CHENNAI: Given his playing and coaching stints with Gautam Gambhir, Ryan ten Doeschate's name started doing rounds as soon as the former took over as India head coach. As expected the South Africa-born former Dutch all-rounder was soon announced as one of the assistant coaches of the Indian team. Notwithstanding the demands of the Indian cricket, Ten Doeschate is well-equipped to ride out the storm believes his former Netherlands teammate Tim de Leede, who played 14 out of his 19 ODIs for the Dutch national team alongside the all-rounder. De Leede spoke to this daily and underlined the reasons that could contribute to Ten Doeschate's success in his new role. Excerpts...
What he brings to the table
Work ethics. What I really liked about him is that he wasn't very good at the beginning. That's strange to say, he was just an average player but he worked so hard on his game that he became a batting all-rounder from a bowling all-rounder. He got to such heights. Hopefully, he knows his secrets and he can bring it to the front for the players. He will work on mindset more than technique which is what you have to do with good players. Usually, it's the mindset that stands out the greats from other players. So if he can get that message through a few players, he would do a fantastic job.
Special memory with Ten Doeschate
We were always amateurs so that's first. We trained a little in winter as there were no facilities and no coach. So when we were on a winter tour, we usually trained three hours in the morning or three hours in the afternoon. Very quickly when he (Ten Doeschate) came into the side, he went with one or two guys to have a hit in the morning or afternoon, whichever is free. Within a few days, the whole squad did it. That was the start of getting a more professional approach in cricket for the Netherlands. Just hitting more balls will make you a better player.
His rapport with Gambhir, what makes him special
He is a very relaxed guy with a lot of knowledge. He got fantastic work ethic. He will always be ready for players to do things with him which will make him very popular. Hopefully, he knows as I already said how to become better at getting ready for the game mentally. If he can bring that over, he will be a fantastic asset for a lot of Indian players even the best ones because you can learn from everybody I suppose.
On his coaching skills
A coach is not the best coach for everybody because some will be very happy with him and some might need a different approach. He likes to work really hard and when he trains, he is very very focussed. So other guys might like a more relaxed approach but at the level India play, it's the responsibility of the players. You can use the coaches that you feel best with and if he is not your batting coach they should look for somebody else as coach or maybe one of the players can help him out. I don't know. I have never met a coach who is the best coach for all the players in the squad. So don't have the illusion that you are
His strategy of working on mindset
Well, the mindset thing is something I just talked about and he was just phenomenal at that. I don't know what he did. I haven't spoken to him for a while but he just virtually always performed, which is incredible. I think he struggled once. It was a T20 tournament in Australia BBL but all the other matches he played in, whether it was Netherlands, Essex or franchises, he performed, which is an incredible skill but very difficult to tackle why somebody can do that? You know, there are only a few best players in the world, they manage that. But if they can tell what they're doing, for them it might be natural. So it's difficult to... as I said earlier he knows what he's doing and sometimes they are very simple things, but we also have to be honest, not everybody can do that. So, you know, some will benefit from him largely and it might not be the guys that we all expect, but hopefully, he'll do a great job. India's youngsters especially will benefit from him being there.