The moment Boof got Aussies on track

Darren Lehmann has turned the Australian cricket team into a harmonious group. Picture: Phil Hillyard. Source: Philip Hillyard / News Limited

IT was the emotion-charged moment when Darren 'Boof' Lehmann knew Australian cricket was on the right track.

And it didn't have much to do with cricket.

Only weeks after being parachuted into his new job as Australian coach during the Ashes in England last year, there was a birthday dinner for the sick wife of the team bus driver.

Pom Geoff Goodwin, affectionately known as 'Popeye', had been the long-time driver of the Aussie team bus on England tours.

He was the man who spooked Shane Watson into seeing ghosts in the lead-up to the 2005 Ashes series.

Goodwin convinced the all-rounder into believing the local legend of Lumley Castle, where the Australians stayed during the limited-overs series and where a 400-year-old lady ghost was said to roam the corridors.

Lehmann has a giggle ahead of the first Ashes Test at Trent Bridge — just two weeks after taking over as head coach. Source: Getty Images

Fast forward to 2013 and Goodwin's wife Suzanne was seriously ill with cancer. What happened next convinced Lehmann, who brought a family-first mantra to the coaching job, that Australian cricket was going places.

"When I knew we were on the right path was when there was a birthday dinner organised for Popeye's wife. She was really sick with cancer, she had lost all her hair," Lehmann said.

"Our players were invited to come with their partners and wives. Even though it was optional, everyone turned up. Nobody missed it. When the numbers came back we had everyone on the bus and all the support staff.

"That said to me that our players were worried about other families as well.

"I thought to myself 'the guys get it, everyone gets it.' When Popeye spoke there were tears in his eyes because everyone had turned up.

"It was what we wanted to be about. Making people's lives better as a family and as a group."

For all the training and planning sessions Lehmann had led, it has been the enormous cultural shift in Australian cricket that has been his biggest influence.

The Australian dressing room is a happy place these days. Picture: Phil Hillyard. Source: News Limited

Before Lehmann, players were sometimes at each other's throat and there was a meltdown in Mohali with four players sacked from a Test and Shane Watson flying home immediately.

Following the sacking of former coach Mickey Arthur on the eve of the 2013 Ashes in England, Lehmann was installed and immediately set about fostering a new team spirit.

And, again, it wasn't all about cricket.

"On my first day I told the players I was going to change a few things," Lehmann said.

"What they had been doing I didn't know and I didn't really worry about what had happened.

"I wanted them to buy into the way we were going to go about things with a family-first policy. And I also wanted them to play a very aggressive brand of cricket and a very entertaining brand of cricket."

Ryan Harris (L) with Darren Lehmann during the Ashes. Source: News Limited

Lehmann's caring, family-first approach, getting partners and families involved at every opportunity, is part of his life-is-too-short mantra.

It comes, at least in part, from the tragic death of his best mate David Hookes from a punch outside a Melbourne hotel in 2004. Lehmann was there that night and what he saw greatly influenced his philosophies as a person and as a cricket coach.

Under Lehmann, the Australian players are about doing as much good off the field as they do on the field. It was why six of the T20 team in Bangladesh visited a hospital for sick kids in impoverished Dhaka last week. The World T20 has been a failure on the pitch but Lehmann is about trying to grow his players as men as well as cricketers.

"It's a real eye-opener and something I'm really glad I've experienced,'' 20-year-old legspinner James Muirhead said after visiting the hospital.

"It was pretty hard to look at. But it's just good to see all the work that is being done."

James Muirhead (R), David Warner (C) and Aaron Finch with a child and mother in the Dhaka hospital. Source: Supplied

Another thing that makes Lehmann click is he appears to have struck a perfect balance between being one of the boys and being a strict disciplinarian. There are his practical gags and joke of the day competition but he has been known to send a player home if they are 30 seconds late for training. He is a stickler for punctuality.

But the overriding factor is his sense of fun and enjoyment.

"You've got to love the game and you have got to be a cricket nuffy but you have got to enjoy the game and have a laugh wherever you are touring," Lehmann says.

"Enjoyment is a huge thing for me — that's why we have the joke of the day and some of the other things we do. They are just to make touring life and maybe life in general have less pressure.

"I know it's easy to say, but cricket is only a game.''

Lehmann has found a balance between being a friend and a leader. Picture: Phil Hillyard. Source: News Limited

In Lehmann's coaching, you can see a little bit of Bob Simpson, a little bit of Geoff Marsh, a little bit of Greg Chappell and a little bit of John Buchanan.

Lehmann is known for his love of a smoke and a beer but he has done well to fuse cricket's old and new worlds.

"I think I try to marry the old world and the new world, as a coach the new world has a really good place with all the facilities and all the data," he says.

"We never had a lot of this sort of stuff in our day. I can also take stuff from the old days and bring it forward. I have tried to pick the best bits I have liked from various coaches.

"I think with leadership and how to play the game I have looked at David Hookes and with batting it has probably been Greg Chappell."

Lehmann doesn't want to single out any player to credit for the massive leaps in Australian cricket as it has truly been a team effort.

But he takes particular pleasure from the development of fast bowlers Mitchell Johnson and Ryan Harris. And the batting of potential future captain Steve Smith.

"I think Smith has made the most progress over the last 12 months as a player,'' Lehmann says.

"He is probably unlucky not to be in the one-day and the T20 sides at the moment. We need him to keep improving his bowling. If you have someone who bowls legspinners very well and bats in the top six, that is a big advantage to have.

"Mitchell and Ryan are world-class and they are good for our group.

"The one thing I'm really pleased about is they have really helped the young blokes out as well. That is the sort of stuff you only see behind the scenes.

"What they are doing off the ground has been exceptional, helping to mentor the young bowlers."

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