China's softball team is trying to solve the problem of integrating foreign coaches into its traditional but cherished training system ahead of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

The team badly needs the advanced techniques introduced by foreign coaches but their management style can be too much for the players to handle, according to a top Chinese softball official.

Such worries have caused the sport's national administrative center to reshuffle the team's coaching line-up in March, replacing American head coach Michael Bastian with local veteran Wang Lihong. Bastian will stay with the team as the batting coach.

"Our cooperation was not smooth," Jiang Xunyun, deputy chief of the center and vice-president of the Chinese Softball Association (CSA), told China Daily. "On the technical side, he's got plenty of things for us to learn. However, we have very different ideas on how to mange the team."

Bastian, 44, began coaching the Chinese team in early 2006 as the first ever foreign head of the team. He soon fell out of favor with officials who believed the team spirit was fading due to the American's slack management of the normally disciplined squad.

Wang, also a former member of the coaching group, agrees.

"I don't mean his ideas were wrong but they did not work with the team because our players are used to the traditional management," she said. "It just takes time to change."

However, Chinese officials have returned to tried and tested methods under Wang - no one is allowed to use mobile phones or the Internet after 10pm, for example.

The team has a tough task of winning a medal at the Beijing Games. The team, silver medalists in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics and two-time world runners-up, achieved nothing of notice under Bastian's helm, placing a disappointing fourth in the World Championships and third in the Doha Asian Games last year.

"I hope we can work together in a better way while recognizing our differences," Jiang added.

Bastian was not available for comment.

In addition to achieving good results at the home Olympics, officials are promoting the game of softball in China by organizing a training camp for the public in Beijing on Sunday. The camp, also aided by Beijing Softball Association and Guangdong Hua Run Paint Company, is also part of the celebrations of June 13's "World Softball Day".

The sport is facing an uncertain future after it was axed from the London 2012 Olympics alongside baseball. To revive the sport, the International Softball Association (ISA) reached a five-year cooperative deal with CSA in 2003 - ISA will donate softball equipment to China from 2004-2008, hoping the sport will reach more people before the Beijing Games.

"We try to show the public that softball is very a smart and interesting game," Jiang said. "The game's influence in China has grown as we've held such activities every year from 2004."

Other efforts include introducing the sport into schools and universities.

(China Daily June 13, 2007)