Haynes here to give batting tips to kids

Former West Indies great Desmond Haynes may have been a destructive opening batsman in his heyday but has transformed himself into a gentle giant when he imparts his vast knowledge to budding cricketers.

"I'm very good with kids. I can get the kids to laugh. I'm really funny when I'm coaching," Haynes told Emirates Business after conducting a session at InSportz in Al Quoz on Tuesday night.

Elite Sport Services, a cricket academy aimed at elite players, has invited the West Indian legend to hold two Batting Master Classes at InSportz and a Comprehensive Master Class course at Repton School from July 2 until 4.

"It is an honour for us to be able to offer children in the UAE high-quality coaching from such a renowned international figure. Over the three days of the Repton course, we will be teaching the basics of cricket and developing them, as well as fine-tuning techniques already learnt," said Elite Sports Services Director and Head Coach Peter Lazarus, himself an England and Wales Cricket Board Level 3 coach. "We are looking at an elite type of programme involving bowling machines, video analysis, etc. Rather than group sessions we are trying to give individual coaching as much as possible. And we are going to be attracting top coaches in the world like Desmond Haynes."

Haynes formed a successful opening partnership with Gordon Greenidge for West Indies during the 1980s and went on to play for and coach Middlesex. Since retiring from the game, he has been involved in coaching especially batting techniques.

"I'm trying to set up batting academies or work in an academy where I would be trying to help batsmen throughout the world to go about in the problems they are having especially to play fast bowling, short pitched deliveries and so forth," said Haynes, 54, who was once interviewed for the top coaching job in India. But he has no ambitions of coaching a national team in future.

"To be the number one coach with lot of travelling and all that to me is a little bit hectic. What I would like is to get involved in IPL [Indian Premier League] and be a batting coach or something like that for one of the franchises or to be a batting consultant for any team," said Haynes who averaged over 40 in both Tests and one-day internationals during a chequered career. He admitted that West Indies cricket was struggling at the moment but debunked as myth that youngsters were not taking up the game in the Caribbean.

"There is a lot of youngsters playing cricket that are very good. And it is only a matter of time before we get back. We are never going to be No1 in the world, maybe No3. I still feel that in a couple of years we could still be competitive with some of the youngsters we've got," said Haynes who was instrumental in moving the West Indies Cricket Board to set up regional academies.

Haynes expressed concern at the future of Test cricket due to the flood of the shorter version and wanted the administrators to control it. "I believe what we need to do is to balance Twenty20, 50-over and Test cricket. The public wants Twenty20 but don't kill it. If you flood the market with Twenty20 who knows in the next five to 10 years they might want 10-10," he said.

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