Cricket: Bracewell's way: Look and learn

By RICHARD BOOCK

John Bracewell is a watcher. He reads people like the average man reads a book, poring over the detail until he thoroughly understands the story - and his powers of observation only seem to be increasing.

The man credited with transforming unfashionable Gloucestershire spent a full year observing his players before devising a plan, and took the West County side to scarcely believable heights - seven one-day trophies in a six-year term.

The former gravedigger and New Zealand spin bowler is a student of life, a man with no academic qualifications beside his name yet an acute understanding of what makes people tick. He is fascinated by people and what's going on around him. He often finds himself staring at strangers.

"I constantly find myself staring at people to the extent my wife is always telling me off," he says. "People interest me - why are they behaving like that? What are they doing? I'm always asking why?

"Life's a constant learning experience and it's handy to watch what other people do. Sometimes you think, 'Ooh, that's interesting, I must try that out myself' and it can turn out to be quite useful."

Bracewell's passion for observing was with him from the start, the result of an upbringing full of conversation and story.

Through conversations with his father ("actually, he did most of the talking and we did most of the listening"), Bracewell was introduced to the legends of world cricket - the action of fast-bowler Ray Lindwall, the style of all-rounder Keith Millar, the mannerisms of batsman Doug Walters.

"I remember having to bowl to Dougie Walters in my first test match, and I'd never seen him before, apart from a couple of newspaper photos.

"Yet it was no surprise to me how he played, he'd been in my imagination for years."

He loved the power of story, and the way his father could light up his imagination.

The camp-fire mentality, as he calls it, is practically a lost art in today's world, and definitely a lost art in the world of cricket.

It was Bracewell's imagination that came up with the solution at Gloucestershire. There, the county had a reputation of individualism. It could boast names such as Grace, Graveney, Proctor and Walsh, but hardly any silverware. Personal and individual records were posted, yet the trophy cabinet remained bare.

Bracewell watched his players. They seemed to play cricket for a living, but at every other opportunity kicked a soccer ball around. They lacked ambition, did not dream of playing for England and were effectively filling in time before they had to go and get a real job.

"They were sort of delaying adulthood," he says.

His answer was to scratch their itch, to take the football mentality on to the cricket field in an attempt to replicate the sense of togetherness shown during the kick-arounds. It worked. In fact it worked big-time.

Lord's became the Bristol team's home away from home.

"They started playing with the ball, chucking it around, getting the fielding up to scratch and enjoying the game, like they did with soccer.

And that worked well within the parameters of one-day cricket."

For Bracewell, the triumph at Gloucestershire followed success with Auckland and before that an impressive international career during which he became the first New Zealand spin-bowler to take 100 test wickets.

Now, having returned to New Zealand with wife Bernadette and children Cameron and Jaime-Maree, he is challenging himself again, this time as the country's first cricket coach-cum chief selector since the failed experiment with Glenn Turner.

Bracewell believes the new role will demand a mixture of hands-on type coaching and the more football manager style, reasoning that there'll be a need to meet short and long-term objectives.

"In a lot of situations, and in a touring environment in particular, there's a lot of band-aid solutions," he says. "The reality is that sometimes you need to get a player up and firing for the following day, and you do what you can with the resources available.

"You might recognise that someone needs to make technical changes but you also know that the time's wrong - so you find a quick-fix to make him effective."

The MacGyver factor appealed to him; the challenge of finding his way out of a jam with minimal tools and only the resources within the changing room at his disposal.

It was, he said, "the great thing about the job".

"When you need to win a test match tomorrow and someone's chronically out of form, you've got to be able to think on your feet."

The beauty with Bracewell is that, because he is not the product of the formal education system he has a slightly different way of looking at problems, and can often produce an option that has escaped more conventional thinking.

In fact, he used to worry about whether he was bright enough to do this, or smart enough to do that, particularly when he applied for a job with responsibility - as people tended to put an academic measurement on it.

"You find yourself thinking, 'Am I thick?'

"It takes ages for me to read a book. But when I read a book I live it. I hear the words, the characters have different accents; in fact, I'm often disappointed when the book's made into a movie and the characters turn out completely different."

He understands the need for sports sciences but is more comfortable at the coal face than in textbooks, chiefly because his entire modus operandi revolves around getting to know the players - who they are, where they come from, and what makes them tick.

"People are the job. You can't concentrate on the science without the people. If you do, you wave goodbye to reality."

One thing Bracewell has waved goodbye to is the perception of the 1980s side as the role models of New Zealand cricket history; the pin-up team of the Men in White legend, and the most successful era outside the present.

With players such as Geoff Howarth, Martin Crowe, Richard Hadlee, Ian Smith, John Wright and Jeremy Coney, the squad of the early-to-mid-80s became a force on the international scene, beating Australia in both forms of the game, and scoring their first test win in England.

But Bracewell reckons the side became selfish and created a difficult environment for new players such as Ken Rutherford, who was effectively sacrificed on the altar of West Indian cricket as a teenager in 1985.

"The 1980s side have a lot to answer for in terms of the evolutionary path of the New Zealand cricket team," Bracewell says.

"We weren't responsible enough. About the only thing we were responsible for was the behaviour of the teams in the 1990s.

"It's like the West Indies team of the same era. The cultural architects of the team, the guys who had been givers, became takers and we did the same thing. We just didn't understand how fast the game was changing, and there were a lot of distractions."

He says care needs to be taken to not repeat the old mistakes as the game continues to change, and makes a point of mentioning the need to be especially vigilant when considering the fast-tracking of a young player into the full international side.

It is crucial to be clear about where the team are heading in terms of their evolutionary cycle, and the skills the young players in question - not only their cricket skills but also their life skills.

"That's why we sent away more mature players to Pakistan, rather than exposing young, new players to a tour that would, quite clearly, be very demanding."


John Bracewell

Born: April 15, 1958, Auckland

Test debut: v Australia, Brisbane 1980

Final test: v England, Birmingham, 1990

41 matches

1001 runs, average 20.42

one 100, four 50s

102 wickets, average 35.81. Five in an innings four times, best 6-32

31 catches

One-day record:

Debut v Pakistan, Birmingham, 1983

Final game: v Pakistan, Sharjah, 1989-90

53 matches

512 runs, average 16.51

33 wickets, average 57.09

19 catches

And Bracewell makes five

Coaches became a consistent ingredient in New Zealand teams from 1985.
There are earlier instances of a coach working with the team, but it was not until Glenn Turner took over in 1985 that they have been ever-present.

Turner and captain Jeremy Coney combined successfully on the 1985-86 tour to Australia in New Zealand's first series win across the Tasman.

Since then there has been a steady stream, including one non-New Zealander - former Australian test wicketkeeper Steve Rixon, who guided the team from 1996 until the 1999 World Cup.

Bracewell is the fifth New Zealand test player to become national coach, after Turner, Bob Cunis, Warren Lees and Geoff Howarth. He was a team-mate of three of them, the exception being Cunis.


New Zealand's coaches:

1985-86 Turner

1987 Gren Alabaster

1987 Turner

1987-88 Alabaster

1988-90 Bob Cunis

1990-93 Warren Lees

1993-95 Geoff Howarth

1995-96 Turner

1996-99 Steve Rixon

1999-2001 David Trist

2001-2003 Denis Aberhart

2003 Ashley Ross

2003-? John Bracewell