Sairaj Bahutule, who was on Tuesday officially named the spin bowling coach of Rajasthan Royals— a development that Sportstar was first to report earlier this month—is looking forward to working with the side's mentor Shane Warne.
“I have interacted with Warne earlier, and I know him. He is a fantastic person, not only skill-wise but also in terms of tactics. He will get the best out of the players. He believes in giving result and playing aggressive cricket, so it will definitely be great working with him,” Bahutule told Sportstar.
Bahutule thanked Royals’ cricket director, Zubin Bharucha, for handing him his maiden coaching stint in the IPL. “Zubin has remained behind the scenes but he is very organised and has been attached with the Royals for long. We have a great team of support staff,” Bahutule, who is also the Bengal head-coach, said.
After five years, Royals will return to their home ground at the Sawai Mansingh Stadium in Jaipur—a venue not quite known for helping the spinners—so being the coach what would be his strategy?
“We have got spinners like K. Gowtham, Shreyas Gopal, Midhun, Zahir Khan. All of them are doing well in domestic cricket or in whatever format they are playing.
"As far as the Jaipur wicket is concerned, we will be in a better position once the camp starts”, the 45-year-old Bahutule stated.
“Eventually, T20 game is somewhat controlled by spinners, considering that we have a right mix of them,” the former spinner said, adding: “There is no point in me making too many changes. I will just do a bit of fine-tuning. T20 is about the presence of mind and self-belief.”
Rajasthan Royals has always unearthed talent from obscurity turning them into future stars. And Bahutule feels it would be a similar story this time around.
“It gives them (the youngsters) a good platform to perform. There are so many players who people don’t know about. After IPL, they will recognise these cricketers and later push them for national duties. When Rahul (Dravid) was a part of the Royals, his influence was extremely good. It’s an ideal place to work where people do not know much about players.”
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