Whatmore Tells Inside Story At Last (16 Dec 1996)

16 December 1996

Whatmore tells the inside story at last

By Sa`adi Thawfeeq

The amateurish handling of a professional was a key factor to World Cup winning team coach Davenall Whatmore`s premature resignation.

The former Victorian and Australian Test batsman who during his 1 1/2 years as coach turned an ordinary Sri Lanka side into a team of world beaters quit six months ahead of his contract was due to expire, signing up with English county Lancashire with whom he will start work from February 1997.

Whatmore`s decision to quit took almost everyone by surprise, except perhaps, a few who possibly felt that he was getting too close to the players with whom he had developed a very good rapport.

"I was very critical in a of lot areas. Equality does not exist with the immediate people I work with. There was a gulf between some of the seniors and the other players. It hurts me to see that,`` said Whatmore.

"I am not sure there are some people in the team who would like other team members to become well grounded individuals. That goes against all my principles of working with people,`` said Whatmore.

"If Sri Lanka cricket wants to improve and continue to improve, something has to change. Something has to be modified at the very least. It can`t go along the same way and expect performances to improve,`` he said.

"The reassurance I received was from the public,`` he said.

"Even at the height of my cricketing career as a player, I never had the levels of recognition I had in this country. People in this country are very humble, very hospitable, very kind and very emotional. By and large people here and Sri Lankans overseas have combined to really give me the sort of words of feeling that everyone needs in their job from time to time. To make you feel wanted. To all those people, wherever they are, I just want to say it`s been very much appreciated,`` said Whatmore.

"However, from the people who mattered, all I got after a game was a customary `well done`. That`s about it. We were together working for one cause, but I had a feeling of isolation in moving towards that one cause. It was incidental to whatever the team was trying to do. I was part of it,`` he said.

According to Whatmore, basically, where his problems all started was soon after the World Cup victory, when the new Cricket Board administration took over.

"Life wasn`t a bed of roses in the first year either under the previous president, but it was essentially a workable relationship,`` said Whatmore.

"The change of leadership in my mind, was an inability to manage, incompetent in some areas. It maybe because they have not been in a situation before of employing somebody from overseas,`` said Whatmore.

What embarrassed and angered Whatmore more than anything else was the embargo the Cricket Board clamped on him from talking freely to the press.

"This feeble excuse that is thrown back that it`s not in the constitution is just a way of hiding behind what they shouldn`t be as a Cricket Board. To me they have shown their true colours,`` he said.

Another area that frustrated Whatmore was the inability to have an influence on selections.

"I was never part of the selection committee. My performance was being judged on whether we won or lost. Often it is an unfair way of doing it because we were a team and we had to work together to earn a result,`` he said.

Whatmore was critical of the fact that during the 1 1/2 years he has been with the team, there has been no real policy in the national selectors` attitude to satisfy the mission of making Sri Lanka the best Test-playing country by the year 2000.

"It`s very sad that there is no consistent policy which would make it easier for that group of people to pick the players and for them to identify young talent and develop. It seems to me selections are pretty much arrived at on an adhoc basis. There is no real policy,`` he said.

"The future of Sri Lanka cricket should have its fair share of happy times because it has got a terrific base of boys who are really keen to do well. But I really fear the way in which this side is going to be shaped with selection that it could be counter productive to a lot of these young players who are tying their hardest and are talented,`` said Whatmore.

Whatmore always believed it is the players that make the coach.

"The bulk of the praise for the team`s successes should be spread to all the players, not just the captain. It is the team that has gone out there to play cricket and made contributions to get the result that you want,`` he said.

"With such a talented group of players you would not get the same performances with a lousy coach. But whether I have specifically contributed towards achieving that result, I don`t know. I can`t quantify to what degree I have contributed towards the team`s success,`` he said.

Whatmore`s area of coaching involved more or less in talking to the players off the field more than on the field, which according to him, is something which the team management didn`t see eye to eye with him. He also introduced a few different training techniques and also tried to encourage each player to think for themselves and take a bit more responsibility with regard to their future. One area Whatmore has made a big impact is in giving the bowlers a longer life in the game by controlling the areas they suffer from fatigue. In this instance he has had the assistance of the team physio, Alex Kountouri.

The other factor that made Whatmore want to quit his Sri Lankan contract was his family life.

"Due to ill-health of my wife she found it difficult to stay in Sri Lanka. I`ve been married 15 years and have never been away from my family for too long. To be happy and to do a good job I think it`s pretty important to get that family life right as well. That also contributed to my decision to pull away from the international area to one more local,`` said 42-year-old Whatmore who has a daughter and a son.

Winning the World Cup no doubt also brought Whatmore into the limelight as a cricket coach and helped him become famous.

"I don`t know whether I could reproduce what happened in Sri Lanka. It`s been wonderful, unprecedented. There has been wonderful individual efforts from time to time which really made me feel happy for them. To see the reaction on their faces, the happiness and all that. Everyone in the team has made a substantial contribution. Everyone has stood up when the going got tough. To single out anyone who carries that team is not correct,`` said Whatmore whose name will be part of Sri Lanka`s cricketing history.

Source :: Daily News (https://www.lanka.net)