Osman Samiuddin speaks to Pakistan’s new fielding coach, David Dwyer, and his plans for the side
Osman Samiuddin09-Oct-2007
“The team has been hugely responsive,” says Pakistan’s fitness trainer David Dwyer © Getty Images
How did cricket happen?I worked in the University of New South Wales looking after their high performance sports section. Geoff Lawson was there through his affiliation with playing for the cricket club. He was also working at NSW cricket and the university’s cricket club asked me to come do their fitness in the off-season. Then Geoff came along a couple ofmonths ago. I had worked with the university’s cricketers and one of theirmajor students or players was Michael Slater, so I had some experience ofworking with cricketers at various levels.How different is the approach to fitness in rugby and cricket?There is a difference and there isn’t. That doesn’t sound soclear but it depends on the level of athlete you have, how much of anatural athlete a player is. Take the Australian cricket team. If you wereto walk in with them, you wouldn’t have to do the same thing as I have todo with Pakistan. The Australians continue to have this emphasis onfitness.Pakistan also has had it, but having done the testing for them, there area lot of areas where we could improve. All I’m doing is defining whatmovement and motions are required and used. You programme exercises specificto the individual and their roles.How has the team responded? There’s a perception that they’re notparticularly fit. When Bob Woolmer arrived, he thought they were the worstteam fitness-wise he had seen.I sort of leant towards Bob’s sentiments only because I’ve comefrom another country and a sport. But the team has been hugely responsive.When we arrived we said there is no longer any excuse why we’re not No. 1.We have a white towel with ‘No Excuses’ written on it. The first person togive up, we put their name on it so they’ve thrown the towel in. Itdoesn’t matter if it’s someone who has played 200 Tests or less. We’re allworking towards the same goal and can’t have any link willing to give up.They’re very much willing to accept that. We’ve created a large squad of 16-17 guys, so the non-players are doing double sessions every day: fitness and strength or fitness and speed We’ve got a long way to go but the best thing was at the end of the firstday at Karachi when we were stretching down. One player came up and said,after 90 overs, he continued to run to the wicket, run to the stumps andwhile stretching felt the freshest he had felt. After a full day in thatheat: that person is in a crouching position all the time and has to runto the stumps. He’s on every ball.Pakistan looked more intense at the Twenty20, especially in the field.We trained every day. There were travel days but the format, you only havethree hours. Of that, if you’re a fielder, 90 minutes is spent on thefield and yes there might be intense periods. But we used to go to the gymstraight after every day.Test cricket is different altogether. What changes here?It’s a big challenge, but the players are extremely open to it.They’re young, up for it, open to new thoughts, ideas. Over five days wewanted each of them to do two weight sessions if you are in the playing XIand if there’s a possibility then a third.We’ve created a large squad of 16-17 guys, so the non-players aredoing double sessions every day: fitness and strength or fitness andspeed.How do you plan to keep them fit during the off-season?If it was up to me, and it will be, I am going to flog them. Wehave people at the academy and the idea that I wanted is that regionalacademy guys also assess them. The guys will report to me and as part oftheir testing we have set them targets. Players will come, do fitnesstesting and they’ve got to achieve those targets. Anyone who doesn’t, itwill affect them. Targets will be set between myself, the coach and theplayer so that they are reasonable, fair and something they are willing towork towards. Once in place, I’ll keep feeding them programmes for the time they’re away from international cricket.
Geoff Lawson had a hand in bringing Dwyer over © Getty Images
Pakistan have suffered a lot from injuries recently. Is it badmanagement or is it to an extent unavoidable?A bit of both. It’s hard for me to comment on what happenedbefore but there are unique stresses placed on the body here, likebaseball, with a lot of twisting and power through the spine. We’re moreadvanced about knowledge of the body and the stresses placed on it. We’veplaced a huge amount of time on the recovery aspect. We’ve got some newsport leggings from Australia and this helps to try and repair the body,providing more oxygen to the muscles to help them repair. The guys arefinding that so much better than anything they have had.Diet is important too and you work around factors like Ramadan whereplayers fast. But they are becoming stronger. We could maybe use arotational system. In rugby the players’ association has a policy whereplayers are only allowed to play 30 games a year to avoid burn-out. If wecan build the perfect squad we can choose, just like Australia, from readyback-ups. McGrath goes and Mitchell Johnson comes: think about theinjuries they have had in the past. I can’t remember many.Was it a difficult decision to come here?</bI had to think a little. My family all live in Australia and Ihad just bought a house and settled in. Ultimately it wasn't a harddecision because it was an opportunity to step out of my comfort zone asfar as rugby was concerned and into something that is not my top sport. Ispoke to Geoff about it a couple of times, researched the team. You've gotto push away all the padding in the media sometimes and look deeper.And you see the incredible fast bowlers they have. Pakistan had a hugechange of fortune in the last year. My hope before I came was to see a newattitude. We were starting from the bottom, we lost to Ireland. We'rereally hoping to build these guys block by block. We have the right coach,staff, captain and players. The Twenty20 result was justification.How has the communication been?I worked in Japan last year so I know what the troubles are. Itmakes you a better coach. You really have to be able to explain yourselfclearly and make sure, step by step, you go right to the basics and takethem through it. The guys are pretty good at English but my Urdu I have toapologise for unfortunately.
