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When BCCI advertised for the post of head coach of the Indian men's cricket team in April last year, it came with a set of criteria that interested applicants had to fulfill.
One of them was a minimum number of matches played at the international level - 30 Tests or 50 ODIs to be precise - although that wasn't a necessity had certain other criteria been met. It is understandable why a job as high-profile as coaching an international cricket team may warrant the applicant to have played at that level to understand the nitty-gritties of what comes with it.
In saying that, cricket has borne witness to numerous international coaches of repute and success despite not having played at the international level. Mickey Arthur had a wealth of first-class and List-A experience before assuming multiple coaching gigs. John Buchanan played all of seven first-class matches and a solitary List-A game before coaching one of the greatest cricket teams ever seen.
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And then there's Mike Hesson - not a single first-class match to his credit as a player but one of the fundamental faces behind the revival of the New Zealand men's team into a force to reckon with.
A remarkable journey that began at the age of 21, it's fair to say that Hesson was destined to be a cricket coach. Now 50 and with close to three decades of wisdom in this capacity behind him, he is revered as an astute tactician and man manager with his stint with the Black Caps being the pinnacle of this journey.
But a professional cricket coach at 21 - an age where aspiring players strive to break into the big league - is almost unheard of. Stating that a lot of it happened by accident as he did aspire to play the game first, Hesson looks back at how it all started in an exclusive, freewheeling chat with Sportskeeda.
"I was overseas as a player-coach in the UK. I was playing pretty nicely, was playing minor county cricket over there and got ten hundreds in one year. I came back to Otago and was pretty keen to progress things from a playing perspective. But at that time cricket was very much…semi-professional is probably kind over here at that stage. It was prior to the Players’ Association and collective agreement.
"At that time I was offered to be Director of Cricket. I had to make a decision. I also had some pretty serious back issues so there was always a possibility that was going to have a big influence over my career. So I took on the Director of Cricket role hoping that I would still be able to continue playing. But I guess I fell in love with coaching at that point," says Hesson.
Considering he was to work with players who could have otherwise been his contemporaries, it might have been strange territory for Hesson. But a love for coaching swelled and took over even as he continued to play for a little longer.
"I still played but I fell in love with coaching probably more so and was able to coach so many teams in one season. I was able to gain a huge amount of experience. I had a lot of staff but I was able to get my hands dirty as well in terms of coaching different age groups - men’s, women’s - and learn my trade really. I learnt a bit in the UK as player-coach but I was probably dealing with more elite players whereas I guess when you’re Director of Cricket you’re coaching from U14s up - men’s and women’s. Sure there were representative teams but it was also trying to understand the continuum of coaching and that was pretty much the start of my journey," says Hesson.
There was no looking back since for Hesson, who went from Director of Cricket at Otago to their head coach, while assuming that capacity for Argentina as well in 2003. Kenya then came calling in 2011 as he took charge of the team post the World Cup in the subcontinent.
Hesson terms himself fortunate to have had the role of Director of Cricket for the first seven years of this journey, for it allowed him to make mistakes early and learn on the job all by himself.
"I was able to probably pack in 20 years of coaching really. I was able to do it full-time, coach different teams and make so many mistakes, try different things and learn when players were having issues - be it technical or tactical or issues from a mental side of things. You’ve got to be able to deal with all of those as a coach at that level. It’s not like you can go ‘Oh I’ll bring in a batting coach, I’ll bring in a bowling coach or a sports psychologist’. You’re a one-stop shop.
"In many ways that helps improve your coaching. Even when I went on to coach Otago initially, it was basically a coach, an assistant and a physio. And that was pretty much all you travelled with. Initially it was even worse than that, you were actually just the one coach. It was actually great for my coaching to coach international players, aspiring international players, first-class players all by yourself," explains Hesson.
And it came with success too in due course of time.
"We were able to achieve some pretty cool things - with Otago having had 20 years without a trophy to win three trophies during my tenure was pretty special. And I guess bookending that with Argentina before that and Kenya after that before going on to take on New Zealand. Those formative years were critical for me to identify the way I wanted to coach," says Hesson.
Finding the right balance as coach: the Mike Hesson way
What's first for a coach - being a strategist or a man manager? Rather, what's more important?
While it goes without saying that one needs to blend the best of both worlds, finding the ideal mix is where the key lies. Hesson has found that to vary throughout his many projects at the international and franchise levels.
"If you’re coaching an international team where you have players for 10-11 months a year, the balance between technical, tactical and man management is a lot more balanced. You actually have to be able to cover all three. Once you sort out team culture, that takes a long time in itself but once that’s functioning well, a lot of it is self-policing from within the playing group.
"The only difference is you’ve got three different forms of the game, so you have different players coming in. So therefore you have to be able to add value from a technical point of view because if you’ve got someone for 10-11 months a year, a lot of things creep into their game - whether it be a bowling action that’s just got a little bit untidy and needs tidying up, whether it be from a batting point of view, your preliminary movement has changed or you feel like you’re late on the ball, there are lots of things that occur that you’ve got to work out how or when to intervene. Those are things you cannot ignore," says Hesson.
Of course, it is the tactical side of things that Hesson stresses to blend in well enough to stay ahead of the curve.
"You’re playing sides in your own conditions and foreign conditions that you’ve got to make sure you prepare the team to excel in those conditions. And obviously the tactical side, from day to day or session by session, you’ve got to add value and observe and ask the right questions of the playing group. Being an international coach is about all three," highlights Hesson.
How different is it in a franchise setup then?
"It’s probably more just the two in terms of building a team culture in a very short space of time, and bringing that group together and working with all of those players and that’s very much man management and understanding who you’re working with. And then very much tactical - how can you get the best out of this group? You’ve either inherited a group or you’ve bought a group together at a draft or an auction and you’ve got to find a strategy that suits that group of players to be successful - obviously you’ve got to add a fair bit of tactical knowledge - but the technical work is probably a lot less in a short space of time like a franchise tournament," says Hesson.
The most lucrative stage of Hesson's coaching career began in 2012 when he was appointed head coach of the Black Caps. A six-year-long association followed during which the team made its first ever appearance in a senior World Cup final in 2015 besides developing into a consistent Test outfit.
During his stint with the Blackcaps, he had the opportunity to rub shoulders with two of New Zealand's most successful captains and equally different personalities - Brendon McCullum and Kane Williamson. Transitioning from one style to another is something Hesson has experienced at the highest level and it is a trait he believes a coach simply has to follow if they are to survive the job.
"I see the coach’s job is to adapt to the style of the captain. As long as the captain is the right fit for the team, your job is to add value to that. You have to find a way to do that. Certainly between Kane and Brendon, it was quite different. Different personalities - I guess we had charge of different areas because we had different strengths. And obviously even in that transition period from when Kane first started to when I left which was before the World Cup, Kane had evolved a huge amount during that time so I would back off in some areas and get more involved in others.
"I don’t believe you can be a coach that has one style, I don’t think you’ll survive in the modern game. You have to not only evolve to the group you’re coaching but also be able to combine with the leadership of that team as well to add value rather than thinking ‘This is the way I’m going to do it and you guys mould around me.' That just doesn’t work in my view and I think that authoritarian style of ‘take it or leave it’ just doesn’t work. I think those coaches that have had just one method probably haven’t survived in the modern game," says Hesson.
Over a good part of the last three decades, the sport has evolved in manners never imagined once upon a time.
"I think every year, players are generally better than they have been before. And I think that’s an observation that a lot of ex-players don’t want to hear [laughs]. Without a doubt there are some fundamentals which were executed better in formative years but the fact that the shots the players can play nowadays, a lot of the times we didn’t even think about playing them in the nets, let alone bringing them out and executing them in-game," says Hesson.
Terming the power of the average modern-day batter 'exceptional', Hesson remains amazed at how he/she keeps the fear factor out of the window.
"There were definitely areas (earlier) where players were afraid of trying something and making a mistake. I think back to the ‘87 World Cup - (Mike) Gatting getting out reverse-sweeping and he was hammered by the media and ‘what a disgraceful shot it was’. Whereas nowadays, the reverse-sweep is just like a forward defence. If players execute it enough, it’s a shot that they trust as a high-percentage scoring shot. I think that fear factor’s gone with the majority of the players - there are still a few that are hanging on in that area but majority have (lost that fear)," says Hesson.
That said, Hesson did feel that bowlers today don't have as good a stock delivery as those from previous eras while they continue to upskill with certain other options.
"In a different generation, the execution of the stock ball was superior because players now have so many different variations and many things they’re trying to do is staying away from the box. You used to talk about top of off - there’s only a short window in some short-form games where that’s actually where you want to bowl. Your defensive options are staying away from that, whether it be inside or outside of the swing. But I think the actual stock ball is being neglected a little bit because of the other attributes.
"Obviously the pace of play has significantly increased not only in terms of the runs scored but you think about the way Test matches can progress at quick rates and can change quite quickly. It’s just different - probably suits the generation we’re living in at the moment in terms of a quick fix mentality or that attention probably slightly less than it has been in previous decades. It’s evolving all the time - whether we like it or not, players are getting far more skilled than they ever have," says Hesson.
"We made a really conscious effort" - Mike Hesson on the cultural shift with the Black Caps
It's barely been a few days now since New Zealand ran India fairly close in the final of the ICC Champions Trophy in Dubai. Virat Kohli lavished praise on the opposition's skill, declaring that no other team in the world executed their plans as well as the Kiwis did.
'Maybe sometimes, nice guys do finish first' is what Simon Doull quipped on air when New Zealand clinched the inaugural World Test Championship mace in Southampton in 2021. Nice guys - the two words oft associated with the Black Caps for their on-field conduct and play are centered around their cricket alone doing their talking.
Yet, it was far from it around the time Hesson took charge of the team.
"If you look back to 2011 and before - even in 2012 when I took over - we certainly were not the nice guys of cricket. We made a really conscious effort in 2012 that we needed to make a change in terms of focusing more on our cricket rather than other stuff. We used to sledge quite a lot, we used to get involved in the odd on-field battle, disagree with umpires, match referees and bits and pieces a lot. And I even remember my first few months on the job, I sort of fell into the trap as well but that was kind of the way it was done. And then we identified that ‘Hey we actually weren’t good enough to do that.' We actually had to spend all our energy and focus on our cricket and on what was important and other teams will do things that suit their cricket.
"We spent a lot of time saying we want to focus on what we’re trying to do, we’re trying to respect the game, the umpires, the opposition and none of that’s detracting from how competitive we would be - we’re going into every match being highly competitive. But we were just narrowing our focus and not getting distracted by things that are not helpful. Ultimately we were 8th or 9th in the world in the three formats at the time. So it wasn’t like what we were doing was working. We were really battling, yet we were still well known as one of the biggest sledgers going around. We had some pretty grumpy characters on and off the park and we needed to make a shift," says Hesson.
And so came the shift as all the attention diverted towards the game alone. Consistent results followed and the Black Caps turned into one of the most respected teams on the park.
"And I think it’s flowed on from there," says Hesson. "The players have really bought into it to actually now just being quite natural at it in my view. I don’t think anyone’s forcing anything. But it’s given New Zealand a huge amount of success since that time. Therefore it’s sort of being portrayed as the nice guys but I just think we’re trying to maximize our talent and in doing that we’re just focusing on what matters rather than the other nonsense."
New Zealand have had their ups and downs like any other team but the seeds of what were sown under Hesson's watch continue to yield ripe fruit to this date - nearly seven years after he moved on from his post. While he did toss his name in the hat to coach India in 2019 - the then-incumbent Ravi Shastri was eventually retained - Hesson hasn't coached an international team since his New Zealand gig.
When asked if he was keen to do it again, he declared wanting to spend more time with his two daughters - something that he wasn't able to do during his long stint on the road with the Black Caps earlier. A man of many hats - coach, Director of Cricket and broadcaster - he's enjoying switching them from time to time presently.
And sure enough, he has donned a new hat with the launch of his YouTube channel aptly titled CoachHesson.
"I’ve been doing quite a bit of broadcasting around the world in New Zealand. I’ve worked for Sky Sports over here and Sky doesn’t have the rights to cricket over here at the moment. That void of working in domestic cricket over here has given me some time which is nice. And in that time I’ve thought, I’ve been fortunate enough to have quite a few followers over my years on different social platforms. I’ve probably been pretty placid in that area or I’ve been busy focusing on my coaching and I haven’t given back as much as I could.
"I made a conscious effort to set up a YouTube channel CoachHesson which just kind of makes sense because that’s what I am, and just giving some real insights into cricket around the world and what’s happening. But also just engaging a little more with the fans where possible. When you’re in the heartbeat of tournaments you don’t have the headspace for that and I’ve got a bit of time and space at the moment and am looking forward to growing that as much as it needs to be done," says Hesson.
For a man who has donned many hats in his cricketing journey, this interesting new chapter sure promises to be just as enterprising.
Part 2 of Mike Hesson's exclusive chat with Sportskeeda coming soon.
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