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Reasons for the
appointment of Graham Ford as the Coach? |
A Feature by Syed Ahsan Ali
on June 10, 2007
 So
Graham Ford has been appointed as the
new Indian coach after months of
pondering and consultations. Hopefully,
he will do it for Indians what even the
top cricket minds failed to do,
transforming an always talented Indian
team into a winning Indian team. What
makes him the choice? There can be many
reasons for choosing Graham Ford for the
high profile and unimaginably lucrative
and full with pressures’ job. One thing
which is certain for Ford before
shouldering this huge responsibility
about the job is that it will not be
easy at all. I think in my earlier
column “What the BCCI has learnt from
the Chappell episode?” that BCCI should
not go for another authoritarian
personality who likes to talk hard and
for that uses different tactics. They
abstain from taking that kind of rushed
decision by rejecting Dev Whatmore. On
the contrary, they short listed two
characters John Emburey and Graham Ford
for the job who are from the outlook
don’t look like to be too imposing
figures.
Especially Emburey won’t be able to do
that with this star studded Indian side
because his credentials are not good
enough to do that kind of role. Whereas
Ford is known to be highly low key
person which has gone certainly in his
favor because of the growing influence
of media in Indian cricket, their first
choice should have been a person who can
resist the temptation of being seen in
newspapers often. Ford will not be like
that, he is not someone who will sit and
send text messages, emails from here,
there and everywhere to catch the public
eye. He is tailor made for that kind of
eschewing which is required in Indian
set-up if you possess celebrity status.
Here he got the first tick in his
favour.
Secondly, the thing which could have played a
part in his appointment may have been his
working experience with athletic South Africans.
BCCI may want him to change this Indian side
into a far more athletic and electrifying bunch
of players which is like gold in the current
cricket world with growing amount of cricket and
advantage attached with being agile and
proactive fielders. It will not be like an apple
pie. Turning Asians especially Indian and
Pakistani cricketers into natural fielders
proves to be the toughest part of every coach’s
job. Enhancing fitness can be achieved through
strenuous diet program, fitness drills, and
camps and all that highly scientific research
based techniques. Fielding is not just about
fitness. It is about the likeness for the task.
It comes after hours and hours of hard practice
on the field. It depends on your will. Can and
will Ford push them? It will not be easy for him
either.
Thirdly, he does not bring in too many
credentials with him. He is a former coach of
South Africans where he was very successful with
them. But other than that, he has his share of
success but nothing which could have grafted
another ego in a team where individuals are
fairly accomplished rather than a team. He
cannot say that he did this in that series, he
set the game up like that in 1980s against
England or he planned the dismissal of a certain
player like that in that famous series which
certainly cropped up a system based on “Look to
do it as I have been doing it over the years”.
Ford gets another tick in this box as well.
Hopefully, he will get things right with Indian
team because strong Asian teams are necessary
for balance of power in cricket world. At the
moment, it is polarized but has single pole.
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