Simon Harmer’s life transformed during a 10-day indoor nets session in Mumbai in 2016, long before he returned to India as a polished, battle-hardened off-spinner with ten years of reinvention under his belt. Harmer refers to it as the “ammunition” that helped him rebuild his career.
The unconventional, traveling maidan coach responsible for that change, Umesh Patwal, describes it as something more straightforward: sheer hunger.
“He’s not a giving-up guy,” recalling the ten-day marathon he forced Harmer to endure nine years ago, Patwal said.
“He looked frustrated in the first couple of days but he kept at it… he wanted to change his life. Kept doing it.”
The routine was almost cruel. Breakfast meetings evolved into sessions from 7.30 to 9.30 am, then another block until 1 pm, and finally three to four hours in the evening. Harmer drilled, failed, and recalibrated every day in the heat and humidity.
“It was draining and rigorous,” Patwal says. “But he never gave up.”
The key to Harmer’s comeback would be his perseverance and Patwal’s unconventional approaches. The pressure of expectations had caused Harmer’s first international stint to fall apart. He was a productive domestic bowler when he joined the Test team in 2015, but the 0-3 humiliation of South Africa in India left him scarred.
“Perhaps in 2015 when I got dropped… that was when I realised I wasn’t good enough,” Harmer acknowledged after the day’s play that his success was largely due to Patwal’s guidance, giving the Mumbai coach full credit after his 4/30 sparked India’s collapse for 189.
In addition to having the in-form Dhruv Jurel to give South Africa hope, he skillfully tore through India’s left-handers.
“I came back to India in 2016 to work with Umesh Patwal in Mumbai and I discovered a lot about spin bowling that I didn’t know. That gave me the ammunition to get better and become a decent spinner.”
That “ammunition” came from ideas that would make traditional coaches squirm. Conventional wisdom says you tighten the grip to generate more revs; Patwal preached the opposite — loosen the hold and let the thumb do the heavy lifting. The change didn’t come overnight. It clicked slowly, and often painfully.
After months of practice, Harmer didn’t see a change until late in a county match against Middlesex.
“It was the little things learnt in India that helped me,” he later reflected.
Patwal is one of the most well-known and subtly important coaches in Indian cricket. A Division A cricketer on Mumbai Maidans, he has coached Afghanistan, helping them achieve T20 and ODI status and working with Mohammad Nabi and Asghar Stanikzai. When they played their first Test in Bengaluru in 2018, he was also their batting coach.
In addition, he coached England Women prior to a World Cup, worked with Nepal during the 2018 World Cup Qualifiers, and developed New Zealand internationals like Grant Elliott and Ish Sodhi.
Now 51, serves as the spin-bowling coach for the U-23 Assam team. Next week, when Guwahati hosts its first Test match, he will meet Harmer again.
Following his tenure with Patwal, Harmer joined Essex as a Kolpak player in 2017 and rose to prominence as one of the most formidable operators on the county circuit. He topped the charts in 2019, 2020, and 2022 and has never finished outside of the Championship’s top ten wicket-takers.
With persistent precision, faster spin, and subtle variations refined on flat surfaces where loop alone wasn’t sufficient, he bowled Essex to titles. Harmer was no longer the nervous youngster attempting to emulate R Ashwin “bowling like a jet” after Brexit halted Kolpak deals.
“I’m a lot more confident in my ability,” he said. “I don’t have as many doubts as I did back then.”
Patwal thinks the best is yet to come.
“I still feel he has at least four-five years left in him and will play a decisive role in this series,” he said. “South Africa may not win this match but definitely in Guwahati he will be the X-factor. Conditions will be alien.”
“He wanted to change his life,” Patwal said. “That’s what made the difference.”
