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Business News/ News / Business Of Life/  The search for Team India’s coach
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The search for Team India’s coach

With Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid being considered front-runners, this may be the first time in 15 years that there will be an Indian at the helm

Ganguly and Dravid (left). Photo: Gareth Copley/Getty ImagesPremium
Ganguly and Dravid (left). Photo: Gareth Copley/Getty Images

OTHERS :

The quest for a new coach is the next big soap opera of Indian cricket, and it will rule the airwaves for the next couple of weeks. Come Sunday, when the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) working committee meets formally in Kolkata to decide the modalities of selecting a successor to Duncan Fletcher, all kinds of names will be up for speculation.

At the forefront of the drama is this question: Has the time come for an Indian coach to take over Team India? Since the beginning of the new century, with the arrival of John Wright as India’s first foreign coach, cricket here has embraced the idea of an “outsider" at the helm of the national team. For 15 years, the Indian cricket team has always had a foreign coach, with mixed results. If Wright’s tenure was path-breaking in many ways, Greg Chappell’s tumultuous years were some of the most controversial. Gary Kirsten got universal applause for his outstanding contribution, but Fletcher has been much maligned despite some fine achievements.

However, it’s the emergence of Sanjay Bangar, Bharat Arun and R. Sridhar, the troika associated with the Indian team since August as support staff, that has caught the imagination of the Indian cricket fraternity. With “director of cricket" Ravi Shastri getting praise from almost every young player during the 2015 World Cup, many have argued that this arrangement should continue.

“I would prefer an Indian coach," says former Pakistan captain Wasim Akram, who is the team mentor/bowling coach of the Kolkata Knight Riders team in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL). “An Indian coach has a huge advantage of local language (read Hindi), especially in the subcontinent where many players come from such a background (that) when they talk to foreign coaches, they just nod in agreement, saying ‘yes, yes’, without understanding the message completely."

The trend of home-grown coaches is gaining prominence worldwide. Former West Indian pacer Ottis Gibson worked with the England cricket team for many years and then joined his national team as head coach, before being replaced by fellow West Indian Phil Simmons. The low-profile Simmons had worked previously with the Irish cricket team, winning plaudits for its outstanding performances over eight years. Troy Cooley, who played an important role in England winning the Ashes in 2005, went back to coaching in his country, Australia, after that historic triumph. Former Australian bowler Jason Gillespie, who worked as a coach for English county Yorkshire, has now joined the staff of the Adelaide Strikers Twenty20 (T20) team.

In Indian cricket, however, despite some magnificent turnarounds in domestic cricket by coaches like Debu Mitra (taking lowly Saurashtra to back-to-back Ranji Trophy semi-finals in 2006-08), Surendra Bhave (he took Maharashtra to a Ranji final after 21 years) and Tarak Sinha (Rajasthan won the Ranji trophy under him, before he lifted the Jharkhand team from the bottom rung), there is little acknowledgement of these performances.

So much so that among the eight teams in the IPL, Bangar is the only Indian head coach; the rest are all foreigners.

This time though, things are looking different when it comes to the national team. The two names doing the rounds as the most likely contenders for the coaching job are Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid; the latter has played a mentor’s role with the Rajasthan Royals and also joined the Indian team on last year’s tour of England as a batting consultant.

“The nationality of the next coach is irrelevant," says BCCI secretary Anurag Thakur. “We are open to anyone who has the right credentials. We are not rigid on desi (Indian) coach or videshi (foreigner) coach."

In the Capital on Tuesday, I asked former India captain Ganguly how serious he was about coaching the team. Ganguly smiled and said he had not thought about it at all.

But would he mind having a go at this challenge, especially with the likes of young and aggressive Virat Kohli as Test captain?

“Virat is a fantastic lad," Ganguly said, carefully avoiding the question on coaching. “Look at the way he is batting. I like this boy, and he is the future for India."

Coaching the Indian cricket team is one of the toughest jobs in sport, given the kind of expectations and chaos it brings with it.

“I think that with such a huge population which follows cricket so avidly, a coach’s job is tough," says the Australian John Buchanan, one of the most successful coaches in the history of the game. “But I think, in a sense, really good coaches have the capacity to put that aside and can do the job as it should be done."

Even though the move to make Shastri director of cricket, along with Bangar (assistant coach), Arun (bowling coach) and Sridhar (fielding coach), was viewed as a loud and clear signal that Fletcher was being stripped of his powers, the arrangement worked for Indian cricket.

During the World Cup, India looked a very sharp fielding unit and the consistency of the fast bowlers astonished everyone. Is it possible that India will opt for a consultant/team director/mentor type of arrangement instead of a head coach?

“No, I don’t think that kind of arrangement works. You need to have a head coach. Someone needs to be ultimately accountable for everything. It can’t be like so many people working together but none of them responsible for results," says Akram.

With the retirement of M.S. Dhoni from Test cricket, the new coach will have another challenge on hand. Kohli will be in charge of the Test team, while the One Day International (ODI) and T20 formats will have Dhoni as the leader. Both are distinct personalities and adjusting to two contrasting styles of leadership will be a challenge for the new coach.

“Dhoni and Kohli will be consulted before and their opinions will matter on the selection of the new coach. In the working committee meeting, we will discuss everything," says Thakur.

Can India even think of embracing a radical idea of having separate coaches for Test and ODI/T20 since they have two captains?

“Definitely, cricket has changed over the last one decade. It’s no longer the same as when I played! Certainly, this idea (of a separate coach for different formats) is worth exploring," says Akram.

Buchanan agrees: “I do certainly believe that that is the future but individual countries need to look at this very carefully. They need to look at various models in different sports. Look at soccer to some degree, where the coach is referred to as a manager rather than as coach. Sometimes, the term coach is a bit of a misnomer. I think there is real scope for countries and coaches to rethink and restructure how they operate now," he says, convinced that cricket can no longer ignore this issue.

Vimal Kumar is the author of The Cricket Fanatic’s Essential Guide and Sachin: Cricketer Of The Century.

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Published: 22 Apr 2015, 08:17 PM IST
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