What's new

Is it time for Grant Flower to leave?

I

iniqbal223

Local Club Regular
Joined
Oct 29, 2016
Runs
1,416
Grant Flower has been with the team for almost 5 years. We got some progress in batting. But most of the times we were meek in batting. We all concluded it was Misbah effect, but its not Misbah effect but may be GF effect.
During trying batting situations, players in this young team don't have any one to look upto. Grant Flower has been tremendous all these years, but I think now pak batting needs a very different approach.
 
for the short term we should hire an English batting coach before the World Cup, and for the long term we should try Mahela or Kumar Sangakarra
 
He has been pretty good but I guess he has given all he had to the young players and there is nothing more he can contribute I guess.

Although credit has to be given the way he worked with Zaman, Sharjeel, Babar and now Imam. But I guess we need to move on and find a modern day batting coach
 
Blame coach for dull students to fail. You can bring the best coach but if they don't have any talent its just waste of money.
No one can make Babar Azam/Umar Akmal to Virat, Amir to Wasim, Fahim to Kluesner, Fakhar to Gilchrist, Sadab to Warne, Sarfraz to Dhoni etc. You can polish them to be decent but to be world beater you have to born with the gift.
 
Five years is a huge time.

Many many batches of batsmen have come and gone. All turned out to be duds.

When the failure rate is 90 percent or above, you know that something's not working or you need to try something else.

It's insane to try the same thing again and again expecting a different result. With Grant Flower , half a decade, things are only regressing.

He needs to be held accountable.

And has to go.
 
Have a Local legend like Inzamam or Yousaf might be better
 
iniqbal223 said:
Grant Flower has been with the team for almost 5 years. We got some progress in batting. But most of the times we were meek in batting. We all concluded it was Misbah effect, but its not Misbah effect but may be GF effect.
During trying batting situations, players in this young team don't have any one to look upto. Grant Flower has been tremendous all these years, but I think now pak batting needs a very different approach.
Click to expand...

Lol at Misbah effect.Nice that u people got some reality check!
 
Agreed! While not the entire blame of our batting woes can be put on his shoulders, if we're still seeing basic issue such as lack of strike rotation, the coach has to be held accountable.

He's been given a very long rope and we haven't seen a significant improvement in our batsmen. Better get a modern day batsman as coach such Sangakkara or Mike Hussey.
 
I think Grant Flower can milk his 4 years of being the batting coach of Pakistan somewhere else now.
 
Snowflake said:
Agreed! While not the entire blame of our batting woes can be put on his shoulders, if we're still seeing basic issue such as lack of strike rotation, the coach has to be held accountable.

He's been given a very long rope and we haven't seen a significant improvement in our batsmen. Better get a modern day batsman as coach such Sangakkara or Mike Hussey.
Click to expand...

So with modern coaching Imam, Babar, Sarfraz will be batting great with SR 125-150
 
Should have been fired long time ago. He has failed to inspire confidence in batsmen and it's high time for someone else to take over.
 
People should blame Inzamam who being a good batman in his era choose and persist with Azhar, Shehzad and trying Iftikhar......
Get an honest selector who intends to work with passion and you will good batmen in our system

Flower can onlywork who got selected by Inzamam.
 
Last edited:
Thats true.

I am not saying GF was bad. He did what he could do best, and I appreciate he was very committed to his work. Time has changed and we might not need GF approach. We improved little in some consistency, like we used to get out for 120s earlier, now we get out for 200s.

We need some restart of the approach, but looks like with too hectic schedule PCB might not willing to make changes.
 
Players have come and gone, coaches have changed but Mr Flower has stayed. I think he has been around longer than some of the players.

We need new impulses in our batting Grant Flower has to go. Thank you for your services.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
He has had long enough to improve our players and it hasn't happened.

I would replace him with either an Australian batting coach or a world class batsmen who is a proven coach.
 
Shafi said:
So with modern coaching Imam, Babar, Sarfraz will be batting great with SR 125-150
Click to expand...

Not necessarily. Although, with improved strike rotation, they can easily get to high 80s or 90s which would be good enough.
 
Shafi said:
Blame coach for dull students to fail. You can bring the best coach but if they don't have any talent its just waste of money.
No one can make Babar Azam/Umar Akmal to Virat, Amir to Wasim, Fahim to Kluesner, Fakhar to Gilchrist, Sadab to Warne, Sarfraz to Dhoni etc. You can polish them to be decent but to be world beater you have to born with the gift.
Click to expand...

None of these players are dull. If they were useless Pakistan would never win a match. Most of them have had good spells in the past. To get to the next level they need quality coaching and a commitment to the cause.
 
Snowflake said:
Not necessarily. Although, with improved strike rotation, they can easily get to high 80s or 90s which would be good enough.
Click to expand...

I just wish that alongside the management, our fans realise that it's a problem of tackling spin for us. Babar, haaris and Asif Ali are rubbish against spin.
At international level, it's very basic to milk the spinners during the middle overs like malik and Sarfaraz to some extent. With Babar and the other guys mentioned above, they just need to understand that you need to go 4 or 5 runs per over against the spinners. But these duds can't play spin to save their lives hence have trouble rotating the strike. Once we get that sorted, we'll be world class.
 
I think the players have to hold their hands up.

At the end of the day a coach can only do so much.
 
Shafi said:
So with modern coaching Imam, Babar, Sarfraz will be batting great with SR 125-150
Click to expand...
This guy has some great insight :)))

How many top batsmen have that SR? If they strike at even 95-100, pretty much every fan here will take it in a heartbeat.
 
We need to get someone like Mike hussey as batting coach. He always found gaps with the greatest ease. Maybe he can spark our line up to fire more frequently.
 
Shandarchowka said:
We need to get someone like Mike hussey as batting coach. He always found gaps with the greatest ease. Maybe he can spark our line up to fire more frequently.
Click to expand...

The average daily Hussey batting practice session would last for 6 hours minimum where he would work with the help of a bowling machine. You don't become great by just practicing for 20-30 minutes only.
 
How is it Grants fault if our players are thick skulled and mentally weak?

I really do have a feeling that in practice sessions Pakistan tries their best, but when it comes to the real playing time, they don’t just have the confidence aka mentally weak and limited.
 
Ahh some replies here.

So Rixon is praised to the moon for improving our fielding but Flower can't be criticized for his batting coaching ??

If players can work hard with the fielding coach why not with batting coach? Surely questions should be asked from Flower.
 
SarfiBabarHaris said:
Ahh some replies here.

So Rixon is praised to the moon for improving our fielding but Flower can't be criticized for his batting coaching ??

If players can work hard with the fielding coach why not with batting coach? Surely questions should be asked from Flower.
Click to expand...

And you know how they don’t work hard with Grant?
 
^ that is what I am saying. We can't fault players all the time. Its evident that batting coach hasn't produced the results. 4 years is enough time.
 
nitrous said:
How is it Grants fault if our players are thick skulled and mentally weak?

I really do have a feeling that in practice sessions Pakistan tries their best, but when it comes to the real playing time, they don’t just have the confidence aka mentally weak and limited.
Click to expand...

I agree. Flower should continue for the next 5 years no matter how the teams batting performs.
 
Have never seen Flower give interviews or explain his vision for Pakistan Cricket. We have never heard him crib about anything even though so much could be going wrong. Looks like someone who is happy to collect a paycheque silently.
 
Saj said:
I think the players have to hold their hands up.

At the end of the day a coach can only do so much.
Click to expand...

This argument can be made for any coach in the world. How do you hold them accountable then?
 
GF has done a good job, 2018 has been an underwhelming year for Pak cricket and Asia Cup has been a bad dream. Let us see what happens in the coming 3-4 months before asking questions of the coaches, I can see a turnaround very soon by the young Pak batsmen.
 
Savak said:
Have never seen Flower give interviews or explain his vision for Pakistan Cricket. We have never heard him crib about anything even though so much could be going wrong. Looks like someone who is happy to collect a paycheque silently.
Click to expand...

Never was an issue when misbah and Younis played and Grant was also the batting coach.

What about the time when the team won the CT?
No one complained then.

I am not saying it isn’t his fault, but a coach cant play for the players on the field.

Whether Grant is good or bad, he can only do so much, rest is upto the players themselves.

How about investing in proper coaches at the grassroots level, where all you hear is all these old men taking up positions, whom we have never heard of before.
 
Hawkeye said:
Five years is a huge time.

Many many batches of batsmen have come and gone. All turned out to be duds.

When the failure rate is 90 percent or above, you know that something's not working or you need to try something else.

It's insane to try the same thing again and again expecting a different result. With Grant Flower , half a decade, things are only regressing.

He needs to be held accountable.

And has to go.
Click to expand...

Domestic cricket is regressing and you do not have a captain like Ganguly to inspire the existing players to realize their potential and reach greatness..
 
I really don't think any coach can do anything. The simple problem of strike rotation hasn't been solved in decades.

The problem is with our players. Once they get a little bit of success it gets to their head and they don't continue to work harder. Opposition teams find them out and they don't continue to work to stay ahead of their opposition. We already see Hasan Ali and Shadab Khan having mentality that they are already superstars.

Any how getting back to topic. Sure we can try this also. Depends who we can get as a coach. Sangakarra as some posters suggest wud be fantastic.
 
Saj said:
I think the players have to hold their hands up.

At the end of the day a coach can only do so much.
Click to expand...

All we have to do is look at the common factor. In the last 5 years different set of batsman came in and out of the pak team with sam problems. It is not as if we are dealing with the same bunch of 11 players for the past 5 years.

If the coach doesn't have any substantial effect on the players development then why have a coach to begin with?
 
Savak said:
This argument can be made for any coach in the world. How do you hold them accountable then?
Click to expand...

They take some responsibilty, but not entirely. The players have to take most of the responsibility for their performances.
 
Problem for Bangladesh and Pakistan players are once they perform some matches they become arrogant and think too highly of themselves.
Check Musfiq's comment about Hature after winning against Sri Lanka (I wish to win against Sri Lanka at any cost) and so on.

Same goes to our players they start making huge noise after playing few matches to our medias.

Even India has so many great current players like Dhoni, Kohli or Rohit they don't claim that big like our minions do every often. Unless you are humble, concentrate what are you doing and improve your skill you are bound to fail every often.
Look at Hasan Ali, Sadab Khan, Amir compare to Malik. They will not have long career if they go on like this.
 
PCB need to release all the coaching staff except Mickey.

Head coach - Mickey Aurther
Batting coach - Mohammad Yousuf
Fast Bowling coach - Mohammad Asif
Spin Bowling coach - Mushtaq Ahmad
Fielding coach - outsider
 
This post is not to criticize GF, he has done some tremendous work.
But the time has come to change our batting approach, our batsmen are taking too long to settle down on the pitch. Unfortunately, in the team we don't have some good batsman/coach/mentor who can tell them how to bat sensibly and smartly.

What Kohli's/Sharma's developed today because of playing along side Sachin/Dravid, etc. Majority of learning happened during the international matches and tours. Domestic can help to only some extent. I think Inzi should be batting consultant + selector with the team.
 
I think he should continue. Just one bad tournament should not be his undoing.
 
4 years as batting coach that too without any prior coaching experience, surely he is the only one in the coaching set up to have lasted this long? Unless there is someone else I am missing?
 
Can a batting coach suddenly improve Fakhar Zaman's flaws?

Can he improve the flaws of Hafeez and Malik?

Can he sort out Babar Azama's weaknesses.

I doubt these things can be sorted out very easily.
 
Saj said:
Can a batting coach suddenly improve Fakhar Zaman's flaws?

Can he improve the flaws of Hafeez and Malik?

Can he sort out Babar Azama's weaknesses.

I doubt these things can be sorted out very easily.
Click to expand...

Can the coach identify the flaws? I watched CT games vs England and India after the game today. They tried bowling to Fakhar's body even then. Looks like it's not something new. So in a period of 14 months, can't a batting coach devise a strategy to.atleast get around the flaw? He should be at least trying to nudge them to fineleg or square leg by now.
 
Saj said:
Can a batting coach suddenly improve Fakhar Zaman's flaws? why not? Not suddenly but signs can be seen that he has improved, so far its "NOTHING"

Can he improve the flaws of Hafeez and Malik? Mallik and Hafeez are on last legs of their career and we only keeping them because they can deliver and we cant say goodbye to them before WC19

Can he sort out Babar Azama's weaknesses. If one is a coach they should definitely work on it... again it wont happen overnight but should be noticeable.

I doubt these things can be sorted out very easily.
Click to expand...
true but Flower been in the setup far too long
 
He should be sacked but this forum acts as if sacking him will turn our batting fortunes around. We need to sort our domestic pitches out asap.
 
Plumb said:
true but Flower been in the setup far too long
Click to expand...

At the international level, the players have to accept most of the responsibility to work on technical issues and flaws. A coach can only guide and advise.
 
Hasan123 said:
He should be sacked but this forum acts as if sacking him will turn our batting fortunes around. We need to sort our domestic pitches out asap.
Click to expand...

sorting domestic pitches wont turn the fortune around quickly either, it 'll take years where you change the batting culture/mindset and start produce quality batsmen. Still you 'll require decent coach to tell you about your weakness/strengths
 
gazza619 said:
How can we blame Grant Flower?
Click to expand...

I am torn about this:
On the one hand
- he has done ok with the test team batting by and large
- you cant blame him if we are producing such substandard cricketers.
but on the other hand
- he is the batting coach, how else do you assess his contribution - by how much work he puts in? well effort is not the same as output.
 
Maybe we might want a change of batting coach. The players could potentially use a new direction.
 
Plumb said:
sorting domestic pitches wont turn the fortune around quickly either, it 'll take years where you change the batting culture/mindset and start produce quality batsmen. Still you 'll require decent coach to tell you about your weakness/strengths
Click to expand...

Sorting domestic pitches will help us long term and that's what we need. Batsmen aren't produced after 1 or 2 years with a batting coach. You need to bat for hours and hours , innings after innings . Our domestic pitches you bat for 2 sessions , how on earth can you learn about batting from that ?
 
Dont think I am using any excuses for our players. Yes, Players must take responsibility and improve themselves, but now it is time we also need a new voice and bring in someone who is a high profile batting coach.
 
If batsman are getting out to juicy full tosses & patting full tosses/half volleys back to the bowler, then even coach viv can’t help them.
 
It's a mental issue. Even minnows are mentally stronger than us and this has been going on for more than a decade. The team badly needs a sports psychologist. We can surely do away with batting and bowling coaches and I am sure the players will perform more or less the same without these so-called coaches. Grant Flower should be the first one to go, followed by Azhar Mahmood.
 
I think this test was evident that he should go. If Grant can't make the players listen to not get out on full tosses, run outs or go for slogs for glory when there's 30 runs left of a chase to complete, then we've got to get in someone who can. He might be telling them the right things, but looks like our batsmen aren't listening.

A big thing I've noticed is a lot of our batsmen enter international cricket/come back from a return, do well, and then get found out and performance dips. Been happening for a decade at least. I haven't seen anyone improve with the bat, it's always the reverse for some reason. At least with bowlers you can see improvements, like Abbas, Hasan, Shaheen for example. Got to find a batting coach to fix that, or at least make sure the batsmen aren't getting worse with time.
 
Pakistan I think need to move on from Flower , he has been there for too long.

Fresh ideas are required right now.

Jammie Siddeons , Fletcher , Hussey etc can be good choices.
 
I've backed this guy and said that he can only do what he can with the players available to him, but even I am now questioning whether he is actually improving the Pakistani batsmen.
 
I agree with what most of the ppers are saying, its likely the time to move on from Grant Flower. He's done as well as he could do and maybe its best if we get a new batting coach in.
 
Man 4 years is a long time, many head coaches, bowling coaches, fielding coaches, physios have gone but this guy is still here.

He has shared all he had now we have to take a step ahead.
 
Last edited:
During today's play I saw him giving Hasan Ali some tips while yasir was still out there. First of all that's a little too late to have some batting practice secondly we all saw what tactics Hasan had in his mind when he came out. Either he completely ignored Grant Flower's advice or that was exactly the advice given. It just looks bad no matter how to look at it.
 
Saj said:
I've backed this guy and said that he can only do what he can with the players available to him, but even I am now questioning whether he is actually improving the Pakistani batsmen.
Click to expand...

In a professional work place, he would be shown the door by now because he has nothing to show for his own performance in the last 4 years. It is time to bring someone who can bring a new perspective and bring fresh ideas to the table.
 
Does not matter who comes in for Pak as batting coach, the coach cant instill temperamenet, how about we select players from domestic who are known for playing well with their backs against the wall, time to get rid of Hafeez, Imam, Asad Shafiq, and Babar Azam, give chance to Saad ALi , Abid Adli, Usman Salahuddin and Fawad alam, Fakhar Zaman as the opener with Azhar Ali. Fawad Alam as the middle order pressure situation guy would be perfect
 
This team does not need Flower. This team needs a sports psychologist who can instil some self belief and courage under fire into the players. This is something that the Pakistanis don't want to believe in but they absolutely need, specially with the younger crop of players in the side.
 
The problem for Pakistan is not the technique to bat in UAE as they have it. It is more of a mental thing. Grant flower is a batting coach and the shots Pakistan played yesterday was in panic. The funny part is that there were no overs to worry about, if they had stayed and played out overs, they would have got to the target. This has to do with temperament which a batting coach cannot develop.
 
Typical of PCB, when you have players like MoYo, YK, MahelaJ who are able to help our players, we select a Zimbabwean. What next? The Bermuda fella as a fielding coach?
 
Grant Flower's appointment wasn't a great one however you can't fault him for mental blockages of the batsmen. The players need sport psychologists and there needs to be a culture change in Pakistan cricket from a social and mentality aspect to the days prior to 2003 (when Inzy took charge).
 
Hafeez has been a failure for years. Imam is a nepotism based selection. Asad is good in 1/6 innings. Haris is overrated

These aren't things the coaches or Captain can fix. Need merit based selection
 
Some serious questions to be asked of Flower in light of Pakistan's continued failures in batting.
 
MenInG said:
Some serious questions to be asked of Flower in light of Pakistan's continued failures in batting.
Click to expand...

5 years is a very long time in a job especially with nothing to show for it
 
Zero improvement in all formats with the bat. 5 years of raking in cash with nothing to account for.
 
Firing Flower won't change much. Asad and Azhar are done and guys like Babar, Haris and Shan have been doing well.

He can't teach people at this level to bat. The issues are deep and Wasim Khan needs to transform our domestic structure to get us back at the top.

At the moment we are SL, Zim level.
 
Pakistan are better off employing an unknown County coach with current experience as the batting coach. They are so much more aligned with modern batting requirements
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

BouncerGuy
  • Poll Poll
[PICTURE] “If a batter decides to leave the ball and it's still hitting the stumps, I think that should be out": Chris Woakes
Replies
12
Views
695
BunnyRabbit
B
Bhaag Viru Bhaag
Trump's '$21m for voter turnout' claim triggers political row in India
Replies
6
Views
345
Champ_Pal
C
Cricket Warrior
[EXCLUSIVE] “It is a massive moment for South African cricket": Vernon Philander
Replies
9
Views
855
The Bald Eagle
The Bald Eagle
NeVerMind
Is it time for British Pakistanis to support England over Pakistan in cricket?
2
Replies
151
Views
6K
BouncerGuy
BouncerGuy
Ball Blazer
“Pakistan has so much talent that anyone can replace anyone at any time”: Salman Ali Agha
Replies
4
Views
481
GoUgandaCranes
GoUgandaCranes
Back
Top