Dharamsala: Kings XI Punjab coach Tom Moody spoke to the media one last time about his team’s IPL 2010 campaign after their loss to Chennai Super Kings here on Sunday.
Excerpts
On his IPL 2010 experience
Oh, look it was a difficult season there is no doubt about that. Unfortunately we had too many games like tonight where we had winning scores that we failed to defend. We just didn’t execute [the plan] as well as we should have in all three disciplines - bat, ball and in the field consistently throughout the whole [season]. Hence you know we’ve had a number of defeats, in a competition like this where it’s high intensity, a high standard you need to bring high standards to that game every single time and we failed to do that. Tonight I thought we batted superbly well, we got a score that was a score that we should have definitely defended. But due to some missed opportunities in the field and some poor execution with the ball, we ended up coming second. It’s as simple as that. But you’ve got to give credit to Chennai - they kept themselves in the run chase right till the end. And even with two overs to go you would have probably felt that we were slightly in favour but we just didn’t execute our yorkers as well as we should have done in the last 12 balls.
On the bowlers going for too many runs
I wouldn’t say they bowled like millionaires - I wouldn’t be terming it that way. Yeah there is nothing you can do on the sidelines as a coach. You prepare the side, you discuss strategy, you talk about areas you’d like the bowlers to bowl in to certain players, certain bowling changes are discussed. At the end of the day the players are the ones who take responsibility, the players are the one who get the rewards and accolades when they do well. And when it doesn’t go in their favour, obviously as a team you suffer, you come second. There is nothing you can do on the sidelines. All you can do is try to get the strategy right and prepare well so the players can hopefully execute on the night.
On the team’s cohesiveness
It is important to have that connection in the team. We didn’t have any huge issues within the playing group. Even though halfway through the season there was speculation of a rift between certain players that certainly wasn’t the case. The case was that we had a number of players out of form, and it wasn’t until the back half of the season that our batsmen [found] form, and the second [impediment] was the number of injuries. So which really affected our strike power more than anything else. We didn’t have the ability with the ball to have an impact bowler like a Doug Bollinger or a Dale Steyn. Brett Lee came back from injury – it’s probably fair to say that [he was only] 80% [fit]. And [his fitness], along with a couple of other injuries that we suffered [hit us badly]. James Hopes not even turning up because of a calf injury, Jerome Taylor not even appearing in this IPL because of a back problem [really cost us]. Rusty Theron did a great job, but his role is more towards the back end of the innings and not as a front line strike bowler. At times our attack lacked teeth, if I could put it that way, tonight was a good example where the spinners did a terrific job out there. It put us in a wonderful position but all our medium pacers went for plenty.
On Yuvraj Singh being out of form this season
I think at the end of the day Yuvraj [Singh] came into the start of the IPL having recovered from a wrist injury. So he was out of the game for about a month with a wrist injury, so he had [played] no cricket. He was still having a few issues with the wrist in the first part of the tournament - that was quite evident just even at practice. So it’s hard for a batsman to catch up, you know every batsman needs time in the middle. In T20 cricket you don’t tend to have a lot of time and there’s only 20 overs per side so it was a difficult one for Yuvraj going into a season like this, particularly for a player like him. There’s so much expectation - every time he walks to the crease people expect sixes and there’s always that memory of the six sixes in an over - it’s always a tough one for Yuvi. End of the day I feel that he’s coming into some good form and I think he’s showed that in the last few games. And you can guarantee he’ll have a good [ICC T20] World Cup.
On the rumours surrounding the team ownership
I don’t really want to comment about that, because it’s got nothing to do with me. There have been a number of rumours about the team and the sale of the team. That’s been going on for weeks, months. At the end of the day I certainly hope I am involved with the Kings XI. We’ve got a lot of work to do. Outside of the infrastructure of the tournament we need to put things into place and there have been a number of discussions about those plans already. I look forward to the opportunity to work on those and build the franchise [and see it emerge as] one of the strongest in the competition.
On the areas of improvement for the next season
It’s very difficult to answer that because we don’t know who we going to have. It’s an unknown [scenario] so we’re stepping into a new phase in IPL where we don’t know yet how many players we can retain - whether it’ll be overseas players, Indian capped players or domestic players. There’s a big question mark on that and we’ve got two new franchises coming in. So they obviously want to have a say on player availability. What we can do, though, in the mean time is look at all the operational type of things - how we can be more efficient off the field with our operations, cricket operations and the whole franchise operations. And when we do know where we stand with regards to player availability - retaining players and what the situation is with the auction, overseas players, domestic players and capped players - we can move forward.
On the difference between coaching a national team and an IPL team
It’s interesting; there is a very fine line between success and failure. We came into this competition this year as the second team with the most wins. So we were the second most successful team as a franchise. We got a lot right in the first two years, we’ve had a few issues with regards to […] how we approach things. What we need to do is just strive to be better at what we do, and be smarter about how we go about things. And I think every team, every player, every coach, every physio – everyone is involved with this competition. If they are not striving to improve on their performances and [make the most of] the lessons that they’ve learnt from previous seasons, well they are going to go backwards. I personally, along with every single player in this franchise, will go away and look at how they can do things better because this is a fast growing competition. T20 is, realistically, still in its infant stages, but the game is developing. There are new ways to play it, there are new strategies to be learnt and there are new ways to be successful in different phases of the game. The team that [has a coach] that keeps up with the pace of the game is going to be in good hands.
On the disappointing performance of the domestic players this season
There’s no question that the teams that are [tasting] success this year are teams that have got domestic players that have stood up. We’ve had a season where we’ve had a number of players that haven’t shown that consistency in their performance when given the opportunity. I’ll be never pointing a finger at a particular player, I’ll never be pointing a finger at a particular group of players whether it be domestic players or capped Indian players or overseas players. But everyone is responsible. It’s very evident that teams that are successful this season have had either an influx of new domestic players in their squad - a lot of them are the released ICL players - and they have really kicked on and given a lot of teams and the squads a lot of depth in strength.
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