Daniel Vettori's call came when Varun Aaron wasn't looking for a coaching job. Aaron had retired earlier in 2025, aged 35, and was enjoying broadcasting. Coaching had never been a formal plan, although he had been doing bits of it for years - while playing for Jharkhand, friends and teammates would ask for his thoughts on their bowling. And the injuries that interrupted his own career had forced him to spend considerable time understanding his body and his action.

"I think I've coached myself quite a bit because of the amount of injuries I've had," Aaron reflects in a chat with Cricketlineguruji. “And I've helped out a lot of friends. So coaching was something which was always ongoing. People would ask me for their views on their bowling, and I enjoyed just helping another person and making that impact."

There had been some more structured work too. The new MRF Pace Foundation High Performance Center was his brainchild, with Aaron designing and executing the facility, protocols and programme, as well as the redevelopment of the ground and gym, in a way giving back to an academy he spent years in. He later worked with the Jharkhand State Cricket Association as a bowling consultant.

He hadn't, however, been planning what came next. "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."

The task for Aaron in his first season involved putting together a bowling group and preparing young players. Given a say in the Sunrisers auction strategy, Praful Hinge and Sakib Hussain were among the young quicks that he set his sights on. "What I saw was not what they were doing, but what they could do, if that makes sense,” says Aaron. “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."

Hinge and Sakib made an immediate impact against Rajasthan Royals, bagging four-wicket hauls each in their first IPL game. By then Aaron had spent time getting them ready for the tournament, except the preparation had to fit around another job. Aaron was also broadcasting the T20 World Cup, which meant he was sometimes coaching Sakib around his commentary commitments - bringing him to Mumbai, broadcasting in the morning and coaching in the evening, or switching the order. As the World Cup schedule intensified and Aaron's travel increased, he sent Hinge and Saqib to the Rao Cricket Academy. SS Rao had been Aaron's captain at Jharkhand and was someone he trusted to continue the work without changing its purpose.

"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 weren't the only young bowlers who caught Aaron's eye, even if they were the highlights. "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."

For a first-time IPL coach, he also had strong backing. Vettori and Kavya Maran supported the bowlers Aaron wanted at the auction and made the resources available for him to work with them - whether it was camps, tracking devices or other equipment.

"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,” Aaron 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."

Having the backing of the franchise was one thing; translating it into day-to-day coaching was another. Aaron had plenty to draw on from his own career - a decade and a half spent understanding the mechanics of pace, the toll it takes, and how to keep it simple.

"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."

Simplicity, though, doesn't mean every bowler gets the same answer. "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."

Aaron also wants his bowlers to think for themselves and analyse their own performances, rather than relying on him as the authority.

"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 a young fast bowler, the speed gun can easily become the point of reference for everything. Aaron knows that from his own career, which sprung to prominence after he clocked 153kph in the 2010/11 Vijay Hazare Trophy final, back in the days when properly fast bowlers were rare in India. Speed is still one of the first things young bowlers want to talk to him about, and he offers a unique take on what it is that allows a bowler to maximise on pace.

"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."

Aaron spent much of his career trying to reconcile the desire for speed with what his body would allow. After making his Ranji Trophy debut in the 2008/09 season, he would suffer three stress fractures of the back. A similar setback followed his elevation to the Test side - further back troubles meant there was a gap of almost three years between his first Test in 2011 and his second in 2014. As a coach, he's now managing that same tension in other bowlers.

Having completed his first season in the IPL, Aaron has now landed a role with Glasgow Cosmics as their bowling coach in the inaugural European T20 Premier League, while he has continued to work in commentary. The combination, he admits, has made life hectic.

"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.

Demands on his time aside, Aaron sees benefit in carrying both of his roles.

"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."

For someone who never planned to become a coach, Aaron seems to have found something he genuinely wants to keep doing. "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.

"To see a bowler bowl a ball and smile is just beautiful. Because as fast bowlers, you're running in every day, breaking bones, tearing muscles and when all that labour comes to fruit, I totally relate to that. It's just one of the best feelings in life."

This is part of the Cricketlineguruji series - IPL Off-Season - where we will bring you stories from the T20 tournament all through the year. For more stories from the series, click here.