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The Cricket Interview/Wayne Phillips

"Indians are brilliant players, but lousy athletes!"

It was hot, it was humid, it was the kind of weather that, like a guy once said, 'gives you practise for going to hell'.

It was also a good day for soft-drink manufacturers, judging by the number of colas I saw W B Phillips -- "My name is Wayne" -- put away at a sitting.

The former Australian Test star was sprawled half-in, half-out of a plastic chair in the pavilion of the M A Chidambaram Stadium in Chepauk, Madras. Around him, were 13 young players attached to the famed Australian Cricket Academy at Adelaide, now on a "toughening up" tour of India and Sri Lanka.

The ACA boys were engaged in a friendly 50-over game against a scratch team made up of Tamil Nadu first division player. "Horrible shot, that," says Phillips, watching as one of his wards tries to cut a local off spinner through point and making a big hash of it. "You guys remember this when you go out to bat," he tells his wards. "That guy is bowling with a six on the off field, trying to pin you down with a line outside off, turning in. If you go front foot and guide to square leg, you have a single free because the fielder is standing deep... if the line is a bit short, you can pull through midwicket because the fielder is right up... and if it is on a length and no other scoring stroke occurs to you, you can get a single for free by driving gently to long on, that fielder is far too back to stop the single... you knock off the runs steadily, guys, and he will have to change his line of attack... and that will open up more gaps..."

It's an aggressive mentality Phillips is advocating, and in keeping perhaps with his own playing philosophy. Phillips, a left-handed opener at the outset of his career with Australia, went on to play some sparkling innings for his country beginning with a sparkling 159 on debut against the visiting Pakistan team in 1983 at Perth, and a hard-hit 120 against West Indies on a fast wicket at Bridgetown subsequently.

Phillips could possibly blame circumstance for his rather brief career of just 27 Tests and 48 ODIs -- for when Rod Marsh retired as Aussie 'keeper, Phillips was given the gloves as a stop gap measure, and this in turn meant he was demoted down the order. Funnily enough -- "This is a tough country to do well in", he says in smiling explanation -- he had a miserable time when he toured India, making only 67 runs and struggling to keep to the spinners on India's traditionally turning tracks.

Following his retirement Phillips -- who holds a Level 2 Cricket Coaching Certificate -- took employment with the Australian Cricket Board as one of the body's stable of coaches. And it is in this capacity that he was in Madras -- shepherding a bunch of promising young players attached to the Australian Cricket Academy on what he calls a "growing-up tour".

Phillips was reluctant to discuss the 13 juniors -- one dropped out at the last moment due to illness -- who are here as part of a learning programme sponsored by the cricket academy in concert with the Madras-based MRF Pace Foundation. "Taking names, talking of who will make it to the national team and who will not, is all awfully premature -- let the boys learn and grow without pressure," is Phillips' explanation for the reticence. Ask him about the Australian cricket structure, though, and it's like a dam-burst -- Phillips is ready, able and all too willing to answer as many questions, in as much detail, as you like. "Did you know that 8 of the 14 who played the 1996 World Cup are academy boys?" he asks, with evident pride in the institution he represents.

Excerpts, from an interview with Prem Panicker:

Wayne, your curriculum vitae says you are employed by the Australian Cricket Board. A press release of your trip here says you are with the Australian Cricket Academy. Could you tell us what precisely the cricketing structure in Australia is?

It's this way -- the Australian government has an official branch that looks into sports, including cricket. That is the Australian Institute of Sports. Then there is the governing body of cricket in the country, which is the Australian Cricket Board. In 1987, both the ACB and the AIS got together to form a cricket academy, with the idea of trawling for talent, spotting them and training them in a planned, proper fashion. That is the Australian Cricket Academy, in Adelaide -- which, because a Commonwealth Bank have the rights of 'naming sponsors', is now referred to as the Commonwealth Bank Cricket Academy -- which, incidentally, is now celebrating its 10th anniversary this year.

And who employs you, the AIS, ACB or ACA?

I am a full-time employee of the ACB. The Board pays my salary, and it decides where I work, and with whom. As of now, I am one of the full-time coaches at the cricket academy.

Is this the norm, that the ACB employs coaches and then deputes them to various states or bodies?

Not exactly. The ACB hires coaches which it then deputises as the need arises. The AIS hires its own coaches -- Rod Marsh, who heads the ACA in Adelaide, is actually an AIS employee. And these days, all the state associations hire their own coaches, almost all of them former players, to work with their respective sides.

So for former players, coaching becomes an employment option once their Test careers are over?

Yes. Actually, it is a relatively recent development I guess -- thanks mainly to Rod Marsh. He was the one who pushed this whole cricket academy idea through, and got a lot of former players interested in coaching, in giving the game back something, in putting their experience to work for the country. But yes, these days coaching is a very good employment option for former players -- and I would think Australian cricket has benefited as a result.

The Aussie bench strength seems awesome -- I mean, you guys just won the Ashes and it's like, you have enough players sitting out to make a second XI that would be almost as strong as your first team. How does Australia produce so many talented guys in assembly-line fashion?

Yeah, the boys on the bench are pretty talented, and having that kind of reserve strength also keeps your main players on their toes because they know that they have to perform if they want to keep their place in the side -- there's two-three blokes waiting in line for each spot in the side, and that kind of competition pushes the players into doing their bloody best. Why? Well, I think the system in Australia is geared to spotting, developing and enhancing talent.

Could you elaborate? What is the cricketing structure like in Australia?

The key is the junior level competitions -- Under 17 and Under 19. These are well organised, and played as seriously as the senior domestic competition, the Sheffield Shield. Former players watch the junior games pretty keenly and the minute a talented player is spotted, he is passed along what you called the assembly-line.

Give me a for-instance? What happens to a talented youngster?

First up, the respective state association begins keeping a closer eye on him, the state coach, physio, fitness trainer, dietician, all of them are briefed to keep an eye on the bloke and make sure his progress is steady. During the off season, he is sent to the ACA for advanced coaching. And as soon as he is deemed fit enough, he is picked for the state's second XI, which is a big step up.

Why would it be a cachet, to play for the second XI?

The Australian domestic tournament is the Sheffield Shield, right? Okay, each state not only has the senior team contesting the Shield, it also has the second XI playing a parallel competition. And the second XI competition is as fiercely contested, the players take it seriously because good performances there means that you get to break into the first XI. I guess the best metaphor for Australian cricket is a ladder -- it's there, the rungs are very definite, and you progress up it depending on how good you are. The system is obviously geared to make sure that if you have the talent, then you keep climbing to the very top.

Who are the former players involved in monitoring the junior tournament, picking fresh talent?

Hang on -- talent spotting is not confined only to the junior tournaments and second XI fixtures. We have a programme called Pace Australia, which is funded by the ACB. Dennis Lillee and Jeff Thomson go round the country twice a year, spending three-four days at each state venue. Boys are invited to come to the nets and bowl fast as they can -- and Dennis and Jeff pick the most promising of them and send them on to the Academy.

Similarly, we have a programme called Spinners Are Winners, which picks spinning talent the same way -- only, instead of Dennis and Jeff, we have Terry Jenner in charge of picking promising wrist spinners, and Ashley Mallett responsible for picking up-and-coming finger spinners. Then there is Allan Border, who is involved with the junior tournaments and who regularly tours the country looking for fresh talent. In a sense, it is like we have a huge dragnet spread out across the country -- be damn difficult to escape getting swept up in it if you are young and talented.

Are these past players paid for going round Australia looking for talent? And does their brief end there, with spotting and passing them along the ladder?

Yeah, all the players I named are employees, full or part-time, of the ACB or AIS, and they are paid for what they do. Besides, at the cricket academy, we have, besides the routine coaching, more specialised stuff. Like, Ian Chappell will come in and oversee a specialised batting week -- where he takes the players beyond the basics and into special skills, tactics, strategies of batsmanship. Lillee and Thompson hold pace weeks, Ashley and Terry have specialised weeks for their own departments... AB (Border) does his thing in a specified week. The overall idea is, like with players, so with the coaches -- pick the best, and get the best out of them that you can.

'India is lucky that it regularly produces talented blokes'