New Delhi: On his own admission, there is a lot of "influence of John Wright" in his style of working and India's new chief coach Anil Kumble will like to "convince rather than impose his ideas" on a young team.
"There is an existing set of players and I will first like to absorb everything. Hopefully then I will be able to convince them. If they don't buy it, they won't own it and the approach won't work. I want to work as an enabler for things to happen," Kumble told bcci.tv on Friday.
"I played a lot under John Wright (former India coach). He has been a great influence and that's how I would probably go about my job," said Kumble.
"As a mentor of Mumbai Indians, I brought John in as he understood a lot about Indian culture and how coaches work here. I will pick his brains. Gary Kirsten, of course, was involved for a very short period. He also worked in background and didn't make himself visible. I also try and be behind the scenes," Kumble was categorical about his philosophy of coaching.
For Kumble, coaching a cricket team is about taking burden away from the skipper.
"As a coach, my job is to take burden off the captain's shoulders. There are cricketing as well non-cricketing decisions and this is where I can take a lot of burden off captain's shoulders. When I was the captain, I realised that it was not just taking decisions on field but off it as well. I would be looking to address those, so that burden from captains shoulders is lessened," said Kumble.
Kumble believes that one is just not a coach on cricket field but off it as well.
"You are not only a coach on the cricket field but I believe you are a coach off it also. My job will be to try and build personalities as well as leaders. There are wonderful talents and we can make leaders out of them. It's not a quick fix. There will not always be highs but one will see lows too.
You can't only be a coach during successful times but you also have to be a coach during tough phases," said the 45-year-old owner of 619 Test scalps.
