Data-driven: The benefits of Mhambrey’s work for Shami & Co

Mohammed Shami celebrated his fifth wicket last Thursday at the Wankhede Stadium by putting the ball on his head during the match against Sri Lanka. The gesture was made in the direction of Paras Mhambrey, the bowling coach for India, who worked closely with him for a considerable amount of time, encouraging and pushing him even while he was on the sidelines.

All of that was clear in Shami’s performance when he was eventually able to play after Hardik Pandya’s tragic injury. With 16 wickets in only four games, the pacer has already become India’s top wicket-taker after settling in quickly.

The buzz of the cricket world has been India’s bowling assault throughout the World Cup. Observing them in action has been amazing. It seems sense that their bowling coach is doing something well, as shown by Shami’s gesture. Mhambrey, a dependable assistant to Rahul Dravid, had high expectations to live up to considering the accomplishments made under former bowling coach Bharat Arun.

Comparisons were certain to occur since Shami, Jasprit Bumrah, and Mohammed Siraj were all well-known players who had performed well under the previous coach. The dressing room is yours to lose if you make a mistake. It really boils down to your ability to advance the gamers to a higher level. The Indian speed bowlers have been amazing to see throughout the World Cup. The skill of Kuldeep Yadav and Ravindra Jadeja, the spin tandem, has also been impressive.

It is being referred to be the greatest offensive ever deployed by any side in the ODI World Cup due to the astounding stats. India has refused to give up more than 300 points. In five of the eight games, they have bowled out opponents with less than 200 runs. There have been two totals below 100.

Former Pakistan captains Misbah-ul-Haq and Shoaib Malik have been astonished by the talent demonstration on Pakistan TV station A Sports, praising the biomechanics and pointing out the flawless release. A product of the BCA-Mafatlal Bowling Scheme, he was first exposed to teaching in 2002 during a six-week stint as an assistant to English fast bowling legend Frank Tyson at a Karnataka State Association Camp. Since Tyson was so interested in biomechanics, the Mumbai pacer also developed a great grasp of it.

While Mhambrey didn’t have much success as a player for his country, he quickly established himself as a coach. Three years after his playing retirement, in the 2005–06 season, he took over as head coach of the Bengals, demonstrating his intelligence. Bengal was hoping to turn things around after escaping relegation from the Ranji Trophy Elite Group versus Madhya Pradesh the previous year.

At the time, Mhambrey was one of the youngest coaches on the domestic circuit at the age of 33. Almost all of the players who had battled for their lives went on to play in the Ranji Trophy final in Lucknow, against Uttar Pradesh. Bengal had advanced so far into the competition after a 16-year break. What then was his Touch of Midas?

“Planning and discipline,” said Shib Shankar Paul, the leading pacer for Bengal at the time who finished the season among the top takers in the nation with 36 wickets.

The usage of technology was something else that Mhambrey embraced and integrated into every Bengal squad going forward. “We were just beginning to see video analysts in our local cricket. Paras made full use of it. We watched a lot of batters’ videos and made a lot of plans. In the past, we had plans A, B, and C for most eventualities. That proved effective for us, Paul said.

Paul said, “What he did was open up a whole range of tactical nuances and that helped us look at bowling differently. It was not about technical changes.”

WRIST THOUGHT

The main difference between India and the other teams so far is that nobody is producing as much movement as Bumrah and Shami. Wasim Akram of ‘A Sports’ emphasized Bumrah and Shami’s superb wrist position and their flick of the wrist to produce back spin. Even though Mhambrey lacked speed, his teammates said he improved at giving the ball back spin. Because Bumrah and Shami are quicker and more fit, they move more quickly and may be deadly.

With the majority of the teams he worked with, Mhambrey was successful. After 19 years, they qualified for the Ranji Trophy knockouts in his debut season with Vidarbha, 2014–15.

However, it’s one thing to accomplish it at the national level; it’s quite another to go into the changing room of one of the greatest teams in the world, where the players are all established. And that too, after his forebear’s work had received much praise.

It was a test to win the dressing room. He knew going in that the majority of the men weren’t connected to him. He was aware that it would take time to establish such confidence. It goes without saying that the fact that many of the men were seasoned veterans who valued sound advice was what made his strategy effective. With his gift, Shami expressed his gratitude to the players for their trust and appreciation of his efforts.

Mhambrey placed a strong focus on tactical work. Speaking to the media during England’s match in Lucknow, Mhambrey said that the most of his discussions with the bowlers center on game strategy.

At this level, man-management is everything. I mostly discuss the tactical aspect and don’t go into much into on the technical aspect. In the end, everything comes down to execution. The bowling coach for India said, “They deserve the credit.”

Driven by data

In order to make his point while facing the best bowlers in the world, Mhambrey realized he would need to be specific in his contributions. All of his strategies are data-driven and grounded on research. The benefit is that data cannot be denied. It is just before you.

In his three years with the Vidarbha squad (2014–15 to 2016–17), Mhambrey worked extensively with Anirudh Deshpande, the team analyst. They successfully organized several dismissals together. Deshpande recalls the 2016–17 Ranji match against a star-studded Delhi team, in which the team made considerable use of analytics to design their strategy against players like Nitish Rana, Rishabh Pant, Gautam Gambhir, and Shikhar Dhawan.

“We were facing Delhi in a quarterfinal match at Chennai’s SSN Engineering College field in 2016–17. With Dhawan, who had returned from a tour of New Zealand, Gambhir, a youthful, nimble Rana, and Rishabh Pant, they had a batting-heavy side. We spoke to our bowlers about the strategy, which was to allow Gambhir, who is pretty excellent square of the wicket, avoid opening his hands by maintaining a steady stump line. For Dhawan, the strategy was to let him play few drives before trapping him in that area. Rajneesh Gurbani made the ideal selections, recalls Deshpande.

Delhi reached 102/6 when the strategy was successful, but Manan Sharma steadied the ship at number eight.

“Mhambrey sir ensured the bowlers practiced correctly in the nets after he had shown the movies and created the strategy. With the intention of bowling to the Delhi hitters, accuracy should be very good. This is how the data works; it only benefits 20% of the population, but even that 20% makes a significant effect.

The home run hitters would have been in danger earlier. The international hitters are now being caught off guard. Mhambrey has avoided the spotlight, but the results are evident.