COACHING TEAM INDIA

Whenever there is a vacancy arises for coaching Team India there is a debate of Foreign Coach vs Indian Coach. When names for Indian coaches are suggested, more fancied names like Mohinder Amarnath, Ravi Shastri, Sandeep Patil etc (Coached India briefly and also coached Kenya) would do the rounds. What about humble souls like Chandrakanth Pandit (Mumbai, now Maharashtra), Paras Mahambery (Bengal) and Pravin Amre (Mumbai) who coached the provincial sides very successfully? Sunil Gavaskar and Ravi Shastri are busy in media commitments and don’t have any coaching experience at first-class level despite their credentials. Rahul Dravid has done a fantastic job by bringing in both Robin Singh (coached India A team) and Venkatesh Prasad (coached India under-19 team) as fielding and bowling coaches respectively. I feel one of them will be made as chief coach in 2 or 3 years (My pick would be Robin Singh) if we opt for foreign coach now (BCCI has already short listed Graham Ford and John Emburey ). Next time if a name of an Indian is considered for coaching Team India it should be from the list of Robin, Prasad, Pandit, Mahambery and Amre not the likes of Amarnath. Otherwise I would pelt stones at all leading TV News Channel offices (for not projecting these deserving former players) and BCCI offices. All these former players have good work ethics and process and most importantly have coaching experience at first-class level.

REASON FOR HIRING FOREIGN COACH
Indian teams are traditionally known for its flair. We had only few players of method. Sunil Gavaskar and Rahul Dravid are example of method players. Just flair or just method cannot make a team champion. We need both these qualities. To inculcate method or process we need coaches from countries who are practitioners of method and work ethics. In next 5 years we will see former Indian cricketers being preferred as coaches. Likes of Dravid and Kumble will be available for coaching then.

BCCI NOT DOING ANY HOME WORK
BCCI did not advertise for the post of Indian coach. In the seven-member selection committee selecting the coach there was no place for chairman of selectors. It is very ridiculous. BCCI did not make any attempt to know about who are interested and their credentials. Is it the way a professional body functions? Rahul Dravid and other senior players took efforts to know about few possible candidates. It was Rahul Dravid who had recommended John Wright and it was Ganguly who had recommended Greg Chappell. Now it is again Rahul Dravid recommending Graham Ford. It is the players who are making all the efforts instead of BCCI.

EXPECTATIONS FROM NEW COACH
Please don’t expect too much from the new coach. A team is as good as its players. A coach is just an off-field associate captain as said by Imran Khan. During the tenure of John Wright we had most of our players in peak of their career, so we managed to have our best success period in Indian cricketing history. Sachin, Shewag, Laxman, Ganguly, Zaheer Khan, Harbhajan Singh, Anil Kumble (in tests) and above all Rahul Dravid were in peak. Now all of them have their gases dried with exception of Dravid and Kumble. Yuvraj (yet to establish in the test side), Dhoni and Munaf are the few bright spots. It is very hard to replace players like Sachin, Dravid, Sourav and Laxman. We need to groom talented youngsters. Actually Greg Chappell – Dravid combine tried to do this but they tried wrong youngsters. It is where the selectors come into picture in identifying right youngsters. So the job of the selectors is more crucial than coaching staff. Will the selectors be wise and bold?