Two Wrongs, One Wright

These are confusing times for the Indian cricket fan, and indeed, for the rest of us who have been watching developments in India post the team’s exit from the World Cup. In the swirling waters of what is now Indiancricket, one thing seems clear: the consensus is that a foreign coach can never really succeed in India because he will never make sense of the political and cultural issues involved.

That, in my opinion, is a load of bollocks. The same people who are today demanding an Indian coach forget that a few years ago, before John Wright took over, the thinking was that an Indian coach was too prone to the internal tugs and pulls of team selection, politicisation, favouritism and regionalism. So the need of the hour was an ‘independent’ and ‘neutral’ individual, who wouldn’t succumb to the aforesaid pressures and guide the team in the right direction.

Well, they got that individual in Wright, and the BCCI would be making very good use of its money if it invited him back.

Why? Because it is not about nationality, but individuals. Why was Wright more successful as coach than Kapil Dev or Madan Lal or Bish Bedi or Sandy Patil? (I leave Anshuman Gaekwad out of this list because I thought he was one of the best coaches in the pre-Wright era.) Because he was gentle and soft-spoken enough to win the confidence of the players, and steely enough underneath to get them to listen when he talked, that’s why.

The dressing room of a cricket team from the subcontinent is not the place for raving, ranting or shouting. A forthright and abrasive individual like Greg Chappell will never go down well with teams from here because people in this part of the world are mostly gentle and soft-natured, so shouting at them won’t solve problems—it will compound them. Greg is typical Aussie from head to toe, and those who appointed him should have taken that into account.

Why did Bob Woolmer succeed with Pakistan? Make no mistake—until Bob lost three key players to injuries, Pakistan was a favourite to at least make the World Cup semi-finals. So he did manage to bind a group of highly talented yet wayward individuals into a semblance of a team that looked up to the coach as almost a father figure. The reason, once again, lay in Bob’s wonderfully patient and accommodating nature. He was always willing to talk, listen and help, and few who knew him will recall an instance when he raised his voice.

Why is Tom Moody doing such a good job with Sri Lanka? Once again, you have a man who, like Wright, smiles a lot and is forever genial, but has the steel within to mould a group of talented but excitable lads into mature, fighting men.

See, I think these are the men who are ideal for the subcontinent. The Indian board, embarrassed at the team’s early exit from the World Cup and stung by Greg’s report, needs to be seen to be taking some decisive action, so it is going back into its shell and looking to ‘one of our own’ to stem the rot. That’s not to say I disagree with Ravi Shastri’s appointment as manager or whatever it is they are calling him, but it is a stopgap arrangement, and the bcci needs to pay Ravi enough to make him chuck his TV career.

There are more stopgap measures in the offing, from what I read, such as appointing Dravid as captain for six months, Robin Singh as fielding coach, and Venkatesh Prasad as bowling coach. These are cosmetic changes, because unless the bcci revamps Indian pitches and tightens up domestic cricket, the team will always be good in India and s**t abroad.

A coach can only do so much—he can devise strategy and make sure the team is adequately prepared, but he can’t bat or bowl for the players, and most importantly, can’t think for them in the middle. In my youth in Yorkshire, the value of a ‘thinking cricketer’ would be drilled into us, and it has been my experience that talent without brains doesn’t add up to much. Conversely, a smart man with average talent—someone like Paul Collingwood—will emerge as an above-average player because he thinks about and reads the game. A coach also can’t change the way the captain leads the team. It’s different when both work in tandem—as Wright and Ganguly did—but with a captain like Dravid, who is a lovely lad but not a born leader, the coach’s role becomes a little uncertain.

Will a foreigner agree to coach India or Pakistan again? The question is immaterial, in my opinion. If you haven’t guessed that already, I need to write another piece.