Lives in Cricket No 12 - Ric Charlesworth

I spent some time with him and I said to him here’s one of your problems, Marshy, you’ve got a budget of 60 or 70 million dollars, we’ve got a budget of one or two. I’ve got sixteen people working for me, you’ve got three. When’s cricket going to get serious about adding value to its players by analysing the other team, doing all the things we do [in hockey]. He was pushing for some of that stuff as a result of our meetings, I presume, but it was difficult to get it. During Marsh’s tenure, Ric was invited to speak at an annual coaching forum in Melbourne. I was asked to talk about what can cricket learn from other sports? I said a bunch of stuff like when are you going to realise your potential – Australia has got all of these resources, why aren’t we playing better? Why is it we always lose the dead rubber in a series? There isn’t enough ambition, you’re not working hard enough. Look at what happens in other sports. There’s no rigour about the coaching. What do we do to analyse other teams? We hardly do anything. I said you should be dominating the game. And you’re not. You should look at other sports and learn about how they go about it … they must have thought I was talking some sense … . When Marsh suddenly resigned in 1999, Ric found himself in a meeting in an airport lounge with Malcolm Speed, chairman of the Australian Cricket Board [ACB] and later the chief executive of the International Cricket Council [ICC]. Speed was searching for Marsh’s replacement and gave him the impression he could have had the job, if he’d wanted it. ‘If I’d said ‘yes’ I think I had a good chance. It was before the process [of seeking applications] but they sought me out.’ Marsh had been pushing for some of the changes needed for a more rigorous, analytical approach to coaching, ‘but found it hard to get support for that approach.’ And I suppose when he suddenly stopped, they were looking for someone else. I don’t think they trusted [John] Buchanan because he wasn’t a serious first-class player … .’ He told Speed he thought the coaching jobs for Test, one-day internationals and under-18 cricket ‘needed to be integrated in some way and the load shared.’ But in any case he was committed to hockey until after the Sydney Olympics the following year. ‘So he asked me who I’d choose. I said Buchanan, who at this time had established himself with his work in Queensland – so at least I 68 1993-2002