Varun Aaron: From Fast Bowler to IPL Coaching Architect

Varun Aaron thought he’d finally slipped into the easy lane.

Retired at 35, the former India quick was enjoying the relative calm of broadcasting, his body no longer screaming at him after every spell. Coaching wasn’t a project, let alone a plan. It was just something he did on the side – in dressing rooms, at nets, over casual chats with Jharkhand teammates who trusted the man who had spent half his career in rehab.

Then Daniel Vettori called.

One phone conversation later, Aaron was back in the thick of it, handed the reins of Sunrisers Hyderabad’s fast-bowling group and, remarkably, a major say in how it would be built.

From self-taught survivor to franchise architect

Aaron’s coaching journey didn’t begin with a job title. It began with pain.

“I think I've coached myself quite a bit because of the amount of injuries I've had,” he says. Years of stress fractures and comebacks had forced him to dissect his own action, understand his body, and strip fast bowling down to its essentials. Teammates noticed. They asked questions. He answered. And somewhere in those exchanges, a coach was taking shape.

There was structure, too. The new MRF Pace Foundation High Performance Center is very much his imprint – Aaron designed and executed the facility, the protocols, the programme, even oversaw the redevelopment of the ground and gym. It was his way of giving back to the academy that had once shaped him. A stint as bowling consultant with the Jharkhand State Cricket Association followed.

None of it, though, was part of a grand plan.

“After retiring, I really was not setting out any targets. I was not thinking, 'I want to coach, I want to commentate.' After having a journey which was hampered by injuries throughout, all I wanted to do was enjoy myself after retiring, and whatever came about after that just happened on its own. And then one day, Dan rang me up and asked me if I was interested to coach Sunrisers."

Just like that, the casual mentor became an IPL fast-bowling coach.

Spotting what others can’t see

The brief in his first season was clear: help put together a bowling group, prepare young quicks, and get them ready for the cauldron.

Crucially, Sunrisers didn’t just hand him a group. They handed him influence. Aaron had a say in auction strategy, and two names quickly drew his eye: Praful Hinge and Sakib Hussain.

"What I saw was not what they were doing, but what they could do,” Aaron says. “I had a feeling that we could achieve what I could envision they could do, which they weren't doing. I'm glad it just worked out."

It worked out spectacularly. Hinge and Sakib tore into Rajasthan Royals on IPL debut, each grabbing four-wicket hauls and announcing themselves as serious pace options. Those spells weren’t accidents. They were the product of weeks of preparation, squeezed into the gaps of a schedule that was already bursting.

Aaron was on T20 World Cup duty as a broadcaster at the time. His days became a juggling act: flying into Mumbai with Sakib, broadcasting in the morning and coaching in the evening, or flipping the order when required. As the World Cup tightened its grip on his calendar, he refused to let the work stall. Hinge and Sakib were sent to the Rao Cricket Academy, with a clear plan in hand.

"Me and SS Rao have a brotherly relationship,” Aaron says. “He was captain when I played for Jharkhand and I wanted them to go to somebody who I trust, and basically if I tell that person what has to be done, he does exactly that and nothing different. So I sent them there with a set of instructions that they have to do this, this, this, and he absolutely abided by it. Obviously, him being so experienced, his presence and his energy did so much good to them, also his coaching.”

Hinge and Sakib were the headline acts, but they weren’t alone.

"I think Shivang [Kumar] was unbelievable as well. And then you had Onkar [Tarmale] who hadn't played. He just got injured at the right time, so people didn't see him, but he's somebody who can move 145. We had some really good, interesting picks."

The pattern was obvious: Aaron wasn’t just looking at what a bowler was. He was betting on what they could become.

Freedom, trust, and a “free hand”

For a first-year IPL coach, the environment he walked into could hardly have been more generous.

"When you're empowered by the head coach and the team owner in that fashion, I really feel your job becomes all that much easier,” he admits. “I think I was really lucky to be a part of a brilliant team, because it's not very common that in your first year you get an almost free hand to do what you want to. Through that, I just felt I could express myself creatively in whatever I did and it was a lot of fun."

That freedom mattered. It allowed him to coach the way he thinks: individual-first, detail-heavy, stripped of clichés.

"Fast bowling is really simple, but I think as a player you complicate it a lot,” he explains. “You try different things. But at the end of the day, it just boils down to a few very basic principles. If you can simplify it or if you have somebody who can simplify it, then it just makes your journey a whole lot more enjoyable and easy."

Simple doesn’t mean one-size-fits-all. Aaron is adamant about that.

"There's no set method to coaching. It completely depends on the individual. I think every individual comes with certain skill sets. Number one, you've got to identify what's unique about the bowler. And amplify it. And if there are any shortcomings, you just have to make the bowler more efficient.

"Some bowlers just present with a beautiful action and they're able to execute whatever they want. And some bowlers just have injury history, have different actions which don't make it easy for them. So, that's when you have to do some work. Everybody's different. Every bowler presents differently. And I feel that's where coaching has to head, where you see every bowler as an individual because everybody has different musculature, everybody's got different minds, everybody's got different coordination, everybody's got different biomechanics."

Beyond “good” and “bad” days

Aaron’s own stop-start career has made him suspicious of lazy labels.

"I genuinely think that you can't look at somebody's performance and be like, 'Oh, that was a bad performance' or 'that was a good performance'. As a coach, I really feel you've got to find the reason behind a bad performance or a good performance. If it's a good performance, you should make sure that the bowler remembers why he or she performed well. And if it's a bad performance, it's something to take away from. You can learn from it. But if you just meander along day after day, just bowl, go home, bowl, go home, then it doesn't really add up to anything."

For young quicks, the temptation is obvious: chase the number on the speed gun, chase the highlight reel. Aaron understands that obsession better than most. His own career exploded after he hit 153kph in the 2010/11 Vijay Hazare Trophy final, at a time when genuine pace in India was still a rarity.

Speed remains the first thing many youngsters ask him about. He doesn’t dismiss it. He reframes it.

"Fast bowling is all about timing,” he says. “When you're batting, you want to time your initial movement correctly so you're in a balanced position, your head is stable and you have time to access the ball. In bowling, your timing has to be spot-on before you release the ball. If you boil it down to one thing, if your timing and the sequencing of your action is right, I think you've won the battle. You will bowl as fast as you can, you won't be injured and you bowl the ball where you want to. And you can only bowl as fast as you can. You can't bowl faster than your body is going to allow."

Those words carry the weight of experience. After his Ranji Trophy debut in 2008/09, Aaron endured three stress fractures of the back. When he broke into the Test side in 2011, more back trouble followed. There was a gap of almost three years between his first and second Test. Every comeback was a lesson in limits.

Now, he’s trying to keep others from repeating the same cycle.

Coaching box, commentary box, and the toll in between

The modern game doesn’t leave much room for stillness. Aaron is living proof.

"How do I balance that? That's a question you have to ask my girlfriend because she's not the happiest customer - I'm hardly at home. But, yeah, I'm trying to give her and my family more time. It is quite hectic, but it is very enjoyable," he says.

The double life has its advantages. Coaching has sharpened his eye as a broadcaster.

"It gives me a lot more insight. Obviously, you know a lot of players from before, but when you coach them, you know the inner depths of their mind. It helps you be a lot more predictive in your commentary because you know what the player does when he's under pressure. You know what the player's go-to ball is. You know what the player's field set is when he bowls a particular delivery. So, from that angle, coaching definitely helps broadcasters because you have a lot more recency and first-hand information about players. And like coaching helps broadcasting, sometimes broadcasting also helps coaching because I'm almost seeing all these players throughout different competitions."

He sees patterns others miss. He sees tells, habits, escape routes. He sees, in real time, how bowlers react when the game turns against them – and how they respond when it tilts their way.

A new calling, found late

For a man who never set out to be a coach, Aaron sounds utterly convinced about where he belongs now.

"What it has taught me about myself is that coaching gives me immense happiness. There is no greater joy than talking to a bowler after a session and he has achieved every single thing he wanted to from that session."

The fast bowler who once fought his own body for pace now spends his days helping others find theirs – with fewer scars, more understanding, and a clearer sense of why it all matters.