Gujarat Lions name Heath Streak as bowling coach

Former Zimbabwean all-rounder Heath Streak has been named as the bowling coach of the Gujarat Lions ahead of the 2016 edition of the Indian Premier League. Heath Streak has gained a massive reputation as a coach courtesy of his ongoing stint with the Bangladesh national side.

Speaking to firstpost, Streak went on to state,” It’s just down to me signing the contract. It’s just more of a formality now. In terms of the position that they (Gujarat) have offered to me, it’s something that I will be definitely doing. It’s now just a case of me sorting out the contractual issues.”

Streak has accounted for a complete turnaround in the fortunes in the Bangladesh bowling unit. The Bangladeshi side has won series against India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka with the bowling out-shining the batting by a country mile. He is also responsible for nurturing talents such as Mustafizur Rahman and Taskin Ahmed.

“When the jobs were up, I put my name forward to the franchise as a contender for the bowling coach job. They obviously had to wait and select the head coach first before they could make a decision on whether they needed me. If they had a head coach who was a bowling coach too in that case they wouldn’t have required my services. Fortunately, Brad Hodge, who’s had a lot of success in Australia as a player and as a player-coach got the head coach role which allowed me to come in as a bowling coach which I am really looking forward to.”

“It’s very exciting for me and am excited to work alongside Brad Hodge and team members such as Suresh Raina, Ravindra Jadeja, (James) Faulkner, (Dwayne) Bravo, Dale Steyn. We’ve also got some exciting guys in Praveen Kumar, (Dhawal) Kulkarni and Pravin Tambe. These are some really good guys that I am looking forward to working with. I hope we can bring some success to Gujarat and make it difficult for BCCI to release them after the two years. That’s the goal. The franchise is there for two years and we want to be as successful as we can over that two-year period,” Streak added.

“Hodge and I both are playing in the MCL [Masters Champions League] so we managed to have a couple of copies together and go through some stuff but obviously predominantly Brad is the head guy along with the franchise staff and owners and Raina had inputs as well from their side,” Streak said.

“Sometimes it might be a small technical thing that you might pick up but predominantly for us it will be tactical support in making sure that they are ready for the game, they are comfortable with their preparation, how they would like to execute their skills and then post-match analysis to see how we are going about. It’s simple, however, you’ve got to make sure you don’t interfere too much, support where needed and make sure that the guys are clear with their game plan.”