Indian team needs a mentor

The best thing that has happened to Indian cricket is that two tours are taking place and that will offer enough opportunity to 30 players to showcase their talent.

Talent plus performance is what the selectors should be looking at and to be fair to the selectors they have done that. If the tour management messes with permutations and combinations, it's not the fault of the selectors.

There are lessons to be learnt from the fiasco of the ICC World T20.

Going by the stories that appeared in newspapers in England and Australia, both the teams prepared systematically and planned meticulously.

The Indians on the other hand never had the time to prepare and not having prepared, weren't confident of putting whatever plan they had into practice.

With eight months to go for the World Cup 2011, the BCCI should think of getting the selectors, coach and the senior members of the team for a two-day brainstorming session to discuss the process that will help prepare the Indian team for the World Cup.

In fact, it would help if Anil Kumble is inducted as the mentor of the team. No one including the coach knows more about the psyche and capacity of the Indian players than this great committed cricketer.

Quite unexpectedly Sreesanth acknowledges the need of a mentor and privately others agree.

Performance attracts pressure and when you have to perform for the nation at the World Cup, it's huge. That's the time a team needs a mentor.

Not knowing how to handle pressure, the players crack. Kumble, who has played with most of the players and watched some of them closely, will be respected by them.

We need to pick 25 players after the Asia Cup and hand them over for technical and fitness goals to be monitored every month at the NCA.

Fitness status

In fact, they could be sent to the High Performance Centre in Pretoria, South Africa so that their fitness status in high altitude is known to us. Selectors can add a few names during the season.

The problem with the Indian players is they tend to be in a comfort zone in technique and fitness.

At Mumbai, Gary Kirsten did the fitness test twice and was found much better than the others.

It was reported that Australian coach Tim Nielson once challenged the Australian academy boys that he would do better than them in the beep test, and he did it comfortably with 14.1.

The focus of the foreign teams is that fitness has to be top class. In India we get carried away by performances in tournaments which are terribly sub-standard and very conveniently take the experience of players into consideration even though they don't measure up to desired standards in fitness. We can't afford to compromise on fitness.

It is crystal clear that certain Indian players are happy playing T20 because they know what they are not capable of. Such players need not be picked in the list of probables for the World Cup.

The famous basketball coach John Wooden says, “Failure to prepare is preparing to fail”. It's now the turn of Gary Kirsten to be pro-active and tough. He has to submit his blueprint. Tour reports after the disaster mean nothing.

There is a huge difference between the entertainment of T20 and the World Cup. The decision makers better realise it.