IPl

Moody opens up story to manage Mustafiz in IPL

Online Desk

8 Jul 20 16:34:41

Pic: BCCI

|| Desk Report ||

SunRisers Hyderabad (SRH) head coach Tom Moody spoke about how he managed pacer Mustafizur Rahman through his effective communication method to provide the best output for their franchise team in Indian Premier League (IPL).

The language barrier has always been a problem for a player who has very little knowledge about foreign languages rather than his mother tongue. The same matter rises in case of Bangladesh left-arm pace bowler Mustafizur Rahman.

Mustafizur got his maiden chance to play for the SunRisers Hyderabad, a franchise team of lucrative tournament Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2016. Many players dream to play at least once in his lifetime to play in the IPL.

But everyone doesn’t get that chance though it once but many times it has been seen that those who get the opportunity often couldn’t perform well for the team so that they sit at the sideline and see the whole tournament going from the front row.

Mustafizur was lucky in that sense due to his death-over bowling ability and cutting skills that make him a first-choice team player at the very beginning of his IPL journey. But the problem he had to face was the language barrier.

“Yes, there was a player named Ricky Bhui in our team. Ricky Bhui was with the team at that time. He could communicate with Fizz. He has played a very important role in conveying the message to Mustafizur. If you want to talk to someone like Mustafizur, you have to end the conversation in a frugal way. At the same time, you have to explain the words in a very general and specific way,” Tom Moody said.

“I used to have a conversation with him for a maximum of 10 seconds. Without Ricky, it would have been impossible for players and teams to keep in touch,” Moody said in an interview session with Harsha Bhogle.

Moody shared his real story during his coaching tenure with Sri Lanka where he learned the lesson how to communicate with players who don’t understand your language at all.

He informed that he faced the problem first to handle the young pacer Lasith Malinga from him; he actually got the different experience in his coaching profession in 2005.

“I’m talking about young Malinga, that 2005 when I was the coach of Sri Lanka. I used to talk to everyone one by one. What is their role, how to improve. Four-month spends like this, one day Mahela [Mahela Jayawardane] came to me and said, coach, you are doing a very good job but there is a problem in one place. Malinga did not understand a single word of you,” Tom Moody opined.

“It’s a big lesson for me in my coaching career. From then if a player has a problem with English I try to communicate with them through local players so that they don’t think they are less important for the team,” Moody added.

From that lesson, the Hyderabad coach applied the method to Mustafiz for which he took the help of a player named Ricky Bhui during his coaching time with SRH, who described Mustafizur what Moody wants from him and what he has to do. Moody also said that a player like Mustafizur should need to be nurtured in a different way.