The Hindu : Sport / Cricket : The (foreign) coach obsession

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Wednesday, Dec 05, 2007
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The (foreign) coach obsession

Whatmore will be more effective as coach, writes Makarand Waingankar

Ours must be the only cricketing nation obsessed with the appointment of coaches. The way we go about the matter gives the impression that nothing can be achieved without a coach.

Despite the fact that the interim manager Lalchand Rajput, along with Venkatesh Prasad and Robin Singh, has worked successfully with the experienced players of the team to get results, the BCCI coach selection committee was hell-bent on picking a fore ign coach.

After the Graham Ford episode, the BCCI felt the need to release an advertisement for the coach’s job and one of the criteria was that he should have been the coach of an international or national team or a coaching centre of international repute.

Gary Kirsten doesn’t satisfy this condition, as the job profile of a High Performance Manager that he is credited with is quite different from coaching a national or State side.

Not interviewed

There were 20 odd applications and two candidates — Rajput and Chandrakant Pandit — could have been invited for the interview but it does seem that the committee had already decided to appoint Kirsten. Why invite applications when the eligible Indians are not going to be called even for an interview?

Both John Wright and Greg Chappell had the experience of coaching county and State teams, and yet Chappell was a failure. Wright worked on the man-management aspects more, allowing the captain to be the boss on the field.

Chappell was totally different. He wanted to be the boss of the team all the time. That’s the approach football coaches adopt, but in cricket it is disastrous.

With half the team falling in the ‘experienced’ bracket, the other half needs guidance about how to handle the pressure and perform consistently.

Kirsten is absolutely right in wanting a person to work on the mental conditioning aspect, an area Indians at all levels of sports have been ignoring. However, for that to happen he has to spend more time with the boys. If he is not available full-time for the important Australian tour, why have him?

Coaching an international side needs experience in all aspects and only Dav Whatmore has the credentials. However, he was removed from the list of potential candidates much before the committee met for reasons the BCCI has steadfastly refused to divulge. The irony is that Whatmore has hardly any experience of running an academy which Kirsten as a High Performance Manager does. Kirsten’s background would have benefited the NCA more than the Indian team.

Similarly, Whatmore as the coach of the Indian team would be more effective than as the NCA Director.

Kirsten may have been a successful international cricketer, but so were Sir Viv Richards and Chappell.

Coaching an international side means handling 15 different mindsets rather than thrusting theories without taking into consideration the individual capabilities of the players.

With no professional foreign coach around, India has been winning practically everything. Let’s hope Kirsten produces better results.

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