"Give yourselves three months" - Robin Uthappa opens up on making technical changes, communication between coaches and players

Former India cricketer Robin Uthappa opened up on making technical changes as a player and the communication a coach should have with an athlete. He believes that players should give themselves at least three months to adapt to changes.

"One of the things that I think coaches need to be able to communicate to players and athlete at this point is when you're making a technical shift or a technical alteration in your batting or bowling, give yourself three months because it's not going to happen in three weeks because for the muscle memory to build and for it to be ingrained. The second nature is going to take that much time," he said on his YouTube channel. (10:16)

Talking in depth about technique, Robin Uthappa also stressed the importance of familiarizing one's brain and mind with the approach they wish to take. Highlighting that each individual had a different technique, Uthappa added that there was no perfect way to play any sport.

"There's like as close to perfect technique, based on what is your technique, everyone holds the bat differently. Everyone picks up the bat differently. Biomechanically, everyone's different - height, weight, the way they perceive which is their strong eye, the left eye, the right eye, how they picking the depth of the ball that's coming towards them. So everything is so different. There's no one-size-fits-all. As far as technique is concerned, you've got to find that one thing that works for you. Every technique has got limitations," he explained. (18:04)

Robin Uthappa is currently with the India Champions team at the World Championship of Legends (WCL) 2025. He retired from all forms of international and Indian cricket in 2022. Notably, he was a part of the Indian team that won the inaugural T20 World Cup in 2007.

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There are limitations to every person's technique, believes Robin Uthappa

Robin Uthappa emphasized that every player's technique had limitations and cited the example of Virat Kohli, who made adjustments to play a certain way. Uthappa added:

"If Virat Kohli wants to play square of the wicket on the off side, he has spoken about this as well, where he opens the way he holds the bat just the access that side of the ground. So there are limitations to every person's technique. You have to understand and if you know that, then you know your game a lot. You take that part of you into every game based on the nature of the wicket and who is bowling at you," he said. (19:09)

The right-hander reflected that every batter has a unique way to get into the zone. He feels it takes self-awareness to own and know your game well.

"Getting into the zone is an individual journey. From there, it's that athlete's journey down to the next level of getting into the zone and again, that takes a level of self-awareness about your own game and knowing your game really, really well. And saying, okay, this is my game. I'm clear about what my game is, what my strengths are, what my strong shots are, what my weaknesses are, which are the balls I need to defend, which are the balls that I can actually back myself in play shots," he added. (20:40)

Building on the same, he also spoke about how it was important for a batter not to think about having to get into the zone again once they were there.

Robin Uthappa played 46 ODIs and 13 T20Is for India, scoring 934 and 249 runs, respectively. He had a successful domestic career, making 9446 runs from 142 first-class matches with 22 hundreds. Uthappa also piled on 4952 runs from 205 IPL matches. His best phase in the league came with the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR).