Ravi Shastri is back with the Indian team, and this time in the avatar of head coach. After his previous two stints as Team Manager (in 2007) and Team Director (starting in 2014), this is the first time Shastri is officially the coach of the Indian team. His appointment has come at the end of the circus surrounding the position, with Anil Kumble’s rather unceremonious exit.

On Wednesday, Shastri gave his first full press conference as the India coach ahead of the team’s departure to Sri Lanka for a three-Test series, Sitting alongside Virat Kohli, Shastri had a few quotable quotes, which should not come as a surprise.

Shastri started with how the focus will always be on players.

“The team has done exceedingly well over three years and they are the people who deserve the credit more than anybody else. The Ravi Shastris and Anil Kumbles will come and go. The fabric of Indian cricket will remain and the credit should go to everyone who has participated in this Indian team over the last three years. If they are No. 1 today [in Tests], it is their efforts they have put in over that three-year period and they deserve the credit. People like us will come and go”    

— Ravi Shastri, July 19 2017

Well, of course. That’s where he is meant to different from Anil Kumble, right?

Turns out, Kumble said almost the exact same thing, an year ago:

“It is not about Anil or Ravi, it is not about the head coach. It is about the players, it is about the team. And from my point of view, whether it is me or Ravi or any Indian, we all want the Indian team to do well. We all want the Indian team to perform at its best. We all believe that there is potential for the Indian team to be the best in all three formats.”  

— Anil Kumble, June 29 2016

How about that?

There were a few more similarities too, with both coaches laying down the importance of communication between the staff and players.

“When you play the game, you want your mind clear. You want to be able to focus inwards without a care in the world for anything outside. That happens with good communication with the support staff. My job is to do exactly that with every player - to put him in a frame of mind where he is thinking only about his role and he is thinking about the team he is playing for and, of course, the opposition which we always respect. And that’s his job, period.”

— Ravi Shastri, July 19 2017

And Kumble had toed a similar line back then as well, saying he knew “the roles and boundaries as a coach.”

“From a coach, all I sought was organised preparations for the team and informed inputs to the captain and the team to strategise better... That’s something I sought as a player because it was not always that I played in every team that played for India during my time. I was dropped, I was not chosen for tours... I understand that communication at such times is very critical. For the coach to pick up the phone and send the message, ‘Don’t worry you are still part of the team.’ That’s what I will look to do. Hopefully I will be able to succeed in telling people who are part of the system that they will always be part of it.”

— Anil Kumble, June 29 2016

Where the two did differ was while discussing the role of a bowling coach. While Kumble never had a bowling coach during his tenure, Shastri was quick to get Bharat Arun, his former team–mate and former colleague in the back-room, appointed for the position – a man who he backed, vehemently.

“Look at his track record. It’s outstanding. He’s been a coach for 15 years and has been part of the system right from the A-teams, junior World Cup teams. He knows these boys better than I do. If you look at the 2015 World Cup [where Arun was the bowling coach], India took 77 out of the possible 80 wickets. If Bharat Arun’s name was someone else who played a lot of Tests, you would have put him on top of the tree.”  

— Ravi Shastri, July 19 2017

Kumble on the other hand, wanted to gauge the bowlers and pretty much hinted that he’s

“At this point in time, I thought that with the bowlers, it is the strategy that I can certainly play a part of and that’s something which I am looking at, trying to get closer to the bowlers, understanding what their needs are and then looking at probably bringing in...” 

— Anil Kumble, June 29 2016

Maybe Kumble and Shastri were not that different after all, but it goes to show that there’s more to being a coach than just saying the right things in a press conference.