Lessons for the Coach to remind players to take all possible chances and win matches for the country:
India is playing in the ICC Mini World Cup opener against Kenya. Saurav Ganguly, Sachin, Zaheer Khan, Anil Kumble, Ajit Agarkar, Robin Singh, Vijay Dahiya, Venkatesh Prasad and Yuvraj Singh are the final eleven. Now imagine that, minutes before the game, coach Anshuman Gaekwad decides to be the Pope.
He wishes to emphasize the importance of good fielding, to remind the boys that catches win matches. He prefers to do it, however, in the players’ first language. Somewhat like the Pontiff in Vatican City on December 25, when he wishes the world Merry Christmas in more than 50 languages.
This is what Gaekwad would have to be ready with: “Catch diye hi match jeta jaye.” Bengali, for Ganguly. “Catches matches jeetate hain.” Hindi, for Dahiya and Zaheer Khan.
“Catches matches jinkavtat.” Marathi, for Tendulkar, Dravid, Kambli and Agarkar.
“Catches win matches.” English, for Robin Singh. “Catch match jitande ne.” Punjabi, for Yuvraj. “Catches gellu matches.” Kannada, for Kumble and Prasad.
It’s that diversity thing. It makes India unique and multi-dimensional, but from the standpoint of team sport coaching, in this case cricket, it makes the country a tricky and challenging place to be in. Accepted, most Indian players are conversant in English and the afore- mentioned scenario is a dramatized version of reality. Nonetheless, training India is indeed more complex in some ways than say, Australia, England or South Africa.
To be a good Indian coach, you must make the players think positive. You have to teach them to play like a team. You’ve got to understand the player and his approach to the game. The vastness of the country, the religions, they do matter. If the coach is an Indian himself, then he is used to it. In my case, I had already played for India, mixed with people from different parts and of different backgrounds.
So it was not difficult,” says explayer and under-19 team coach Roger Binny. Yes, there were times when the communication was not smooth. My Hindi is not fluent. So, I could not quite get across to a couple of players from Tripura. I had to look for someone to interpret!”
If an Indian can be faced with such a situation, chances are widely expected to get the job, would too. John Wright would hence do well to be prepared for a few interaction hurdles along the way.
It’s a case of being a good mediator, a good negotiator, also being very patient,” feels Australia coach John Buchanan. “It’s about trying to get everybody to understand what Indian cricket wants to achieve, and, if you find somebody who reaches that understanding, and conveys the message to all the groups, then you’ve got a chance. If you don’t discover that, you will find that if one section is doing a good job, another is undermining its effort. He can’t just be the coach, he has to liaise with the key players in the team, make a vision and work towards that.”
Buchanan, whose impressive presentation to Australian cricket bosses earned him the top job last added: The coach is not necessarily right all the time. He is basically a manager of a whole range of things, including dealing with people, so he ends ferment roles, sometimes a friend, sometimes a up playing dive guide, sometimes a skills coach.”
Read Bobby Simpson’s magazine column, what the ex-Australia captain and consultant India coach declares: “Running the cricketing side with enthusiasm, love for the game, common sense and flair and expert knowledge of cricket and vitally the skill to impart knowledge is the most important of all.”
The prerequisites that Hanumant Singh thinks an Indian team coach must have are: “Respect of players, It’s all about communication: Bob Woolmer with Shaun Pollock (top), Australian coach John Buchanan (above), Hanumant Singh and Roger Binny (left top and bottom) all have to bring out the best in their “boys”, to make them winners physically and mentally communication and man management skills.”
The former player and now National Cricket Academy director further states, “I have not been very close to the Indian team for a long time, but knowing the trends that exist one gets a feeling that there is no team goal. The coach needs to determine what the goal is, and then find the route to it. There should be a clear perception of each one’s role. I wouldn’t make too much of the different backgrounds bit. At the end of the day they are all cricketers. that’s it.”
And they are superstars. Stardom and its trappings have a greater presence in the Indian dressing room than most others in world cricket. Subsequently, the coach has the extra task of handling egos, even giving them a piece of his mind occasionally. Of course, it’s never easy. Argentine football manager Carlos Bilardo had a code of conduct for all his players during the 1986 World Cup, except one- Diego Maradona.
In the Indian cricket context, it’s not practical to expect the coach to give Sachin Tendulkar a dressing down. But he should be able to speak frankly if the occasion demands it. “The superstar factor exists. That is something the coach, for- eigner or otherwise, must tackle in conjunction with the captain,” says Singh. “You need someone who is a friend and someone who is a tough disciplinarian too,” says Buchanan.
Nodding in agreement is ex-England player and South African mentor Bob Woolmer, “In India, to a certain extent you have to be both a friend and a strict disciplinarian. Someone the players can talk to and someone who can tell them what needs to be told.” Another area where India presents a bigger challenge is fitness as it is simply not in our culture. Exercise and related sciences like diet are still far removed from the Indian way of life and getting players to keep pounding away on the treadmills or to take it easy on the Dal Makhani will take some doing.
The state of affairs, though, is not as bad as it used to be. “There is a lot more awareness of fitness now,” Binny says. “Due to the One-day game, there is emphasis on fielding and eventually on fitness. Players realize it is important.”
When it is normal for homes to have their share of inter-personal problems, to expect a dressing room free of the negative energies of rivalry, jealousy or mistrust would be unrealistic. It is crucial, though, and possible, to have a unit that is at least not ravaged by it. And it starts with the coach-captain relationship.
Bob Woolmer, who moulded South Africa into such a fine team (forget Hansie Cronje‘s ‘other scores’ for a moment) in the latter part of the ‘1990s, says: “What would make a good Indian team coach is someone who understands Indian cricket and gets along with the captain. That is very important. In international cricket, the coach’s job is to make the players better and support the captain and give him information on other teams. India certainly have been a little short on using modern technology.
They need somebody who uses that.” In the end it is the results that matter for players, administrators and the fans. And if the coach applies heart and mind towards forcing favorable outcomes, he would have done his job. As Roger Binny says, “Most players have big dreams, ambitions. All they want in a coach is someone to take them there.”
