da dobrowin： Rudi Webster is currently with the Indian team for a short stint and is eager to carry on the interaction that began on India’s tour of West Indies earlier this year
da spicy bet： Siddhartha Vaidyanathan13-Oct-2006
‘If I hadn’t met Rudi on this tour, I was struggling. We spent around three hours and I’ve never spoken to anyone so deeply,’ said Sehwag of Webster’s effect on his game in West Indies © AFP
Rudi Webster, the Grenada-based psychologist, is currently with the Indianteam for a short stint and is eager to carry on the interaction that beganon India’s tour of West Indies earlier this year.”This is my first visit to India,” Webster told Cricinfo after the team’spractice session at Jaipur in the Rajasthan Cricket Academy, “and I’menjoying it thoroughly. I enjoyed working with a few players when theywere in West Indies and can hopefully get some more time here.”One of the players who Webster closely interacted with during the WestIndies tour was Virender Sehwag, who’d been going through a lean phase atthe time. In his 19 innings before he met Webster, he’d crossed fifty justthree times and his lack of fitness was a serious concern. It’s fair tosay that the three-hour session transformed Sehwag during the tour and hehimself admitted, to at the end of the series:”If I hadn’t met Rudi on this tour, I was struggling. We spent aroundthree hours and I’ve never spoken to anyone so deeply.”It was surprising that Sehwag, who’d turned down an offer to interact withAustralian psychologist Sandy Gordon, felt so strongly about the meeting.”There’s a lot of difference between Sandy and Rudi,” he statedmatter-of-factly. “Rudi played county cricket for many years and workedwith great players. He knows more than Sandy about the game and players.He knows about the way sportsmen think. He’d worked with great playerslike [Brian] Lara, [Viv] Richards, great footballers, golf players . and it helped me alot.”The results were there for all to see. Post Webster, Sehwag spanked 95 inthe final one-dayer at Trinidad, a game when none of his team-matescrossed 30; thundered 180 on the opening day of the second Test at StLucia (reaching 99 in the opening morning and admitting he’d “not hit theball more cleanly than in that session”); chipped in with vital wickets inthe Tests, playing the role of a genuine fifth bowler; startled a few with hisemphasis on fitness; and, most significantly, appeared to settle into amantle of leadership.So what had prompted the change? “I needed to remind myself of some littlehabits,” Sehwag continued, “my thinking before a game, my mindset beforethe bowler bowls. There are certain things I used to visualise when thebowler was at the start of his mark, when he was running in, when he wasabout to deliver the ball. All your routines should be in place, for aparticular bowler, for a particular team, for a particular series.”Rudi was just chatting to me and I began recalling several things – ‘Iremember doing this in Pakistan’, ‘I did the same thing in Australia’. Iunderstood that I need to do these things for a longer time, need to do itcontinuously. He was telling me things I had done in the past, and I’dforgotten that. He told me how important it was to remember these things,said it would help if I wrote it down on a paper and read it over and overagain.”It helped that Webster had been following Sehwag’s career closely. “I’vebeen watching him play over the years,” he beamed, “and have been terriblyimpressed with his ability to hit the ball. Not many players have thatability. Viv Richards, who probably had a few more shots, comes theclosest. All great players have very simple methods and I was veryimpressed while watching Veeru.”Webster admitted that Sehwag had opened out to him. “My track recordprobably helped me to establish a rapport with him,” he revealed, “andonce he found that I was speaking his language, there was a belief that hefound. Once you establish a trust, and he believes in your credentials youwill find you’ll share a very good relationship with him. He discussed thingsthat he would probably not discuss with others.”Usually when people go into a little slump, a simple technique they usegoes through the window,” he continued. “All sorts of negative things gothrough their minds. They doubt themselves because of pressures from mediaand fans. Their thinking becomes negative. They forget some basic routinesthat brought them success.”
