Australia’s Indian spin consultant Sridharan Sriram generates rapport with Steve O’Keefe

Australia’s Indian spin consultant Sridharan Sriram has been training Australian spinners of late. He has successfully unleashed the spark in them to gift India a 333-run loss in the first Test at Pune. The 41-year-old began his career for Tamil Nadu. He then progressed to U-19 team as a left-arm spinner. He later developed his batting skills and went on to be considered as an all-rounder. He even once opened batting for India with legendary cricketer Sachin Tendulkar.

Sriram has a good experience of dealing with Australian players. He had then joined the Test players Shiv Sunder Das and Mohammed Kaif as the recipients of Border-Gavaskar scholarship in 2000, thus widening their experience through their short-stint Australia‘s vaunted cricket academy, then based in Adelaide. Sriram has also trained under the coach Rod Marsh along with other Australian talents such as Shane Watson, Mitchell Johnson, and Nathan Hauritz. This helped him to critically analyse the different approaches and attitudes of the two nations, India and Australia.

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Sriram’s relationship with Marsh and Troy Cooley (now the Bupa National Cricket Centre Head Coach) later paved way for him to work as an consultant in Australian A and developing squads for Asian conditions. Though he was entitled to work with Australia’s 2015 tour to Bangladesh, he was dropped later for security reasons. He was a part of the disastrous 0-3 loss in Sri Lanka. Steve O’Keefe was also on the list of both Bangladesh and Sri Lanka matches but had to return back due to his hamstring injury.

The duo Sriram and O’Keefe share a respectable rapport. They exchange insights and ideas even though they meet occasionally. Their pairing had impressive results so far, with Steve O’Keefe’s magical spell in first Test. In an interview with cricket.com.au, Sriram says, “He (O’Keefe) knew that he was the sort of subcontinent expert that the Australians were looking for, and he knew that he had to play over here and I think he stepped up to that beautifully.”

Australia have employed various consultant spin coaches in the past as well. These people had some of the good profiles, yet they remain little known outside the Indian cricket circles. Former leg-spinner Shane Warne had joined Australia’s 2014 tour to South Africa to help the spinners in preparing for the World T20 matches that followed it. Even the most successful spinner Muttiah Muralitharan had trained the Australian spinners in Test series against Pakistan in United Arab Emirates in 2014 and 2016 series against Sri Lanka. But their efforts to put Australia’s spinners on track went in vain. Sriram points out the fact that value of the wisdom and encouragement is more than the weight of experience that often carries most valued currency.