A fortnight of debate and speculations surrounded the appointment of coaches for the Indian and English cricket teams. The new director of ECB Andrew Strauss went about interviewing prospective coaches as if the experienced English team had no chance of improving the winning ratios without a coach.
The situation in India is nothing short of comical, with many agencies and sections of the media virtually campaigning for Sourav Ganguly to be the coach. The media has gone on about the credentials and contributions of Ganguly only to miss the fact that he has no experience coaching.
A question that precedes all this commotion is this, does an international cricket team need a coach at all? One school of thought advocated by Ian Chappell is that it is the captains, and not coaches, who win matches.
Sunil Gavaskar presents a different strand of thought; he opines that international players need a mentor. There have been many cases of a team cracking when the coach and captain have not been on the same page. In such a case, what use is a coach’s expertise with regard to technique and strategy?
In modern cricket, a contingent comprises about a dozen support staff, each with their own expertise and a highly specific role. In such a scenario, the roles of the captain and the head coach, or the director of the team, is of utmost importance. Their job is to coordinate and communicate strategy management with the rest of the team and ensure that everyone is pulling in the same direction. The entire process then is not merely about physical exercises and techniques at the international level, but about processes, communication and mental fortitude.
CatalystIn short, a coach is a catalyst between the support staff and the players. It is his responsibility to ensure everything moves like a well-oiled machine. Historically, the BCCI has considered the opinions of the captain and senior members of the team — though the Ganguly-Chappell saga has not been forgotten.
Like any reputed institution would be, the BCCI is weary of its authority being challenged. Hence, Rajsingh Dungarpur asked Colin Cowdrey this question regarding John Wright, who was then the coach of Kent. Dungarpur had witnessed the methods employed by Indian coaches in the 90s and was looking for a coach who could bring a professional approach to the job.
As has been mentioned in my previous columns, the Indian team cannot afford to have two power centres. Ravi Shastri and the rest of the support staff have developed a very good rapport with the team. The induction of a coach at this point will throw in many unknown variables into a system that has started to settle down and gel well.
Such a move will be a huge gamble especially when the captain of the Test team is completely inexperienced. As if these factors were not a challenging enough task to untangle, the BCCI has added more problems to its own mandate. The announcement of the appointment of an advisory committee comprising Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and V.V.S. Laxman adds to the list of committees appointed by the BCCI.
The other committees functioning currently are the technical committee and the NCA committee. The NCA committee as of this year comprises 19 members!
Will the advisory committee be interacting with these two committees? The problem with this mix is lack of defined roles, jumbled channels of communication, and unclear structure of authority. Why is the BCCI appointing all these committees? What is the defined role of each of them?
Ideally, Ravi Shastri for the seniors and Rahul Dravid for the under-19 and ‘A’ teams will be an effective combination. At the moment, there is no follow-up of junior players. The pool of young, talented performers is getting sucked by T20 without making the technical base solid. It is here that they need a mentor. Shastri and Dravid can fulfill that responsibility.
