Should John Bracewell, the craggy former New Zealand all-rounder, consider applying for the vacant New Zealand cricket coaching position he should buy the latest copy of the Wisden Cricketers' Almanack and borrow some comments from the famous and traditonally super-accurate bible for his CV.

Over the last three years Bracewell, after working his way through the coaching system with the Auckland Cricket Association, has been transforming the Gloucestershire side in England county cricket. In 1999 Bracewell took the Gloucestershire side by the scruff of the neck and they won the two one-day knockout cups.

Last year they became the first county to win all three one-day titles.

Now Bracewell is determined that Gloucestershire this year should win promotion to the first division of the county championship - the target Gloucestershire narrowly failed to hit last year.

In the latest Wisden, which has changed editors from Matthew Engel to the New Zealander Graeme Wright with no loss of quality nor breadth of cricketing coverage, Bracewell shares a feature article with Duncan Fletcher, the former Zimbabwean who has transformed England.

The article has been penned by Scyld Berry, the scholarly and very perceptive cricket commentator now writing for the Sunday Telegraph.

Berry said Bracewell found Gloucestershire almost totally dependent on the fast bowling of Courtney Walsh, the West Indian who has become the most successful bowler in Test cricket.

The county, and Bracewell, decided to concentrate first on one-day cricket, and it was the first of Bracewell's master-strokes that the county engaged the Australian all-rounder Ian Harvey.

"Even then," writes Berry, "no county looked less likely to become the overwhelming force in one-day cricket than the team with Jack Russell [the former England keeper-batsman] as the one player of real note, and a tradition of being one of the poorest fielding sides.

"But at least Gloucestershire's players were ready for the challenge.

"Bracewell admits he was lucky to inherit a captain and a young first-team squad eager to move forward.

'Far better coaches than me have come over here and not found a reception. Our guys are taking control over their own lives and destinies as athletes,' said Bracewell.

Berry points out that Bracewell changed his players' eating habits and fitness training, as well as their attitude to cricket.

"Bracewell had to take the lead, and often to be seen to finish first in training, followed by Kim Barnett (aged 40) and Jack Russell (37) ... Bracewell believes that a democratic structure is ideal for cricket, but the autocratic model usually has to precede it."

Berry writes that Bracewell learned a valuable lesson from Bobby Simpson, the man who transformed the conduct of the Australians and laid the foundation for the present peaks of success.

"Bracewell was impressed by the way Simpson threw out the players who were not going to 'grow,' and drilled the team in the basics. He also borrowed the tactic, used by Simpson in their 1987 World Cup victory, of returning the ball to the keeper on the bounce to soften it.

"It was not long hours of tedious fielding practice that made Gloucestershire the best. It was talking individually to each player, starting with what he wanted to achieve in life, and narrowing it down to where he wanted to field.

"Now Bracewell's players usually practice in pairs, simulating the same angles as in match situations.

'We'd have won the Championship in the eighties if he had been around,' said the county second-team coach Tony Wright, when discussing Bracewell's methods.

'What scares me most about English sportsmen is their fear of success and hard work,' Bracewell told Berry.

"By winning five trophies in two seasons with a team that had won nothing," wrote Berry, "Bracewell - like England under Fletcher - is beginning to change this culture."

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