Former Test batsman says his involvement with the Australian set-up has fuelled his appetite for a coaching career
Blewett eyes next step on coaching ladder
Greg Blewett is eyeing the path already travelled by a number of his celebrated former Test teammates including Darren Lehmann, Jason Gillespie and Justin Langer to potentially forge a future as a top-level coach.
Blewett, who is currently employed as the Australia men’s team’s fielding coach and has also been appointed on an interim basis to fill the role of batting coach left vacant by Michael Di Venuto’s departure earlier this year, admits his involvement at international level has fuelled his appetite for a coaching career.
But the 44-year-old, who played 46 Tests and 32 ODIs for Australia from 1995-2000 before working as a television commentator for Fox Sports, also concedes that family commitments will play a key role in his pursuit of that ambition.
Blewett and his wife, Katheryn, have a one-year-old son with a second child due in coming months, which means he will miss the Test match component of Australia’s upcoming tour to Sri Lanka as it coincides with the baby’s arrival.
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And while family considerations have been integral to Gillespie’s decision to remain at Yorkshire and Langer’s to defer his international coaching ambitions and commit to Western Australia, Blewett acknowledges that professional coaches must be prepared to relocate to where opportunities exist.
Image Id: ~/media/9FBF2303DC1C4F3FA716FF1F4FE9AF90 Image Caption: Blewett has been involved with Australia since 2014 // Getty"If you’d asked me probably 12 months ago I would have said ‘I’m pretty happy doing what I’m doing, maybe I’ll get back into the media one day’, which I might do as well,” Blewett told cricket.com.au when asked if a full-time coaching role was in his thinking.
"But I’ve got a bit of a taste for it now, and I was given a little bit of experience last summer with the Prime Minister’s XI (and a Cricket Australia XI that played New Zealand in Canberra last October) and had a great little team around me as well.
"I firmly believe that if you do get the job and a really good group of people around you then you can achieve anything.
"So I definitely start looking ahead now to what I want to do with my coaching career.
"I’d love to stay here in Australia because I’ve got a young family … so it’s going to be difficult with the travel, especially to move overseas or whatever.
"But I’m also very conscious of the fact that if you do become a career coach it often means uprooting the family at times to move somewhere else.
"So we’ll just get over those hurdles when they arise, or if they arise."
Blewett said the approach from Lehmann to join the national set-up as fielding coach in 2014 came "out of the blue" but, having been part of Australia’s successful World Cup campaign, a return to number one in the world Test rankings and even a failed attempt to retain the Ashes, he is thoroughly enjoying the role.
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He will now take on a heftier workload as a replacement for Di Venuto who developed a close rapport as both coach and counsellor with Australia captain Steve Smith and his deputy David Warner in recent years before leaving to begin his own coaching career with English county Surrey.
Image Id: ~/media/40B03A998F0A4054A31DFEB44087F1DF Image Caption: Di Venuto developed a close rapport with Smith and Warner // GettyBlewett said he is looking to make the transition from Di Venuto, who was the team’s batting guru for three years and was instrumental in Smith’s rise to number one-ranked Test batsman, as smooth as possible which should be made easier by similarities in the coaching pair’s philosophies.
"We don’t like to be in people’s faces and if they’re having a net session (not) to come down every over and say ‘right, now you’re doing this wrong’,” Blewett said in outlining how he will approach the role with Australia’s batting group.
"To me, most guys should have three or four checkpoints that they come back to, so if they feel like their game’s coming off then let’s go back and have a look at some footage of when you were playing well.
"What were you doing, what were you thinking, what was leading up to that form?
"It’s more about talking to the guys individually, working one-on-one, and it’s up to me then if I see some bad habits creeping in to try and stop them before they become a really big problem.
"But for me as batting coach, it’s going to be more about game scenarios and game awareness."
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Blewett admits there might have lingered some initial suspicion among players when he first joined the squad for an ODI tri-series tournament in Zimbabwe in 2014, having spent the previous years critiquing performances in his role as a media commentator.
He also claims that despite having very limited playing experience the 20-over format, he feels suitably qualified to lend expertise to that highly innovative style of batting having watched the game evolve from a front-row seat in the initial seasons of the KFC Big Bash League.
Image Id: ~/media/86990CE1C3D34C4B97506AC7B5DEA6D7 Image Caption: Blewett played 46 Tests for Australia // GettyDespite consciously modelling his own batting technique on ex-Test captain Greg Chappell (a fellow alumnus from Adelaide’s Prince Alfred College) and employing an approach more orthodox than outrageous, Blewett is a strong supporter of strokes rarely seen in cricket textbooks.
"If you’ve got every (shot) in the book then I totally encourage that, and I do that with junior cricketers as well, I say ‘be able to hit the ball wherever you want to’,” he said.
"But at the end of the day, and especially at our level, it’s about what were (batters) thinking if they did get out, or if they did play a good shot - were they trying to manipulate the field, what was the scoreboard pressure like?
"That will be more of my focus, it won’t be so much about the shot.
"If they play a bad shot at a bad time of the game and whatever they were thinking wasn’t right, that’s when I’ll have an issue with it."
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In addition to familiarity and acceptance that Blewett feels he’s gained among the playing group through his role as fielding coach, his historic relationship with Lehmann means there will exist a tight synergy within the coaching staff.
Image Id: ~/media/FD431D9341A143D394F0829A3D6B6F59 Image Caption: Lehmann and Blewett during their SA playing days // GettyThe pair played together in more than 100 Sheffield Shield and limited-overs matches for the West End Redbacks as well as a handful of games in the same Australia XI, and Blewett claims they know one another "inside out".
"I know Darren so well I feel like I can have honest discussions with him and I can give him good feedback on how he’s going around the group," he said.
"I hope he appreciates that feedback – he can tell me to nick off or whatever, and I’m not too offended by that either.
"I’m really excited about our next little phase."