‘There’s no panic’ – Five minutes with the only foreign coach of the MSL

Donovan Miller was always going to grab attention in this season’s Mzansi Super League.

Not only is he the coach of the inaugural winners, the Jozi Stars, which creates higher expectations, the 40-year-old West Indian is the only foreign mentor in the tournament.

His induction hasn’t exactly been smooth sailing, with the Wanderers-based franchise losing its first two matches.

But Miller insists “there’s no panic in the camp”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBoCg6Mvg6U

Here’s what he’s picked up from his first to weeks of coaching in South Africa.

The Stars aren’t performing badly, they’re just not capitalising

Our preparation has been excellent, we’ve actually maintained the standards that we set ourselves off the field. Obviously (things on the field) haven’t gone as well as we’d like to, but in both our games to date we were in a position to take games away from the opposition and we didn’t do so.

In this format, if you have the opposition down, you have to keep them down. 

The Proteas batsmen (and a bowling talisman) are showing their class

Reeza Hendricks is batting very well at the moment. He’s been in good touch and he’s just taken up where he left off last season. Temba Bavuma is growing as skipper and he’s really fulfilling a good role for us as the No 3. It’s also good to see Kagiso Rabada taking a few wickets. These performances are all positive. It’s important to keep in mind that we also didn’t have the best of starts last year.

He’s undaunted by having to gel a group of players from different teams and backgrounds

I don’t think it’s difficult. The way cricket is being played means that there are lots of T20 tournaments and different franchises. Players tend to know each other better than one would believe because they play with or against each other a lot. That also means that they understand their roles. It’s just about ensuring that they understand what we want at this franchise and what they want. It’s about clarity. They need to execute.

19-year-old Gerald Coetzee impressed at the Knights to date … now he’s doing it at the Stars too

He’s come into the squad and he’s a very exciting prospect. He has a lot of pace. He’s very polite too, asks a lot of questions and clearly wants to learn all the time. He’s been spending a lot of time with the senior guys and myself. We just want to help him get a bit better. 

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