Oz coaching set-up needs overhaul: Bracken
By ANISaturday, January 29, 2011
SYDNEY - Retired left-arm 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.
“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,” The Age quoted Bracken, as saying.
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. (ANI)
