'I Was Blown Away About...': Morne Morkel's First Impression as New India Bowling Coach

Team India’s new bowling coach, the former South African pacer, Morne Morkel is raring to go ahead of their first assignment, which is the upcoming two-match Test series against Bangladesh at home. The former Proteas pacer highlighted his plans and expectations from himself in his new role as part of the coaching staff of the Indian national team.

Speaking in an interview uploaded by the BCCI’s official Instagram handle, he hopes to begin his stint by connecting with the squad members. During his playing career, he has played with and against some of the senior members of the Team India setup and hopes to take advantage of that to help improve and establish new relationships with the team.

Morkel shared, “I’m here now on the setup and I’m looking forward to a great journey and time with India. For me, it is important to connect well with the guys. I’ve played a lot against some of the players I’ve seen and connected a little bit too with some of the guys doing IPL and to now be in the camp and form friendships and relationships for me is very important,”

“And, for today that was sort of the goal, to get an understanding about the guys, their strengths, their weaknesses and help a little bit by sitting and planting little seeds for the goals for the upcoming series. And yeah, that’s the sort of conversation we had today,” he added.

The Indian team arrived in Chennai on Friday ahead of the first Test against Bangladesh which is set to take place at the M. A Chidambaram Stadium on September 19. Morkel speaking after the team’s first training session was impressed by the professionalism shown by the squad and hopes that the side can build on that.

“I was blown away about, you know, how they went about things, how professional they were. So that’s that’s a good sign. And, you know, hopefully, we can build on that,” the former South African pacer shared.

The 39-year-old aims to help extract the best out of a talented bunch of players and he hopes to do that by ensuring that every member of the squad is made to feel comfortable and that they belong in the international circuit, through which their best performances will come through.

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“It’s one thing, having the talent and the skill, how can you make those guys feel welcome in an intimidating sort of environment? India playing for and wearing the blue shirt, there are a lot of expectations. So for me, having that experience and going through that, thus passing on that sort of knowledge and helping them to settle and also feel at home because I think as soon as a player has that comfortability that they belong and feel comfortable in this space, the performances will come,” Morkel commented.

The newly appointed bowling coach will also help improve the side skill-wise, add to their respective arsenals and help cope with the expectations of playing for a winning side.

“From there, up-skill and get them up to the standard and feel ready to take up this challenge. I understand and I know there’s always going to be expectations of winning and stuff like that. And luckily I’ve experienced it in my playing days so that I can share that knowledge. When I was sitting on the plane, I’d reflect,” he shared.

The former South African pacer also is pleased by the quality of senior players that the Indian team has at the moment and believes that their job is to support them as best as possible but also maintain the system within Indian cricket which has been operating at its best in recent years.

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“We’re so lucky in this team to have quality senior players and you know, the players they’ll lead the charge and it’s our responsibility to support them and just give them the best sort of advice that we can give. But coming out here, this is a setup where, you know, it sort of operates by itself, so to protect that and make it better in small ways is going to be the goal,” Morkel concluded.