Team India successfully won a series in England after 21 years, and more importantly without a coach. Of course we do have Venkatesh Prasad and Robin Singh as bowling and fielding coaches respectively. But the main coach who suppervises everything was absent. So this begs the question, Do we really need a coach?.
I personally feel there are two ways of looking at this issue. One is the fact that the main players are so well established and have a wealth of experience. So a youngster coming in to the team can always look up to these players like Dravid, Tendulkar, Ganguly etc and learn from just watching them and discussing cricket with them. Also, these players can explain things in a simpler way, a more easy to understand way. This might lead to a better bonhomie and respect among the players. So you might be tempted to feel that a coach after all is not important
On the contrary, the presence of a coach allows the captain to think more calmly about the possible strategies and also devote some time towards his own batting for example. The captain should not be burdened with too many things, especially with the amount of cricket being played nowadays. A coach can take some of these responsibilities and also can come up with novel ideas and strategies of his own.
And if this coach happens to be a high profile legend like the one we had during the WC, then another serious issue is the clash of "egos". When that happens, it is very detrimental to the team spirit. There tends to be factions within the teams and this may show up during the games too.....
So what is the best option?. Should we have a coach? Should he be one of our own or a foreign coach?. I feel that since we already have a coach for bowling and fielding, we should have a similar one for batting too and India has had a great set of batsmen for a long long time. How about some greats like the stylist GR Vishwanath or Jimmy Amarnath for example. These people have served India with distinction and have not had any controversies during or after their playing careers. Above all, the entire country and the current set of players have the utmost respect for them. I personally feel it would be a great choice instead of BCCI throwing millions of dollars for foreign coaches, we could rather use that for the development of cricket in India and also improving conditions for the paying public.....who by the way are the biggest strength of Indian cricket.
It is high time the BCCI starts thinking about this option rather than trying to fill up the playing schedule with insane number of ODIs in all corners of the world. These three coaches along with the senior players can have fantastic exchange of ideas and also most importantly maintain the teamspirit which is priceless.
2 comments:
Agree with ur comments mate..we do need a coach and as i read through the first couple of paragraphs, a couple of names popped up - GRV and Jimmy..was glad to see that u had thot of them too :o)..1 thing we also need to understand is that the experienced guys within the team are pretty close to their retirements..so, its better if we get a coach now who will stick with the team for a long time..this way, the foundation will be set within the team in the presence of these seniors so that when they leave, we will not have too many holes to plug..
Thanks Bats for the comments. I do agree with your logic abt seniors retiring soon and a firm coach who can groom the youngsters
Post a Comment