|
Feature :
Redefining Sub Continental Cricket |
By Sayak Roy,
Kolkata, published on Dec 3, 2005
The Officials of the cricket boards in the sub
continent seem to have little faith on Coaches
of their Nationality. All the four test-playing
nations from this part of the world have foreign
coaches. India has Greg Chapell, Pakistan has
Bob Woolmer, Sri Lanka has Tom Moody and even
the minnows of international cricket Bangladesh
have Dave Whatmore as their coach.
 These
four gentlemen are changing the outlook of
cricket in the sub continent. Undoubtedly
cricket is like a religion in all the four
concerned countries, and the idols of this
“CRICKET” religion are star players of each
team. The people of this part of the world are
more worried regarding their favourite player’s
performance, rather than their national team’s
performance. This is where the problem lies,
with the coaches of the national team. They are
not accustomed to this type of situation where
the star players get more attention than the
national team. None of them have really
hesitated from playing an important role in
leaving out the star players from the national
squad. The condition for a place in the team, to
them is very simple, that is performance. That
is the way things should go, but unfortunately
our cricket lovers are not accustomed to this.
So when they tried to introduce certain reforms
in the selection policies of their teams, the
fuss that is going on was bound to happen. The
cricket lovers of India cannot accept the
exclusion of Sourav Ganguly from the Indian
national team. I am sure had it been Sachin
Tendulkar in place of Sourav, the fans would
have gone even wilder. The same is the case with
the Pakistani speedster Shoaib Akhtar, who has
been in and out of the national team due to
different reasons. In Sri Lanka too the same
story follows, Sanath Jayasuriya has been
excluded from the Sri Lankan test team for the
test series in India against India. It
is the same story everywhere, which is for the
better of cricket. But when you leave out a
player who has a large fan following, a section
of the cricket lovers will turn against you, and
the best way of responding to that is keeping
quiet.
 Let’s
take a look back about these foreign coaches and
my mind tells me that Dave Whatmore was the
first foreign coach for an Asian team. The cool
minded Dave Whatmore, an Australian coached Sri
Lanka to its greatest achievement – that of
winning the Wills World Cup in 1996. Sri Lanka
were the One Day Kings in the mid 90s and they
were because of being a great fielding side and
a superbly fit outfit besides being a very well
planned side for a chase or while setting a
target . After Whatmore, they had gone in for
Bruce Yardley and John Dyson both Australians and
now it’s Tom Moody. Pakistan got its first
foreign coach in Englishman Richard Pybus and he
was no success as the Pakistan team and its
Board couldn’t get the desired output out of
him. Interestingly Pybus was one Coach who had
just played the one First Class game in his
entire career as a cricketer. Take that! For
India it was the soft spoken Kiwi John Wright
who was appointed in 2000.
It amazed me that the entire concept of having a
Coach for a National Team hasn’t always been
there in the history of the game. One program on
TV, Krishnamachary Srikkanth said that the 1983
World Cup winning side or the World Series
winning side in the mid 80s never had a coach
and his conclusion was simply that a coach is as
good as when the team is winning. Ian Chappel,
the Aussie legend had made a statement that
Coaches aren’t exactly essential for National
Sides. Then what exactly is the role of a Coach?
According to Karsan Ghavri, the Mumbai Coach – a
Coach’s job at the International level would be
to gel all the players together and hold them
all together as a unit like one family. Ghavri
mentioned in an interview, "that you don’t try to
teach Sachin Tendulkar how to bat and all that,
you can’t teach Anil Kumble how to bowl, because
these are the legends of Indian Cricket, for the
International players it is purely pumping
motivation and instilling self confidence in the
players".
The Indian team coach Greg Chappell has been hit
by controversies all the way so far and Bob
Woolmer in Pakistan had to face some wrath with
one gentlemen abusing him that he has come to
Pakistan only to spoil their cricket. But the
results are there to show, Pakistan has done
very well in India and now are doing well
against England inspite of them coming from a
dream Ashes, India has won 8 out of their last
11 games. The best way, to stay out of
controversies is to let the captain and the
coach manage the team in the best possible
methods. If that doesn’t works we can obviously
get back to our older methods. The change
brought about, by these gentlemen was really a
much-needed relief, because at the end of it,
it’s the nation, which matters, and not a
specific player, and it is for the better of
cricket.
So good luck, Mr. Greg Chappell, Mr. Bob Woolmer,
Mr. Tom Moody and Mr. Dave Whatmore! We wish the
sub continental cricket benefits from your
coaching.
Top of the Page
|
