Former captain Rahul Dravid believes that Duncan Fletcher has a lot to offer in Indian cricket and said the Zimbabwean should be given more power in team selection to prosper as coach.
“Duncan has a lot of strength as a coach. He connects well with a lot of players and works quite well with them. But, in some ways, the scope or power that he has to make decisions or to make selections has been a little limited,” he said.
“Some of these people (coaches) do have the maturity to be able to understand that when players come to them with a problem, they don’t necessarily use that as a way to drop someone. But also the coach sees players from such close quarters, he understands players. So I think he (Fletcher) must have a say (in selection),” Dravid said on Time Out, ESPNcricinfo’s fortnightly audio podcast.
Dravid called for giving more power to Fletcher and making him accountable.
“You want to give people powers and you want to hold them accountable, especially when you have senior, knowledgeable people like Duncan,” he said.
“I think his reputation is on the line as well. I think, knowing someone like him, he would want to get more involved and have a say in where his own career and his own reputation is headed,” he added.
The former skipper, however, feels that in the last three-four years, the role of coach in team selection has diminished.
“I remember John Wright or Greg Chappell consistently attending selection committee meetings, watching domestic matches. I think over the last three-four years we’ve seen that coaches have taken a slightly more detached, or slightly more backward, role to our selections. I don’t think Gary watched a lot of domestic cricket. Duncan has not really done that as well,” said Dravid.
Keywords: Team India, Rahul Dravid, Duncan Fletcher
Mr. Rahul Dravid is right. But let also admit that selection process
in India is essentially a balancing exercise between regions, with
each regional cricket association trying hard to influence the section
process. This is the reality and that makes selection process quite
intriguing too. Secondly, we have still not been able to have in place
a system of evaluation of performance of our players on a continuous
basis, based on some cumulative average. A consistently good
performance in Ranaji matches does not ensure a player a place in Team
India or a poor performance of a test player over a long stretch is
sometimes ignored to give benefit to the concerned player. The
selection committee of Board of Cricket Control of India should use
all kinds of statistics about players’ performance. But statistical
analysis alone is not good enough and it is here that participation of
coach of Indian team can be helpful.
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