In my most recent interview, I was lucky enough to have a call with Qasim Ali. As a cricket coach, Qasim has had an illustrious and highly impressive career already. In roughly the space of a decade, Qasim has worked with Lancashire County Cricket Club, the England Physical Disability Cricket Team, the ICC Global Cricket Academy. Now, Qasim acts on a freelance basis, offering his services as a consultant. Most recently he worked as head coach of the Swedish National Cricket Team.
When you sit down with a man lauded for his coaching skills by Andre Russell, you know that you could spend hours picking his brain about cricket. In my time with Qasim, I chose to focus on four areas of interest.
First, I wanted to find out about Qasim Ali’s coaching philosophy. What are the core principles that he builds his lessons upon?
Qasim broke it down into three ideas. Rapport, challenge, and accountability. First and foremost, he believes in creating a positive relationship with players. Coaching can be difficult if there is not a bond of trust underlining the whole experience. It is crucial that you create a dynamic where there is a healthy back and forth. This is the best way to make sure ideas are best received.
From the rapport, you then begin to establish challenges. Give players targets, goals, something to move towards. On this topic, Qasim specifically said that his concern is not about setting a ‘Point B’ that requires a mountain of work. It can be a goal that can be accomplished in 15 minutes, it can be a goal that requires a winter of training. The important part is simply that players are being challenged. Without a challenge you might not see a player fulfil their potential.
Finally, Qasim mentioned accountability. When looking at the last two ideas, the role of accountability is a natural fit. When you engage well with players and offer them goals, the onus has to be on them to make positive decisions. The little things over time add up, and your attitude towards things like punctuality and hard work really can make a difference over time.
Put together, one can see a coherent and strong approach to coaching. One in which the players are respected and rewarded for exercising their better judgement.
Having established this, I wanted to find out more about the application of this across age groups. Namely what differences Qasim has felt when coaching young players versus international superstars.
The answer I got was to remember two things. One, that coaches, much like us at home, are also fans. Two, that players are just people.
On the first idea, Qasim spoke about meeting Wasim Akram at the PSL. Wasim Akram was the kind of player that kids worldwide pretended to be in their gardens, in their schools, on the streets. Now, he was stood in front of him, larger than life. It was here that Qasim spoke about the need as a coach to strike a balance. A balance between maintaining an air of professionalism and cool, and also engaging in the opportunity to soak up the first-hand knowledge of elite players.
To exemplify the second, we go back to Lancashire to meet a certain James Anderson. Rather humorously, Qasim recounts wondering if he’d done something to bother Anderson at first. It was after a little time however that he realised that Jimmy Anderson simply preferred to keep himself to himself and let his bowling do the talking. At the end of the day these superstars are just people. Some do lean into the aura of the star, some just go about their business.
Moving on, I wanted to find out more about the world of coaching jobs. Specifically, I wanted to see how Qasim felt about the regular occurrence of jobs being given to former players who do not necessarily have a wealth of coaching experience under their belt.
It was at this point I was accused of mind-reading. Indeed, this is an issue close to Qasim’s heart. In his personal experience, this is indeed an issue. Even just observing the jobs in world cricket in the last 6 months we can see a range of players famed for their ability with the bat and ball getting the biggest breaks.
Beyond just the Head Coach roles there are issues too. In a point that I myself had not necessarily considered, Qasim pointed out that a further problem comes from the fact that the coaches themselves often have their own fairly set teams. These teams travel with them from franchise to franchise, club to country. With this, it can become incredibly hard to find a break. When coaches have their own teams, you need a fair amount of luck as well as talent to find your way in.
Overall, the state of coaching jobs is a difficult one right now. The focus on playing credentials is very much the dominant force right now.
Finally, I asked about what it’s actually like coaching at franchise teams. Competitions come thick and fast, so I was intrigued to hear what coaches actually like to do in their limited time.
Qasim said his focus is on ‘pumping tyres’ and making sure players gel. In terms of training time you might have as little as ten days before a tournament starts. Obviously this does not give you the time to go through particularly specialised training plans. Instead the focus is on the mental side and keeping players in the right frame of mind. You have to put your hours into pumping up the players, and giving them the belief that they can perform.
When dealing with players in franchise sides, you know they have the talent. The coaches are best served thinking about how you get this talent out. Tournaments are running all year round and thus it would not be possible for the players to expend the mental energy on unique tactics and training methods with each new camp. Just focus on keeping them in the zone.
All in all it was a fascinating interview. Qasim had so much knowledge to impart, and I came away have learned an awful lot in just about twenty minutes. As a consultant on the market right now, teams would be very wise to think about securing some of this insight for themselves.
