What’s in a reputation? Quite a bit, in case you are Jon Lewis!
Final month, the England ladies’s cricket crew head coach was busy getting ready for the restricted overs collection towards Australia – after conceding the lone Check – when he acquired a number of WhatsApp messages from colleagues congratulating him for being a contender for India’s ladies’s head coach job!
They have been referring to studies of him being one of many candidates for the India job, together with Amol Muzumdar and Tushar Arothe. Whereas it took Lewis abruptly, a number of moments later the seasoned coach was sure that it was a case of mistaken id, as soon as once more!
His namesake Jon Lewis – a former Durham captain and coach – had utilized for the India position, and lots of within the cricketing fraternity thought that it was truly the England coach Lewis who was within the fray.
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“It was very humorous. So, each of my employers (ECB and UP Warriorz) despatched me a screenshot inside three minutes of the article going out. So, my very first thing was, it’s very nice to be liked and good to be wished. So when each my employers despatched me the screenshots, I used to be like, wow, that is information to me,” Lewis, who can be the top coach of UP Warriorz within the Girls’s Premier League, tells Sportstar.
It was clearly nothing new for Lewis. Final yr, when he changed Lisa Keightley as the top coach of England ladies’s crew, each the namesakes have been within the fray for the highest job and forward of the interviews, many obtained confused between the 2.
“So once I heard the information, I assumed immediately that it was my colleague, Jon, who was going for the position. And truly, I feel he’d do an incredible job in the event that they provided him the position. He’s nice, has nice data of the ladies’s sport,” the 48-year-old Lewis, a former England and Gloucestershire seamer, says with a smile.
As his cellphone went on ringing, Lewis needed to persuade everybody that he, certainly, hadn’t utilized for the position. “I feel it was extra for the folks within the fits, who have been extra apprehensive about me and I did instantly put a message on the WhatsApp group with the gamers to allow them to know that I wasn’t the one,” he says.
“After which the opposite Jon despatched a message on the WhatsApp group sheepishly saying, “Sorry, that’s me.” So yeah, there was a little bit of humour round that. We handled that with humour and I simply needed to reassure my bosses on the ECB that all the pieces was okay. After which clearly I advised each my employers that I’m nonetheless out there to do each my jobs.”
‘Take pleasure in working in India’
Nevertheless, Lewis needs to maintain the door open sooner or later. Being related to the UP Warriorz, he has a good understanding of Indian cricket now and the seasoned coach needs to make use of that if there’s a possibility to work with the Indian crew sooner or later of time. “In the long run, that’s not one thing that I’d rule out. I don’t say by no means about any job. I actually take pleasure in working in India. It’s a extremely excellent place to work. The fervour for cricket is second to none. So, I really like the Indian folks’s ardour for cricket,” he says.
Over the previous few days, he has been busy conducting a pre-season camp in Bengaluru with the UP Warriorz crew forward of the subsequent version of the Girls’s Premier League. Within the inaugural version of the event, the Warriorz completed third after shedding the playoffs towards Mumbai Indians. This time round, despite the fact that the dates for the event haven’t been finalised, the Warriorz need to be well-prepared.
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“We’re not 100 per cent positive when the season goes to start out. So, I feel certainly one of my primary reflections on the WPL itself from our crew’s perspective was that clearly, our abroad gamers have been actually dominant. They performed some actually good cricket.
“Nevertheless, for our native gamers, there have been a whole lot of areas for them to enhance their video games. So after they left us, we have been actually clear with them in regards to the areas of their video games that they wanted to enhance. And to guarantee that these issues are literally occurring, I feel it’s good to have common checkpoints all year long,” Lewis explains the rationale behind conducting a pre-season camp.
“Girls’s cricket on the whole, no matter whether or not worldwide gamers or not, I feel the ceiling is absolutely, actually excessive, however the gamers don’t actually perceive but how excessive they’ll go in direction of that ceiling. So, simply to maintain making an attempt to develop our personal gamers and to develop the ladies’s sport in India, I feel for the franchise is absolutely, actually essential.
“On the public sale, we picked some actually younger gamers and I feel in the course of the competitors we have been courageous sufficient to pick a few of them fairly a number of instances to offer them alternatives to know what enjoying within the huge present is all about actually,” he says.
Children like Parshavi Chopra impressed the crew administration along with her wonderful spin-bowling present. “To go away them for a yr or for six, eight months, that’s a very long time. So, to examine in perhaps as soon as, twice, thrice between the 2 WPLs, I feel, is absolutely essential, in order that we will simply maintain a examine on the progress of the gamers and provides them some extra suggestions of areas of the sport that they should maintain engaged on. So hopefully, these gamers can get nearer the usual of the abroad gamers. After which, hopefully, the entire competitors goes up, however clearly, the usual of our crew goes up so we will compete greater than we did final yr,” he says.
Abhishek Nayar joins Warriorz
Within the pre-season camp, the Warriorz has roped in Abhishek Nayar as a specialist to information the children. “That is my first publicity with Abhishek. I’ve not seen him coach earlier than. He’s clearly a really skilled coach. He’s achieved a whole lot of work with KKR. So, he comes with a extremely good popularity. What I’ve seen about the way in which he coaches may be very a lot he tries to develop the participant.
He’s obtained a really developmental mindset in creating the person model of every participant. And since I’ve seen him coach, I’ve been actually impressed. He clearly has a extremely good understanding of information of enjoying T20 cricket and a extremely good understanding of batting method and the way totally different particular person strategies are capable of adapt to totally different conditions and totally different surfaces,” Lewis says.
“So what I’ve seen him convey thus far is a bit little bit of an understanding of how every participant can take advantage of what they’ve obtained thus far with out making too many adjustments by way of their technical adjustments. So the gamers have been away working at totally different components of their method, we’ve given them some recommendation to go and do, and now it’s about how they play the sport higher.
As a result of principally, batting isn’t actually about method, batting is about scoring runs. Batting is about scoring runs underneath strain. So understanding your individual sport and understanding the way you play in strain moments is the easiest way to go on rating runs. So what he’s doing is that he’s given the gamers already, they’ve put them in conditions the place they’re underneath strain to attain runs however then he’s given them totally different choices throughout the method He’s superb from what I’ve seen thus far at individualizing these conditions to ensure the participant will get the correct publicity,” Lewis explains.
The England-Australia rivalry
The previous few months have been hectic for Lewis – the England head coach. After conceding the Check, his crew bounced again strongly and went on to win the limited-overs collection. The coach is pleased with the way in which his wards fought again. “ I feel the largest factor truly was the event and the occasion.
Jon Lewis, head coach of England throughout a coaching session.
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Getty Pictures
Jon Lewis, head coach of England throughout a coaching session.
| Picture Credit score:
Getty Pictures
The truth that we crammed stadiums because the England ladies’s cricket crew enjoying in a collection was truly groundbreaking in our nation. So historically over a time period, the final 10, 20 years, the largest crowds the ladies have performed in entrance of have been far smaller than the largest crowds we performed in entrance of this time spherical. To promote out an entire ODI collection was unbelievable and to just about fill The Oval or The Lord’s, they have been simply all nice events and I feel each side actually loved the truth that they have been making an attempt to entertain in entrance of a full home,” Lewis says.
“The one factor that was the subsequent bit for us in England is to attempt to proceed that recognition of the ladies’s sport and possibly greater than seemingly due to how we play our cricket quite than whether or not we win or lose. So, that’s one thing that the ladies have actually realized. If you happen to truly placed on a present and also you entertain folks, they may come and watch they usually actually take pleasure in enjoying in entrance of massive crowds. That was nice,” he says.
After shedding the Check, it was difficult for England to show issues round. But it surely managed to take action. “By way of the rivalry between the 2 sides, that may all the time be there. This England-Australia rivalry is one thing that by no means goes away. And the truth that Australia have been so dominant over the course of 10 years actually, I didn’t realise this however I obtained advised on the finish that is the primary time they’ve misplaced a collection, an ODI collection for 10 years and the primary time they’ve misplaced a T20 collection for 10 years. You recognize that’s an enormous achievement for our crew,” he says.
“We have to be actually pleased with that no matter whether or not or not we win the urn. One of many different huge issues that I took away from the summer time was the character of my crew. Like we have been 6-0 down with, I can’t bear in mind, was it, 5 video games left and to come back again and draw that collection 8 all from that place that confirmed a whole lot of character and I feel England groups previously (perhaps the previous 4 or 5 years) they might have disappeared and so there’s been an actual shift in our crew and in perception and in confidence. So, my job now could be to keep up that perception, preserve that confidence but additionally to develop the flexibility of the ladies and to maintain bettering the crew.”