Cricket: He's not the Messiah, he's a busy coach

John Wright spells out just what is needed to bring success for New Zealand's cricketers. Photo / Greg Bowker

As the volume rose on the calls for John Wright to take charge of the New Zealand team in the last few weeks, had he been listening, the man himself might have been tempted to emulate Monty Python's Brian.

"Will you please listen. I am not the Messiah!" the character shouts at the crowd in the 1979 film Life of Brian.

The appointment of the former New Zealand captain as head coach came with a rush this week.

Eleven ODI defeats on the bounce finally forced New Zealand Cricket's hand.

Wright, uneasy with that over-the-top talk, is blunt: "That's nonsense," he said of anything which had even a whiff of a messianic arrival.

"Sometimes you get the feeling a coach comes in, waves a wand and everything will be fine. It doesn't work like that," he said.

"What coaches need is good players, and I think coaching is very simple.

"[Former Australian coach] Bob Simpson taught me years and years ago. He said coaching is about helping your batters learn to score more runs, helping bowlers to try to understand how to take more wickets and fielders to become better at catching and saving runs."

Rocket science? Hardly. The key is being able to impart that wisdom into receptive minds and make it stick.

Talk to people who know Wright and you get a common response. Essentially the picture is of a good bloke, who loves his cricket, loves his sport, loves his country.

There is another side to him, which New Zealand players will see in the coming months. Underneath the amiable exterior, he is one tough competitor.

Wright remains one of New Zealand's most successful batsman, but unlike some of the others - Bert Sutcliffe, Martin Crowe, Stephen Fleming - he wasn't blessed with special talent. Certainly he had some, or he wouldn't have lasted 82 tests, made 5334 runs - still third highest for New Zealand - at 37.82 and hit 12 hundreds (not to forget two 99s and a 98).

He made sure he wrung every drop out of himself.

In a coaching sense Wright put it this way: "Sometimes you have to have a soft glove with a firm hand. A lot of it is about people management. I think everyone wants to win, but it's how you get there.

"If you achieve certain goals, winning looks after itself. Whether it's as a player or coach, at international level you've got to have a hard edge, that attitude that 'we're going to take them apart'.

"You can have skilful players, but sometimes those less skilful players with a tough attitude will go a long way."

Wright coached India through the first half of this decade. He had the touch needed for a group of players strong on personality, high on skill but also men who needed to be kept cohesive.

You might imagine that coaching Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, VVS Laxman, Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh would be no real hardship. But Wright remains lauded in India for his time there.

Australia were beaten 2-1, after losing the first and being on toast midway through the second; India reached the World Cup final in 2003; drew with the Aussies again in the lucky country and ended his reign with India in stronger shape than when he had arrived.

One of the big lessons he absorbed from his time there was having a strong group of senior players. He also came to appreciate more the importance of giving players space.

"They've got a lot on their plates, and if you're in their space every moment of the day, talking about plans or technique, I don't know if it can be helpful."

He will talk self-reliance to his players. "Good players get there anyway, no matter what you put around them. The only thing you'd like to do is help them make it quicker.

"I've never been able to coach 'want'. You've got to train and practice and work at your game so when you're out there in the middle you don't need anyone else, and that takes a little while."

Which brings Wright to a key point about his elevation: it's going to take time. "There's going to be no quick fixes. I hope there's a bit of patience."

He is sure New Zealand's one-day fortunes can be fixed fairly smartly, doesn't quite see how a side who were in the Champions Trophy in South Africa a year ago, has fallen so far, so fast.

Eleven losses on the bounce - all in the subcontinent, just a short time before the World Cup is staged, on the subcontinent - make horror reading.

Wright's argument is the players haven't changed substantially from a well-performed team last year.

So what will equate to success under Wright in the next three months?

"Pakistan is going to be a big learning experience for all of us. If we play well then we can win games.

"At the World Cup we've got to beat all those smaller nations, Kenya, Canada and Zimbabwe, then there's Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Australia and we've got to try to win a couple of those.

"Then we'll take the next step. It's always one game at a time. You can't get ahead of yourself and for us there's no easy game."

As for the specific disciplines, this is what the batsmen will be hearing: You need to learn to play straight, be patient, hone the skill of getting singles to keep the board moving.

And the bowlers will be reminded that down the years New Zealand has invariably had an effective, efficient unit. There's no reason that should change.

Wright made it plain there's only one leader and that's Dan Vettori.

"On the field he's the man; off it, I'll try and take that load off him so he can concentrate on working at his game, communicating with his players and thinking about strategy."

There were easier options open to Wright, but he felt had he not put his hand up for this job he would most likely have regretted it.

"I don't expect it to be a bed of roses. In six months maybe I won't be listening to talkback radio," he laughed.

He's not particularly looking forward to the amount of time on the road and enjoys being out of the limelight. He'd prefer to "take a back seat, work in the background".

And a final thought. In his time with the high performance operation of New Zealand Cricket, Wright has seen young players with what he rates as good qualities.

"I look at them two years down the track and we could have a very exciting group coming through, particularly in the bowling. Batters take longer to develop.

"But hopefully the next bloke who gets a go after me gets some of those players to work with."

And try this for a mission statement: "We're going to have to build slowly, get some foundations and hopefully you leave the place in a better state than you found it." Rather like India, in fact.