Indian Summer in England 2007

Are we going to see an Indian summer in England this year? I really hope so - it's the best chance for India to get some momentum going. The Indian team is on the verge of bringing in the new and there will be significant changes to the personnel in the next couple of years. In fact, if things don't go right for the Indian team, this tour might as well be the end of the road for the likes of Sachin, Saurav, Laxman and Dravid.

So, what is going right for the Indians this summer and what is not? Let's start with what is not. The fact that we don't have a coach in place for such an important tour has to be an issue. It is more a matter of inconvenience than anything else. Other than that, I feel, we will miss Harbhajan and Sehwag - Sehwag more than Harbhajan simply because to my mind, he is such a canny bowler and breaks partnerships at crucial junctures in the game. Besides, their replacements are hardly proven in English conditions. Harbhajan at least has the experience of playing for Surrey which might have helped. The last and most important thing is, we have inexperienced bowlers who will think that they have to perform well in a place like England which is renowned for its swing and seam conditions. If they don't then they will be labeled as players who could not perform even when the conditions might have suited them. Just imagine how much pressure this puts on newcomers. It is like the pressure on bowlers of a team that wins the toss on an overcast day, on a dodgy track (which might do something or might not) and have to bowl and do well - multiplied by 10 - because they are actually trying to make an impression for the first time. I think the Indian bowlers are going to be under tremendous pressure and the English will be well aware of that.

To mitigate the experience problem, what we do have is - people who have wonderful experience playing in English conditions - Zaheer, Rahul, Sachin and Saurav. The fact that we have a bowling coach (and one who has done well in English conditions) should go some way to mitigate the experience issues.

The other things that are going right for India are, that we go to England during the later part of the season. Usually, during the later part, the weather conditions are pretty decent for batting and we do have a strong batting line up - one that has done well consistently in England. Rahul, Sachin and Saurav have done well in England every time they have been there. We also have the luxury of playing a couple of warm up games and a couple of one-dayers - that should help us get used to the conditions like nothing else. I have not seen Rahul after the CWC, however, I am hoping that he has learned a lot more and is a better leader than what he was during or before the CWC. To my mind, if Rahul can exhibit even 10% of Saurav's leadership qualities, we should be able to draw the test series and comfortably win the ODIs.

This is what I expect to see in England this summer - we either roar like the lions that we have promised to be so far and never been, or we start to see the end of Indian cricket. A vigorous Indian cricket team is like no other and even good for the game in general and I just wish that we can stand our own ground and be worthy competitors. I am thinking it's going to be a 1-1 tied result for the tests and we will comfortably win the ODI series.

Let it be an Indian summer this year in England........

Enter Mr. Ford - Really?

I am taking a break - at least I can! Just spare a thought for the guys who are turning up in 40 degree centigrade heat and probably 90 percent humidity, playing insignificant games, just to fill up the coffers of the some board that will help cricketers from the Asian and African sub-continents. On the face of it, it is a noble plan, but imagine what the guys who play the sport must have to endure physically. I play league cricket in the Chicago suburbs, where the temperature rarely goes above 25 degrees centigrade (agreed there is a lot of humidity around), but even then, if it is an afternoon game, I am thinking, why the hell am I playing in the league? Of course, for us in the US, playing any form of cricket at any time of the year is a bit of a luxury, but for the guys who do it day in and day out, these are nothing but insignificant games.

All right, enough said about cricket in hot temperatures. What I really wanted to talk about is the role of a coach in modern day cricket and and what to make of all the shambles about finding a coach for the Indian cricket team.

A few people, including Ian Chappell (who is the most vocal about it) and Sanjay Manjrekar (who is no more than a sounding board of Ian Chappell's these days), have questioned the role of a coach for modern day cricketers and are implying that there is no need for coaches at the international level - because what that means is, the grass roots system that produces cricketers is not working. Ian Chappell seems to think that by having a national team coach, the finishing school instead of being the state/club teams that exist in most countries, is international cricket. Chappell's definition of a cricket coach seems to be dated and is way too old. I don't think that an international coach's job profile would be anything like what it used to be even 15 years back - in fact Kumar Sangakara feels that the modern day coach's main job is to perform the back room operations and make sure that they create an environment for the cricketers to produce their best on the field. In that respect, I believe the modern day coach's role might be more similar to what the managers of yesteryears used to do - and maybe that is where the disconnect between Ian Chappell and the rest of the world, who demand a good cricket coach for their team, lies - nomenclature.

Going by the definition that Kumar Sangakara provides, there is no doubt in my mind that a coach plays a vital role in the game of cricket today. In addition to man-management, they are also involved in studying the techniques of their own team as well as those of the oppositions and serve as a sounding board for the captain in terms of strategy. A person sitting 75 yards away has a different view of the game then the captain on the field, and sometimes the view from the outside can be of help. A coach also takes off some the pressures of playing modern day cricket. In this day and age where cricket is played almost 365 days a year, it is very imperative for the cricketers who are playing day in and day out to maintain a sense of perspective, and this is another area where the coach should help out. An international coach should not be involved in thinking about and executing on processes - a la Greg Chappell. Instead, he should be able to work with the team that is "given" to him, within the processes that exist and create an environment that will help the team feel comfortable in each other's company and help them give their best on the field. Processes should be left for the administrators and the grass roots level coaches to identify and implement.

Onto Graham Ford's declining the offer, it really remains to be seen what the real reasons were for refusing the offer. Of course, he is well within his rights to refuse any offer, but if his official reasons are that 1) he cannot leave Kent at this time - so soon and 2) he has to think about his family before the job - then both are ludicrous, given the background in which they were made. When Ford was offered the interview, he would have been told that he would have had to join the Indian team pretty soon - there was no point in having him joining the team after the Indian team had completed the English tour. The second reason, to my mind, is even more ludicrous than the first one - in the sense that being employed by Kent, he is away from his wife (who is a cancer patient) and kids most of the time anyways. I think he's just shielding some of the main reasons behind his wife's illness (don't get me wrong - I wish his wife recovers from the deadly disease as soon as she can) - but it is simply not professional. If this was just a gimmick so that Kent would have increased his pay-check, then it was a lowly gimmick. If he was not happy with the offer that BCCI was making, then he should have told so in no uncertain terms at the time of the interview - why tell the BCCI that he only has to decide on "when" he is going to join Team India? Of course, he would then have put the ball in BCCI's court and it would not have been his decision - but by taking the decision that he has - he has implied that he never really wanted the position in the first place.

Of course, all of the above does not absolve the BCCI from conducting what has to be the worst job interview - it almost seems to me that they lack a process to select anyone - let alone a coach. It just seems to me that they put a hat on the table and just throw in some random names - if the name lands in the hat, that person is eligible for an interview and then you repeat the same "process" for making an offer. How else can they explain the names that they came up with? If Mr. Gavaskar was against a foreign coach, he should have said so, if the players were so very much in favor of a foreign coach - then was there a way that they could have voiced their opinion? What about the others on the committee? I did not hear a word from Venkat, was he even involved in any manner - did he even make it to the meeting? And the most idiotic thing of all was, after talking with Graham Ford and John Embury for just an hour each, the committee came to a conclusion that Ford was the right person for the job - excuse me, but on what basis? On the basis of a presentation that at best could have lasted only 30 minutes? Was his presentation so penetrative, that the committee could make out how good a coach he would be? Or was it because the players wanted him as their coach? Besides, by offering him just 1 year on the job, the BCCI were making him look like a sacrificial lamb. Just take a look at our next few engagements - against England in England, against Australia in Australia and then Pakistan tours India - wow! All those teams are significantly better than India, so the chances of us winning any of those series are quite low. In the light of that fact and given the fact that Ford was not offered a longer tenure and not even allowed to have his own support staff, it would have been stupid on Ford's part to even think about the job. I am sure he must have been told about his tenure and the fact that BCCI would not allow Ford to have his own support staff (BCCI has been saying that ever since Chappell left). All of the above, just makes Ford's decision to even come for an interview way too strange.

I think, it is high time the BCCI becomes a professional body. They need a working CEO and some VPs at the top, with some really shrewd managers to run the show for them. There is no reason why the BCCI cannot become richer than what they are today, but they have to clean up their act now, otherwise, we are headed towards a point when cricket will no longer enjoy the singular status that it has enjoyed for more than 25 years in India.

As people say, the best way to destroy something is to hand it over to the politicians - they are always very efficient at dismantling things - never the ones to do anything constructive. Mr. Sharad Pawar, I would seriously urge you to leave a lasting legacy, that is how you will be judged in the end.