You need wise men to show direction to the green horns. That has been the culture of this great country from ages. It has held forte for so many centuries as a tried and tested way of life. But blindly following what the west is doing will get us nowhere
BY HEMANT ANGLE
With the recent successes of our Indian team in the ongoing World Cup a question has cropped up in my mind. Does team India need a ‘Coach’? With Ravi Shastri appointed as the director of the Indian team, it is evident that the BCCI has come to the conclusion that the coach is dispensable. By appointing Ravi Shastri mid-way of the tour of England which was disastrous from the India point of view, it was noted that the failure of Duncan Fletcher as a ‘motivator’ of the Indian team had failed on all fronts. And therefore instead of removing him and pay heavy compensation the board had a better idea and appointed Shastri as the director. This has paid dividends at least in the World Cup.
I have asked this question to our readers many times as and when the question of a coach for our Indian team crops up. I have had discussions with many of my colleagues and cricket players/lovers at large. It is accepted by most of the persons that Team India does not need a coach but needs a back up to the captain to sort out things when the captain is on the ground. It was also accepted that the so-called coach is not exactly a teacher but a strategist or an expert reader of the game.
By the term ‘reader of the game’, it suggests that the person has to but in a lot of thought while the game is on and analyse it quickly to send a message to the captain. Now after the captain reads the message, he should take it as a suggestion and not as an order. The captain can still carry on with his strategy, which was devised before as he can still rely on his own judgement.
Therefore, the term ‘coach’ is, to my mind, a misnomer as far as the senior national or even the Ranji team is concerned. A senior state player, who has found a place in the team after scoring a lot of runs or capturing large number of wickets, need not be coached how to bat or bowl. If he ventures to do that then he is going to do more damage than good as sometimes a sudden change could cost the bowler heavily and may lose his rhythm as has happened to our Irfan Pathan. The batsman also has scored a lot of runs to come into the national side and is mature enough to correct his technique by himself if he is in a quandary. However, for a senior team the term could be ‘cricket manager’. In earlier times, this designation was given to the person who was a former cricketer and respected by the team. He would do what Ravi Shastri did in Bangladesh. That is help the team in devising strategies and most importantly keep the morale of the team high. This to my mind is the prime job of the coach of the National team. There could be various trainers to keep the cricketers fit and specific coaches could handle each department, as B Arun and R Shridhar are doing.
Basically a coach is a teacher. Like a teacher in school, a coach teaches ABC of cricket to the impressionable mind. He drills him to near perfection on all the skills of the game. He organises various representative matches and allows the student to learn that ‘temperament’ is a skill which the coach cannot teach the student. This job is done continuously till about the age of 19/20 when the trainee is supposed to mature into a self thinking or mature player. A coach is needed by the junior player who actually teaches him the techniques and skills of the game. He should be with the player until about 20 years of age when the athlete is supposed to reach his potential. After that, the player becomes mature enough to gauge his own shortcomings and act to overcome them. He does that by trial and error method and when he is doing that, he is slowly eliminating the faults in his techniques and becomes a better player. This act of faultfinding and correction adds on to the temperament of the players without which the player cannot play well in the highest form of cricket.
Therefore, to my mind, this brouhaha of appointing coaches for national cricket team is unnecessary. The Board is simply aping other Boards and following them blindly. Recent events could throw light on this superfluous exercise. Pakistan played Sri Lanka in the gulf without a coach and did excellently. India played Bangladesh in Bangladesh with a manager and did excellently.
Chandu Borde, former captain of India, was appointed manager of the Indian team to tour South Africa in 2007, after the end of the contract with Coach Kirsten. These cricketers are no strangers to Chandu Borde as he was the manager of the Indian team when India visited Pakistan under Saurav Ganguly in 2003-04. This tour was dubbed as ‘Sadhbhavana Series’ as relations between the two countries were getting friendlier. It was also seen with the crowds cheering the Indian team, which could not have been even dreamt earlier. The Board found it fit to garner Borde because of his amiable and non-controversial behaviour. Therefore, I have called him ‘man Friday’. In all the tours that Borde has been appointed as manager, the team has won or has done extremely well. Therefore where is the ‘coach’?
It was no surprise that it has dawned on the BCCI that this fad for scouting for foreign coaches is getting the Indian cricket nowhere. It is the truth that has now come forward that the Indian team does not need a ‘coach’. That it needs the manager or an elder brother to guide them is now endorsed by some of the members (cricketers) of the Board. Raj Singh Dungarpur is on record saying that the Indian team does not require a coach. Ravi Shastri has proved that the earlier ‘Cricketing Manager’ post was the wise choice with the trainer keeping the team fit.
You need wise men to show direction to the green horns. That has been the culture of this great country from ages. It has held forte for so many centuries as a tried and tested way of life. But blindly following what the west is doing will get us nowhere.
India possesses many past players who would fit the bill as ‘cricket managers’ and therefore we need not look for foreigners to ‘manage’ us.