The San Francisco Unicorns bowed out of Season 3 of the MLC in a nerve-wracking Eliminator on Wednesday (July 9) night, falling short by just two wickets to MI New York. But not before etching their name into this young American tournament's folklore with a record-breaking six-game winning streak to start the season. The runners-up from last year played an infectious brand of cricket defined by an unapologetically aggressive approach that reflects both their team culture and the individually nurtured positive mindsets instilled by head coach Shane Watson. The former Australia captain and World Cup winner has built a reputation for his acclaimed philosophies, born out of late career self-discovery and has now passed it on to the Unicorns' dressing room.
'I want to be the best coach in the world'- Shane Watson
On the morning of the playoff, Watson sat down for a candid chat where he unpacked the Unicorns' ethos, the secret sauce behind their fearless cricket, and a few glowing words for Sanjay Krishnamurthi, the dazzling young all-rounder who lit up the league with a ballistic 92 off 40 against the LA Knight Riders over the weekend.
I strongly believe that the real barometer of a good team environment is gauged from the level of intensity in their fielding. I have had multiple people from your opposing teams come and tell me 'yeh log jaan marte hai', meaning they give their all on their field. Is this franchise, the team of your dreams that you have nurtured over the past few years?
Yeah (laughs), first of all, when it comes down to fielding that's something that I set from the very start of the tournament. And a part of being with the Unicorns is that I set incredibly high standards for the players in the field. But building an attitude in the field is a choice that you have every ball that you're out there. So I set very high standards of what's expected, and that's the intensity for every ball that we're out in the field. And it's very obvious when you can see whether the players are fully engaged or not with every ball. And being a part of Unicorns, that is expected of the players who go out on the field, putting it all on the line every time that they're out on the field. So that's just one of the things that I set very high standards, because as you said, it's a true barometer of how engaged you are in the game from ball to ball. When the guys are really anticipating and hustling all the time, then it shows that they are fully engaged with every ball, and in the end, that means we're giving ourselves the best chance of playing our best cricket. So I'm glad that opposition teams and players are saying that.
You have been the assistant coach with Delhi Capitals as well. Before heading this franchise for three years now, how has your coaching techniques or ethos evolved over the years? I asked this because I think it is important for a mindset coach to keep updating themselves in this fast age. Can some of the theories and coping techniques get obsolete as well? Have you given a thought in those areas?
I'm always evolving and just trying to get better and better, and learning from my experiences, especially experiences when they don't go exactly as planned. But honestly, when it comes to the mental side in general, yes, I'm always looking to understand what else is out there. But because of the information I've been taught, it's been as powerful 150 years ago to what it is now, and what it will be in another 100 years.
It is just a simple understanding of how the mind works, how to get out of your own way, how to be able to unlock all your skills, your technical skills that you work so tirelessly to ingrain in your muscle memory. So that's where the conversations that I have have won't really change. It's more so the question of the players continuing to understand how to unlock their very best versions of themselves, whether it's a training session and then implementing it in game, whether it's the start of the season or whether its a World Cup final. So in that regard, those conversations, they'll always be there, because everyone always wrestles with the same sort of things around performance.
But when it comes to my coaching evolution, absolutely, it's from the day that I started with the Unicorns, which is my first head coaching role, to where I am now, and how I evolved in the way that I set up environments, the way I am around the group. I'm learning all the time, but I'm definitely a better all-round coach than I was two and a half years ago. So I'm always someone who never rests on where I'm at right now. I'm always looking to get better, because I want to be the best cricket coach in the world. That's what my goal is like it was for me as a cricketer, I want to be the best cricketer, the best allrounder in the world, and I've set the bar high. How close I'll get, I'm not sure, but I'll be doing everything I can to get as close as I can.
At least a couple of players told me that the time you check in with the Unicorns, it feels like a 'mental spa'. Since you are so big on the role of mindset in cricket, give us a tour on how a cricketer is onboarded at your franchise and how their mental conditioning works right from when they are selected to the time they take the flight out of America after wrapping up the season? Take us through those mental checkpoints...
Well, first of all, the most important decision that we do make is selecting the players to be a part of the Unicorns. Yes, you've got to have incredible skill. Of course, that's a starting point. But the next one, and it is as important, if not more important, is the engagement of that individual across the board and a big part, is trying to work through with that individual where they are at the moment in time in their career.
Is it that they're going to come to a tournament like MLC and sort of just tick a box and just be here and not really fully engage? Or are they at a stage that every time they go out into the field, and every time they engage in a new team environment, they are fully engaged, and will give it their absolute all in training and then in the game. The squads that we do put together at the Unicorns, there is not one player who's not fully engaged in being there to contribute to the group, but also put it all on the line for the Unicorns when they're out in a game. So that's just step one.
When a new player that's coming into the Unicorns, the first thing that they do is that they're just very clear on what's expected of them. We set very high standards around engagement, what's expected on the field, specific things off the field as well, to be able to make sure that, we're ticking every single box to be able to build a high performing team environment. Then probably the most important step for me is every player who comes into the Unicorns, they go through my mental skills workshop.
So as a starting point, they start to really understand the mental side of performance. Secondly, they start to understand the language that I use and why I will be using it throughout the rest of the tournament. So then, when I mention certain words or phrases, they're not foreign words or phrases, especially around mental performance. This really starts the conversation for me and the individual around performance, because so often, majority of the time, with teams and coaches, most of the conversations are very much like just on the surface and mainly technical conversations. But very rarely do you actually dig below the surface, around like, what were you thinking? What are the things that you're doing when you're at your very best? And navigate those conversations as well.
In the end, for me, my goal as a coach, from a team perspective would be to love the players, to be able to be a part of a winning franchise and a winning team. But most importantly for me, it's that every individual that comes in to play under me as a head coach gets a number of things to make them better, whether it's technical input, but especially mental understanding to help them. So then when they finish this season, or their first season with the Unicorns, they definitely feel like they're a much better player, and they've got new skills that they then can implement into the next year.
Why did you take up this job in 2023? Was it the lure of carving out a legacy for a franchise that was about to take its first baby steps - allowing you to formulate its culture, its identity and the way they were going to go about cricket in a manner that is on course to your beliefs?
Yeah, I have always wanted to be a head coach since I've finished playing. And the main reason comes down to creating a team environment where having control helps the players be at their very best. Because so many teams environments, unfortunately, at times that I was involved in as a player weren't necessarily like that. There were things that were put in place that had the opposite effect, which shouldn't be the case, but unfortunately it is at times. So that's why I always did want to be the head coach of a franchise, but also it was being very selective around which one would be the right opportunity for me starting out. And that's where the opportunity with the Unicorns came through Victorian cricket. We had a meeting with Venky and Anand, the owners of the San Francisco Unicorns. And I just knew from that first conversation that I had, with them, the perfect franchise opportunity and from the ground up as well.
Because it was the first year, I could be a part of setting the structure and the infrastructure of the franchise, and then to be able to build a sustainable cricket culture and environment where the players who we pick would just be able to come in and be their very best. So with my experience around the franchise world as a player and an assistant coach, the owners played such a crucial role in getting in the way of things that they actually don't know enough about, and not letting the actual experts make the decisions. And that's where a lot of the time, teams can implode.
Whereas with Venky and Anand, they obviously employ the cricket people with some input around the data and analytics, which are incredibly powerful tools as well. But then it comes down to trusting the cricket experts that they've got and allowing them to be able to have the freedom to be able to put all the things in place that you need to to be able to build a high performance team environment. So I've been unbelievably lucky to be able to have this opportunity for the Unicorns, because it really is a phenomenal franchise, and it comes from the leaders and how they're able to feel what they do is filtered down.
You have mentioned in your book that you strongly believe that the next cricketing evolution is not going to come from ram shots, mystery balls or crunching data. It will be training the cricketers' mindset and how you train them in reproducing the successful moments in those high pressure environments again and again. So, who do you think is that player that you have trained that comes to your mind, who is a champion at bossing their mind in pressure situations?
Look (laughs). I'm not gonna reveal those individuals that I've worked with. If you talk to them, they know how impactful the information that I've been able to teach them is. Like anything you can be given the information, but if you don't actually use it and apply it, then it's worthless. So I'm not going to mention individual names around that.
For the individuals that I've worked with, whether that was in and around the Delhi Capitals, the Quetta Gladiators or with the Unicorns over the last three years, the individuals, who have really latched on to this information and are from day to day, every training session and in every game are implementing this information, troubleshooting the information, how it worked, how it didn't work. They are the ones who I have seen taking their cricket to a new level.
Because in the end, whether it's someone who's sort of finding their feet at franchise cricket. Whether it's someone who I've worked with who's on the cusp of international cricket, but just needs to work through the mental side of them to being able to access all their incredible skills that they've got. Those are the ones where you really see their performances, and then turn to really big performances on the biggest stages. That's where all the conversations I have around cricket are now. Yeah, there's a technical part to the game. But the majority of the time it is the mental understanding of what the right thoughts are. What are the wrong thoughts when they're not at their very best and troubleshooting their way through that. So again, I build individual players, but you won't probably have to look too far to be able to see the players I've worked with over the last couple of years.
Someone that comes to my mind is the young Unicorn Sanjay Krishnamurthi. The rise and transformation of him has been absolutely phenomenal, from year one to year three. There were some very brave calls made to accommodate him as a younger player in the playing 11. How did you recognize his explosive promise with the bat and what are some of the mental cues you gave him? I know he has adopted the ACT model that is mentioned in your book, how has he continued to evolve?
It wasn't a brave call at all (laughs). He's an incredibly highly skilled young man. Even from the first time that I saw him, some of the things I saw him do were not like a normal 19-year-old would do. The power that he had, the easy power that he had was something you don't really see that often. It was just the right call because it was so obvious to me.
But when it comes to the things that he's continued to evolve, it really has come down to him using the information to the best of his ability. And when it all boils down to it sounds really simple. It doesn't mean it's easy to implement in the game in a pressure situation. But it really just comes down to using his ability to be present in the middle of what I need to do right now? Who's the bowler? What's the conditions, what's the situation of the game? And then, which is what I talk to the batters all about is, which gear do I need to be in right now? Do I need to be in gear one which is intent, hitting the ball hard on the ground. So really low risk. Is it gear two, which is if the bowler bowls in my area, I can hit it potentially for six, or hit it in the air, but most of the time that's still intent. And then gear three is, it's time to go, and I'm trying to hit, I'm trying to get in a position to hit every ball for six, if it's in my zone.
Sanjay is just being in the present and not letting any outside influence come in. Whether it's the batter that he's batting with, whether it's the coach that he's working with, not allowing any outside information to infiltrate his mindset on what he needs to do right now. What's the situation? What do I feel is the right thing to do right now with my skill and what I've got? And that's where you've seen his continual evolution and things he's been able to do.
And you see him even in this season of MLC. You've seen his evolution even throughout this tournament as well. Where, at times he was a little bit too frantic right at the start of his innings, a little bit too keen to be able to really try and hit the ball over the boundary. And then you've seen him over the last few games come in tricky conditions as well. The 40 off 25 balls that he got against the Orcas wasn't easy batting conditions at all, but the freedom that he had to wait for the ball in his zone and hit sixes off the spinners, which was so hard to do, but he just waited for that ball in his area and the clarity that he has. He's an incredibly skillful young man from a technical perspective, but now, he continues to marry that up with his mental understanding and mental skills. And that's why there's no surprises that he's doing, even what he did in the last game.
You have been the assistant coach with Delhi Capitals as well. Before heading this franchise for three years now, how has your coaching techniques or ethos evolved over the years? I asked this because I think it is important for a mindset coach to keep updating themselves in this fast age. Can some of the theories and coping techniques get obsolete as well? Have you given a thought in those areas?
I'm always evolving and just trying to get better and better, and learning from my experiences, especially experiences when they don't go exactly as planned. But honestly, when it comes to the mental side in general, yes, I'm always looking to understand what else is out there. But because of the information I've been taught, it's been as powerful 150 years ago to what it is now, and what it will be in another 100 years.
It is just a simple understanding of how the mind works, how to get out of your own way, how to be able to unlock all your skills, your technical skills that you work so tirelessly to ingrain in your muscle memory. So that's where the conversations that I have have won't really change. It's more so the question of the players continuing to understand how to unlock their very best versions of themselves, whether it's a training session and then implementing it in game, whether it's the start of the season or whether its a World Cup final. So in that regard, those conversations, they'll always be there, because everyone always wrestles with the same sort of things around performance.
But when it comes to my coaching evolution, absolutely, it's from the day that I started with the Unicorns, which is my first head coaching role, to where I am now, and how I evolved in the way that I set up environments, the way I am around the group. I'm learning all the time, but I'm definitely a better all-round coach than I was two and a half years ago. So I'm always someone who never rests on where I'm at right now. I'm always looking to get better, because I want to be the best cricket coach in the world. That's what my goal is like it was for me as a cricketer, I want to be the best cricketer, the best allrounder in the world, and I've set the bar high. How close I'll get, I'm not sure, but I'll be doing everything I can to get as close as I can.
