The Hindu : Sport / Hockey : A novel concept but a complex issue

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A novel concept but a complex issue

It is not the concept that is important but the capability of the players to grasp it, writes Makarand Waingankar

Kolkata Knight Riders coach John Buchanan has come out with a novel concept of having multiple captains.

There always will be resistance to a change like this especially when you deal with icons of Indian cricket but Buchanan would be well advised to talk to the joint captain of the 1968 Mexico Olympics hockey team Gurbax Singh (other captain was Prithipal Singh) whose dream side managed to win only the bronze. It was a compromise formula to have joint captains and that affected the team.

It is not the concept that is important but the capability of players to grasp and implement it.

When Azharuddin had four former captains in the team, he was on record saying for each move he had to look at those players for their consent.

Major worry

Each IPL team is a mix of foreign players, senior Indian internationals and first class players. Getting all of them to understand each other is a major worry that all the coaches faced last year.

Ganguly is one of the greatest captains of the country. The problem here is if Ganguly does not accept it or takes it as a demotion, there would be a confused and divided team as was witnessed during the coaching days of Greg Chappell.

Going a bit too fast

Chappell had all the theories but he went a bit too fast for the Indian team to understand. Eventually the players were to be held responsible for implementing it effectively.

They panicked. Those who couldn’t implement were dropped and they were Ganguly, Sehwag, Zaheer Khan and Harbhajan Singh.

Cricket is a simple game. The more simple you keep it, the better the chances of winning.

Meanwhile, all the coaches now will be in a quandary because the players were chosen based on Indian conditions — mainly the slow pitches.

Different conditions

Conditions in South Africa are totally different. Fast bowlers will have the conditions conducive to their skills. The bounce of South African pitches and the swing pitches afford will test the skills of batsmen.

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