cricket for Zimbabwe. I did a lot of one-on-one coaching and a lot of team coaching through my playing career. Yes, I do chat with some players about their games one-to-one. I love it, and it is quite flattering to be asked by a player, “Could you have a look at my game, and could we talk about it?” It is a nice thing to be able to make a contribution. I think us coaches have to be quite careful about how we operate with players because, especially if someone respects you, you can have quite a significant effect on them with your words, your tone of voice, and even the look on your face. We have to use that influence very responsibly because it is very easy to damage someone’s confidence, and you can do that inadvertently. So yes, I really do love the one-to-one stuff as well as the team stuff. If given an offer to coach internationally, or coach India, would you take it up? If you were willing to take up the offer, would you take up the white-ball job or the red-ball job? The second part of your question is a good one because it would be quite tough these days to take on everything. I know GG (Gautam Gambhir) is doing everything at the moment, and that is a big job. I am sure he is capable, and we see a number of international coaches doing all 3 formats. That is a tough job and draws on a lot of your energy. Would I go back into the international game? I am not sure. I did not give it that much thought, to be quite frank, because I am really enjoying my franchise experiences at the moment. I am lucky enough to be working in the IPL at the moment, which I feel very privileged to do. It is a great cricket environment to be in. It is hugely exciting and challenging. All 10 teams are good, so it is a great challenge to try and win that trophy. It is a hell of a challenge, and you know that if your team gets over the line at the end of an IPL season, you guys did damn well. I also have a coaching job in The Hundred, which I think is only going to grow in status, particularly this coming year. We are going to see a jump, I think. I have these great jobs at the moment, which I am really enjoying. You mentioned going back to The Hundred and the format. You mentioned 10 balls, a set of 10 balls bowled. Since you are also in the coaching set-up in the IPL, what are your views on match-ups? We keep hearing a lot about match-ups: left-right, right-left. Do we overplay it sometimes? My view on match-ups is that we have done match-ups since cricket began. If you have half a brain cell and you are playing the game, let alone coaching or analysing the game, you will recognise that particular types of bowlers will trouble particular batters more than others. We have done that since the beginning of the game. The main change now is that there is more data available and more information available, so we can dig deeper and perhaps be a little more accurate with some of those judgments. They are not only hunches that a Captain or senior players might have sitting in the dressing room or at a drinks break talking about the opposition. Now there are other ways of looking for players’ weaknesses and exploiting them. Using the information available to us is one of the things we should be doing as strategists or leaders. Related to match-ups and data: have you used AI for analysis in your coaching, and how do you see the implementation of AI into coaching and data analysis? I personally tinkered a little, but I would not go into detail at the risk of embarrassing myself. Yes, we did. When I say “we”, myself and some of the people around me tinkered with it a little. Obviously, people with greater knowledge of that area will use it much more wisely than I will. I think some really interesting results came out, but I am not going to give you any examples because that area at the moment is untapped, and we want to hold on to some of that information.(Sony Sports Network is the official broadcaster of The Hundred in India)
