MRF PACE FOUNDATION – THE UNSUNG CORPORATE IN CRICKET

This is a period where most of the leading corporates in India are interested in Cricket. The only reason is the amount of money at stake. I am not saying that they are modern day Shylock’s. Earning money is not a bad thing at all. But how many of them invest the money for actual development of the game. There are only few corporates who contribute to actual development of the game and MRF is the leader among those few.

MRF PACE FOUNDATION - WEB SITE

MRF Pace Foundation was established in 1987 by MRF, the leading tyre manufacturers in India. This Pace Foundation runs under the guidance of legendary Australian fast bowler Dennis Lillee. T.A. Sekar, former Indian Pace Bowler, is the Chief Coach of this Pace Foundation. It has been the breeding ground for supplying pace bowlers to India. The bowlers having problems with their injury, their form, technique etc would come here and go back as refined and improved bowlers. It not only trains the Indian bowlers but also bowlers form other countries. Sreesanth, RP Singh, Munaf, Irfan and many owe their success to MRF Pace Foundation.

They have well-planned and scientific process in place. They look after the diet, workouts and every other aspects of a fast bowler. They have necessary facilities to nurture and train the fast bowlers. I hope other corporates too follow the footsteps of MRF in promoting the game at grass root levels. The corporates can follow this endeavor in other sports as well. MRF has a great share in well being of Indian fast bowling fortunes.

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?

ROLE OF COACHING STAFF

In team games like Hockey and Football, coach is the boss. The captain of the team plays second fiddle. Those games are such that they need that kind of set up. But in Cricket, captain is the boss. Coach play assisting role. But after the advent of Bob Simpson and Bob Woolmer, the coaches in Cricket also begin to have prominent place. Bob Simpson along with captain Allan Border had brought a great change in Australian cricket. Bob Woolmer and Hansie Cronje duo was one of the most successful pair in world cricket.

By each passing year, role of coach is getting more attention. There is an illusion that role of coach is more important. But ultimately players and captain are going to do the job. The role of captain gets diminishing and coach gets increasing. Yes we need coaches, not at the expense of the captain. Cricket is a game, which needs captain to be the boss. There is too much emphasis on strategies and fitness than on skills. I accept that strategies and fitness are also important things but not foremost things. In a recent interview, Ian Chappell said that contribution of coach is 5%, contribution of captain is 15% and that of players is remaining 80%.

There is lot of criticism about Greg Chappell that he is the boss and he controls every thing. But who knows the inside truth? Rahul might be having all the say. There must be good relationship between a captain and a coach. I think they have good rapport. I hope Rahul would be more assertive and the boss of the team. There is talk about need of bowling coach for India. BCCI is one of the richest sporting bodies in the world; they can certainly afford to have a bowling coach for Indian team.

Greg could have concentrated on improving batting skills of tail enders or low order batsmen rather than batting order of top order batsmen. Yes, after arrival of Dhoni and Pathan our lower-order batting looks better. But consistency and common sense of remaining lower-order batsmen are worse. See other teams, tail enders are playing with lot of common sense. Our bowling and batting at death are very worse. I know the team management must have addressed these issues. But results are not showing.