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Darren Lehmann seems fond of his caricature as a coach who believes there are few problems in a cricket team that cant be solved over a pint or three. Asked recently whether one reason for Australias poor Test performances is the absence of a full-time specialist spin coach - John Davison, a spin coach who appears to have a beneficial impact on Nathan Lyon, rarely tours - Lehmann guffawed: So you want another staff member on tour?Lehmanns curt response was a window into an issue of growing tension in the sport: whether international teams, long mocked for being behemoths in which the players are outnumbered many times over by the support staff, actually suffer from having too few specialist coaches. Just as Australia have been criticised for their lack of a permanent spin coach, so England have been attacked for not having a spin bowling or wicketkeeping coach who always travels with the team; indeed, they now no longer have a full-time fielding coach either. Throughout international cricket, it remains the norm for teams to recruit consultant spin and wicketkeeping coaches intermittently; actual full-time specialist coaches in these two areas remain extremely rare.Bill Gerrard has worked in professional sport, both in analytics and in coaching, across baseball (for Oakland Athletics), rugby (for Saracens) and now football (for AZ Alkmaar). In these sports, Gerrard observes a salient contrast with cricket. I had assumed that cricket would have been more advanced in using specialist coaches. There is massive scope for specialisation.As in most areas off the field, American sports have traditionally led the way in using coaching specialists. It is difficult to put a time on how far behind cricket is, since coaching specialisation goes back a long way in both baseball and the NFL. Cricket seems to be only slowly catching up, Gerrard reflects. Even at Saracens, a leading rugby union club in England, but one with far fewer resources than Full Member cricket teams, Gerrard was struck by how specific each coachs role was. Each coach had a specialist area of responsibility - attack, defence, kicking, scrum and line-out, he says. Never mind specialist wicketkeeping and spin bowling coaches, crickets equivalent would be more like a range of batting coaches for different needs - say, attacking spin, defending against spin, attacking pace and defending against pace.That would surely be going too far, and Lehmann clearly has a point when he argues against bloating the backroom staff for its own sake. Yet that cannot obscure the curious truth that while cricket is richer than ever, its financial and professional stakes so high that teams take nutritionists and even chefs on tour, many countries still do not bother with full-time specialist coaches for two of its most important skills. It is certainly not as if the wealthiest Test nations cannot afford specialists; the resistance, as Lehmann implies, is all cultural.One only needs to listen to Lyon eulogise about the importance of Davison, or Adil Rashid praise Saqlain Mushtaqs role in his palpable improvement in India, for evidence of how the best specialist coaches can improve performance. Neglecting to bother with permanent specialists amounts to a bizarre acceptance that keeping and spin bowling are somehow of secondary importance compared to other skills in cricket: third-class citizens, as Graeme Swann has lamented.We should have full-time spin coaches, not just for the main team but on the county circuit as well, Saqlain said last week. It is not just to look after the spinners but it is to help the batsmen as to how the spinners think as well. His view is hardly surprising, given that he wants to become Englands first genuinely full-time spin bowling coach. (Mushtaq Ahmed, who coached spin from 2008 to 2014, did not always travel with the team.) But the fact that Saqlain departed Englands tour of India after the third Test, when he had clearly aided their bowling of spin, seemed to touch the confines of lunacy. Andrew Strauss, Englands director of cricket, will soon review the coaching support for spinners, but is said to be unconvinced that a full-time coach is needed.Cricket has made huge strides in embracing specialist backroom staff. Witness how only one out of 14 countries had a specialist fielding coach in the 2003 World Cup, but all 14 did by last years tournament, and Englands extensive use of specialists at Loughborough and on England Lions tours. Yet in international cricket teams, a certain lingering resistance to specialism remains.Prospects for greater specialisation apply not only to roles within a cricket team, but also between the different formats. As more players specialise, Gerrard asks, Why not have coaches specialising as well?Trials with specialist coaches for white-ball cricket have so far been mixed, with the overriding impression from the job-share between Andy Flower and Ashley Giles with England in 2013-14 being that the notion was a necessary evil, at best. Yet, as teams become more distinct in red- and white-ball cricket, a system of separate coaches will become easier to manage. In time, specialist coaches not just for different formats, but for different disciplines within the formats, could become increasingly common. There is almost no crossover between what batting and bowling coaches need to hone before a Test match and a T20.And, given the saturated international schedule, specialist coaches will bring a clear benefit, making it easier for national boards to tie down the best coaches for longer, in the knowledge they will not have to surrender a palatable work-life balance to coach at international level. This could make coaching at international level a little more attractive relative to coaching T20 franchises, increasingly the favoured option for many leading ex-players. Naturally, greater specialism will bring new challenges. Head coaches will need to adapt to a changing environment: more specialist coaches could mean that head coaches become a little less hands-on and adopt more of an overseeing role. Other sports suggest that this can be done without undermining the head coachs authority, but the scope for disagreement between coaches is certainly exacerbated if there are more of them around.And the risk of simply overwhelming a player with a surplus of information and advice, some of it contradictory, will increase. Recall the Suns list of 61 guilty men - including 29 non-players - involved in Englands disastrous Ashes tour in 2013-14. Trent Woodhill, a leading T20 coach, warns that a bad appointment as a full-time spin coach could relegate spinners to being fourth-class citizens.But these dangers are no reason to ignore how cricket teams can benefit from moving towards the levels of coaching specialisation that are the norm in other sports. During a tour, such coaches might rarely actually coach in the classical sense of working on a players technique. Any technical change you make for a player is unlikely to hold up under pressure unless groomed for a minimum of six months, says Woodhill. Specialists are most valuable when theyre providing support and guidance around decision-making and game awareness. You can provide different training options, as a specialist, that can enhance and repeat good performance. Normally, then, the greatest value of a specialist coach on tour is simply in deep understanding of their craft, and being a voice to talk through tactics or methods, just as Saqlain has been for Rashid in India.Batsmen and fast bowlers do not have to deal with such relationships being curtailed by their coach flying home midway through a tour. While cricket teams ruthlessly seek how to find any competitive advantage, it is perverse that wicketkeepers and spin bowlers still face being estranged from the coaches who can help them the most. Botellas Hydro Flask Straw Lid . -- The proud fathers huddled near the Dallas Stars dressing room, smiling, laughing and telling stories while wearing replica green sweaters of their sons team. Hydro Flask 21 Oz . Brett Kulak and Jackson Houck of the Vancouver Giants were each charged with assault causing bodily harm on Aug. 18, according to the B.C. court services. http://www.botellashydroflask.es/hydro-flask-cafe.html . Detroit and Boston are deadlocked, 1-1, and Tigers manager Jim Leyland could be forgiven if he was caught rationalizing instead of dissecting how his club could blow a 5-1 lead late in Game 2. Botellas Niño Hydro Flask .05 million next season unless Graham and the Saints subsequently agree on a long-term deal. The designation was released Monday after the deadline passed for NFL teams to use franchise or transition tags on players becoming free agents. Hydro Flask 40 Oz .S. Open champion Justin Rose birdied the first hole with a blind shot he hit to a foot of the pin, and he stayed in front Tuesday until he completed a 4-under 67 for a two-shot lead over Jason Dufner in PGA Grand Slam of Golf. ANAHEIM, Calif. -- The Toronto Blue Jays will continue their playoff quest behind their accidental ace when they start a four-game series against the Los Angeles Angels on Thursday night at Angel Stadium.Left-hander J.A. Happ (18-4, 3.33 ERA) will take the mound for the Blue Jays, who enter the game in the thick of the race for both the American League East championship and a wild-card spot.Toronto trails the first-place Boston Red Sox by two games in the division and is one game behind the Baltimore Orioles for the top wild-card position. At the same time, the Blue Jays are trying to repel the Detroit Tigers, Seattle Mariners and New York Yankees, all of whom lie within two games of the second wild card.Entering this year, Happ owned a career record of 62-61. His best season came in 2009, when he went 12-4 with a 2.93 ERA and two shutouts for the Philadelphia Phillies, winners of the National League pennant. Since then, however, Happ was traded four times in the next six seasons and compiled a 42-54 record through last years trading deadline, when the Seattle Mariners sent him to the Pittsburgh Pirates.Joining the Pirates provided the impetus for Happs resurgence.Once pitching coach Ray Searage adjusted his delivery, Happ went 7-2, forged a 1.85 ERA and struck out 69 batters in 63 1/3 innings while issuing just 13 walks. That performance motivated the Blue Jays to sign the left-handed free agent in November to a three-year contract worth $36 million.The 33-year-old veteran not only provided the stability that the Blue Jays rotation needed once David Price signed a free agent contract with the Boston Red Sox, but he also is making his own case to win the Cy Young Award.Happ won 11 consecutive decisions from June 11 to Aug. 17. He ranks second in the American League with a career-best 18 victories while sharing 10th place in ERA. The left-hander also is holding opposing batters to a .235 average, and he needs just three strikeouts too set a career high in that category.dddddddddddd.The thing Im most satisfied and happy with is that I feel the hard work is paying off, getting to a place mentally where I feel comfortable, Happ told the Globe and Mail. I may have pressed a little bit more than I do now. When you press, all of a sudden youre trying to be too perfect and youre down 2-0 to the batter and youre not making your pitches.One factor in Happs ability to maintain his perspective is his newborn son, J.J.Honestly, I had my first child this offseason, the left-hander told the Globe and Mail. I go home and instead of being selfish and worrying about me and moping and being upset, I get to see his face and it changes everything.The Angels will counter with right-hander Daniel Wright, who seeks his first major league victory. He will make his second start since being acquired off waivers from the Cincinnati Reds on Sept. 4.In his only previous appearance with Los Angeles, Wright allowed four runs on six hits, including two home runs, in five innings but received no decision Saturday night in the Angels 8-5 loss to the Texas Rangers. The 25-year-old rookie also hit two batters, walked one and struck out two.He really showed the ability to spin the ball, Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. I think his fastballs sneaky. He got into some good spots. And really, the first pitch of the game, (Carlos) Gomez just ambushes him (for a homer), and then he hung a slider later.Wright, 25, went 0-2 with a 7.62 ERA in four games (two starts) for the Reds this year to begin his big-league career. He will be facing Toronto for the first time.Happ opposed the Angels once this year, allowing four runs in five innings during a 6-3 home loss on Aug. 25. The defeat continued his career-long trend: He is 0-5 with a 7.83 ERA in five starts against the Angels. ' ' '