The head coach of the Sri Lankan cricket Jerome Jayaratne feels that unconventional bowlers can make an impact in a game that is dominated by batsmen. In fact, he goes as far as to say that normal isn’t just boring, it can be fruitless as well. Sandeep Dwivedi caught up with Jayaratne for a chat. Excerpts...

How do you ensure that the coaches at the academy don’t tamper with the natural style of a bowler?
It’s not that we don’t change. We make subtle changes to their style. There is no point in totally changing the style of a player. There is no point in making a Jayasuriya into an Atapattu. But when we see an action that could see a bowler become injury prone, we make a few changes depending on the bio-mechanical body moler. If you take the fast bowling industry, it has become quite mechanical. They can be successful, of course, but it depends. We concentrate on areas that need work to avoid injury. We generally work around the natural style of the bowler. The likes of Lasith Malinga and Shaun Tait are as good as anybody.

Do you particularly ask school-level coaches not to change the natural style of a young bowler?
Yes, we do tell them. If you try to make the game too technical, the results don’t come. For example, Sanath Jayasuriya... you can’t ask him to stop playing the cut shot. He does get out playing that shot, but he also gets a lot of runs. If someone had asked him not to play that shot, he may not have got all these runs. Maybe, we can advise someone like him to wait for the ball, move away and hit. We can work on the risky shots but not eliminate them.

... contd.