Ronchi adds a dash of New Zealand to the 'Islamabad way'

Sometimes, it can feel like Luke Ronchi's coaching arc is only about following in Mike Hesson's footsteps.

The 45-year-old Ronchi has now been New Zealand's batting coach for six years, coming into the set-up two years on from Hesson's departure after six years at the helm. In 2023, Hesson was appointed coach of Islamabad United, serving a two-year stint that included a PSL title in 2024. His replacement at United? Former United player Ronchi.

Ronchi laughs loudly at the thought. "I have a different vibe to Mike Hesson," he tells ESPNcricinfo. "That's just through our own experiences. That's the way cricket is. That's what I like about the game now. It's people's different experiences. It'd be quite a boring game if everyone did it the exact same way all the time.

"My remit is [not to re-implement what Hesson has done but] to bring my own personal character. When you look at where Hess has been and where I've been as well, I can understand that comparison. But still we're different personalities, we think differently about the game, and we also have paths we're all on, but it's doing it differently. So it may look like that, but it's not quite the same."

For Ronchi, the United set-up is not exactly unfamiliar. He was a player at the franchise for three seasons from 2018 to 2020, and far and away the league's best batter during United's march to the title in 2018. He finished as the tournament's highest run-scorer, picking up the Player-of-the-Match award in the final, as well as the Player-of-the-Tournament award. No player in PSL history has a higher powerplay strike rate than Ronchi's - in excess of 182 - even now.

All while, as Ronchi put it, he wasn't "worried about my own cricket". In his late 30s, his eyes had already turned to helping other players around him. As events took their course, he naturally gravitated to coaching.

"It's something like I did for a while with the New Zealand team," Ronchi said. "Whenever I was on Test tours, I was a back-up player, so I was helping players out then anyway. Throwing balls and talking about cricket, their game plans and all that sort of thing. And then once I'd finished international cricket, I got into the franchise system. I wasn't so worried about my own cricket, it was like helping others and growing the game around different teams I've been to. I had a few experiences involved within that which made me like the coaching direction things were going in."

In the early days of Covid, as cricket wound down, a coaching opportunity popped up at New Zealand Cricket. Ronchi applied, got the role, and never left. He has now been the side's all-format batting coach for six years. But, with United looking for a coach, and determined to find someone with their DNA, Ronchi was a top target.

"Pakistan is the future for what this competition is about. If you're just thinking about winning this every year, I think you get a bit short-sighted. You want to win, but there is a bigger picture in mind as well, which is to produce players for Pakistan which Islamabad have done really well" Luke Ronchi

With Ronchi keen to grow further as a coach in a different environment, a deal was worked out. It involved him missing a few series with New Zealand, and Ronchi is grateful to both sides for making it work.

Upon first glance, it can look as if nothing has changed at United. They have the same owners and team manager. Six years on, Shadab Khan, whom Ronchi played under during his time, is still the United captain. And when he arrived, Ronchi found that his old franchise had done some growing of its own.

"There are going to be natural progressions of what happens in organisations," Ronchi said. "I finished it in 2020, so now it's effectively six seasons later. So it is a big change. Shadab may still be there but it's also the growth of everyone. Shaddy has grown from the cricketer he was then to what he is now. The squad is very different, which it's going to be; that's the nature of franchise cricket, but also the nature of the PSL this year with new teams.

"But I'm bringing in my style as well. You've got to make sure that I'm working the way I want to work and also making sure that the Islamabad way of working is mixed in with that, the way Shadab likes to work as well. It's about making sure you all marry up well together and hopefully get the result you're after at the end of it. I think it's learnings from every side of it; you can see different culture aspects, different cricketing minds, it's all working. But again, if it gets the result that you're after, then that's ideal."

Ronchi understands, though, that for United, it isn't just about results. The PSL plays second fiddle to Pakistan's international cricket, with one of its biggest selling points the platform it provides young cricketers to showcase a potential they may, hopefully, replicate at the international stage. There has historically been a steady flow of management staff as well as core players - particularly batters and allrounders - from United to the Pakistan team over the years, and United have never been shy of proselytising that their way of playing T20 cricket is what Pakistan's way of playing T20 cricket should be.

"Pakistan is the future for what this competition is about," Ronchi said. "If you're just thinking about winning this every year, I think you get a bit short-sighted. You want to win, but there is a bigger picture in mind as well, which is to produce players for Pakistan which Islamabad have done really well.

"Which we've got here; we've got a good group of players that can adapt to different conditions and surfaces. Which I think is vital for, not just T20 cricket, but cricket in general, international cricket. It's the PSL, so you want to produce young Pakistani cricketers to go into international cricket across the board. It's a good mindset to have to produce for the future."

And United have been masters of showing, rather than telling. They have the joint-most PSL titles, and having made their way into the playoffs, have a chance to pull ahead outright with a fourth crown in 11 years. Some of that, perhaps, comes down to the slightly laissez-faire culture United have been keen to create, and eager to portray; in a country where cricket gets taken far too seriously, and appearing not to care enough can attract criticism, United try to take the emotion out of it. "Dimagh se" [With the head, not the heart], as their slogan goes.

And United's new coach exudes that affable nonchalance. "Why would I want to add extra pressure on the guys," he throws his hands up, almost in bewilderment. "There's a passion inside that you want to do well and you want to help guys as much as you can and you read the game in certain ways. But I like to be relaxed, I like to enjoy what I'm doing and I also understand that for me as a coach when the guys are out there playing, they're the ones actually doing the work and it's my job to help. I'm supposed to let the guys do their thing there and just try to stay as relaxed as I can be."

That New Zealand vibe seems to fit United's environment just fine. Ronchi strikes that balance of being a cerebral coach, respectful of data analytics and the more technical side of the game without sounding evangelical about it in a way that tends to rankle.

"I believe in the fact that if you know your cricket you can see players that understand what type of play is going to fit in the environment that you'll try to create as a coach," he said. "It's the use of a few different methods instead of it just being one way or the other."

Those methods have brought New Zealand plenty of success over the half-dozen years Ronchi has been there, even if it hasn't quite translated into the silverware Ronchi would have liked. "To win one white-ball tournament would be nice," he smiles wistfully.

At United, though, getting over the line has never been much of a problem - the side has never lost a PSL final. And if United can negotiate their tricky playoff passage through to Sunday, Ronchi may be going back to New Zealand not just with his coaching horizons broadened, but a little bit more luggage than he initially arrived with. A PSL trophy with United. That's another thing Hesson won a couple of years ago.

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