Black Cap Michael Bracewell and his 'Mr Miyagi' coach Ankur Bassi who launched his international cricket career

Saturday, 25 May 2024

It’s a brisk late autumn afternoon at Wellington’s Kilbirnie Park. Winter sport is in full swing as football goals and rugby posts dot the green expanse.

Michael Bracewell, the Wellington Firebirds and Black Caps allrounder, is padded up and hitting yellow practice balls in the net cage, thrown by his batting coach, Ankur Bassi.

Oddly, a random car tyre sits nearby. Bassi stands it up and Bracewell perches on it with his left foot, shadow batting. It looks incongruous, but Bracewell swears by it.

“I liken him to Mr Miyagi a bit… wax on, wax off… the tyre is one thing I’ve come to love, things like that where you’re learning without having to think about trying to find your balance,” says Bracewell, now bound for the Caribbean with the Black Caps for the T20 World Cup.

There are no bonsai trees or paint brushes, as per the hit Karate Kid film, but you get the idea. Bassi and his unconventional methods (he once asked a youngster he was coaching to bowl in a helmet to stop him ‘falling over’ in delivery stride) uncluttered Bracewell’s mind, freed up his scoring options and helped launch him into international cricket at age 31, after years of toiling for Otago and Wellington.

The day after the Firebirds beat Auckland Aces in the Super Smash final in January 2020, Bracewell was watching a club match when Bassi tapped him on the shoulder. He asked Bracewell if he wanted to play for New Zealand, adding he may not like what he was about to hear about his technique.

“He said ‘I’d love to work with you on your batting, there’s a few things we could work on together’. He said if I wanted to play international cricket, let’s commit to it. I was pretty intrigued by that. From there we started working together at Kilbirnie Park and it’s been an awesome ride since.

“A lot of the time when you’re playing and perhaps you don’t have that person who you trust with your technique… you get preoccupied with your technique and you think about that rather than watch the ball.

“It’s a hard enough game without having all those thoughts in your mind. Having that clarity - a bit like back to being a kid again - just watching the ball and reacting and trying to play the situation. The work that we did technically was taken care of.”

Getting his weight through the ball, having relaxed hands and opening up his scoring options to all parts of the ground were the key messages. In his second match after meeting Bassi, Bracewell scored 81 not out off 82 balls as he and Jimmy Neesham guided the Firebirds to victory over Canterbury in a one-dayer. “I just felt free and felt a flow to my batting that I hadn’t felt for a while. That really made me buy into the things that Ankur was talking about.”

It was two more years until the breakout innings that launched Bracewell to a new level: a mind-boggling 141 not out off 65 balls including 11 sixes in a T20 against Central Stags at Pukekura Park. Less than three months later, Bracewell made his Black Caps debut against the Netherlands and his Firebirds team-mate Logan van Beek - another Bassi convert.

“That Pukekura Park innings, I was just trying to be super-present and react to the ball. Reflecting on the game I was thinking ‘wow how did I do that?’.

“It’s just (about) being in a position to hit any ball… just having that freedom to forget about everything else and just watch the ball is the key to batting.”

Van Beek - better known for his bowling and spectacular outfield catching - sought out Bassi on Bracewell’s recommendation. The results were soon apparent, most notably when van Beek smashed West Indies bowler Jason Holder for 30 off a Super Over in a World Cup qualifier in June 2023.

Van Beek said Bassi’s advice was simple. He changed his batting grip and made the movements easier to understand.

“I had reached a point with my batting where I felt so lost in what I was doing technically,” van Beek said on his Follow Through podcast. “I’m getting messages left, right and centre… this guy saying ‘play your natural game’, this guy saying ‘you need higher hands’… and reached a point where I just didn’t know what I was doing.”

Bracewell and van Beek agree: former top internationals as batting coaches provide invaluable advice on situations, conditions and opposition bowlers, but in the modern game where cricketers can play for seven or eight different teams in a year, mixed messages on technical issues is a recipe for uncertainty.

Bassi looked destined for international cricket growing up in India, but a serious hand injury cut short his first-class career at three matches. He arrived in Wellington in 2011 to be Eastern Suburbs’ overseas player, lured by the late club legend Gordon Dry who then encouraged him to set up a coaching academy.

The tyre technique is to teach muscle memory, so that youngsters are not over-thinking particular shots. “Cricket is simple and I believe you don’t want to make it too complicated.”

Having played alongside Shikhar Dhawan, Robin Uthappa, Suresh Raina, Dinesh Karthik and Praveen Kumar, Bassi said he had no hesitation approaching Bracewell.

“I could see this guy had a lot of qualities and I wanted to tell him that… and say he had some technical issues and I can help that. He is a very down to earth person.”

Bassi has another group of youngsters awaiting his guidance at the nets on this May afternoon. He has taken teams of under-19 players who missed out on rep sides to Australia for T20 tournaments for experience, but has no official role with Cricket Wellington or New Zealand Cricket. He’d certainly be open to it, if asked.

His philosophy is simple: “Making others better. And creating more international players from New Zealand.”

Bassi says: “If every player has their trust in one person it’s easier to fix (technique). Trust is very big.

“If the kid is not confused it’s easier to teach them. There are different systems all over the world. What I try to do is to give good guidance to the youngsters. I believe New Zealand has a lot of talent and if you guide properly, you can produce international players before the age of 19-20.”

Bracewell took slightly longer, but Bassi certainly has a notable success story to pin his methods on.

Black Caps T20 World Cup squad: Kane Williamson (capt), Finn Allen, Trent Boult, Michael Bracewell, Mark Chapman, Devon Conway, Lockie Ferguson, Matt Henry, Daryl Mitchell, Jimmy Neesham, Glenn Phillips, Rachin Ravindra, Mitchell Santner, Ish Sodhi, Tim Southee. Travelling reserve: Ben Sears.

Black Caps schedule (NZT):

Sat June 8: v Afghanistan, 11.30am

Thu June 13: v West Indies, 12.30pm

Sat June 15: v Uganda, 12.30pm

Tue June 18: v Papua New Guinea, 2.30am

Thu June 20 to Tue June 25: Super Eights

Thu June 27: 1st semifinal in Trinidad, 12.30pm

Fri June 28: 2nd semifinal in Guyana, 2.30am

Sun June 30: Final in Barbados, 2am