Kepler Wessels for Team India?

Trevor Chesterfield writes in this report that Kepler Wessels has been sounded out by Sourav Ganguly to coach Team India! Wessels, the former Australian and South African Test cricketer, is known for being a strict disciplinarian with a decent coaching record. Whether India is ready for him is a different matter altogether!

Yet again, we have a situation wherein a current player is putting in the hard yards that the coach-selection committee is supposed to be doing. Meanwhile, the rest of the coach-selection committee appear to be sitting on their collective fingers, collecting ring-marks on their backsides. Sigh!

After a coaching stint at Northamptonshire which both parties terminated through mutual agreement Wessels is currently in Australia, coaching the South African emerging squad. The South African squad is playing New Zealand’s emergent side. The Kiwi side is being coached by Dave Nosworthy, another coach who is in consideration for the Team India coach job.

Meanwhile, Pakistan have quietly moved to make a smart appointment. Geoff Lawson has been appointed coach of Pakistan on a two-year contract. Lawson, a keen student of the game, has coached NSW in the past. He has also been a cricket administrator (with NSW) and a sanguine commentator of the game. I think this will prove to be a good move by Pakistan.

Meanwhile, in India, the ring-marks continue to deepen on the collective backsides of the coach-selection committee as they continue to sit on their fingers and watch the world go by!

–Mohan

India’s search for coach ends…

-Mahesh-

Remote Control Management

If you would like to read more about RCM and FordGate, follow this link!

Accountability

Pronunciation: &-"kaun-t&-'bi-l&-tE
Function: noun
: the quality or state of being accountable; especially : an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one’s actions <public officials lacking accountability>

That is the definition from Merriam Webster’s Online dictionary. Unfortunately it is a word BCCI is unfamiliar with. When players perform poorly and/or do not show the right attitude, they are dropped from the team – and rightly so. But when members of the board (or the innumerable committees that it contains) do not perform, there is no accountability.

When the coach selection fiasco was played out, the members of the coach selection committee should have been held accountable. At least a couple of heads should have rolled (starting with Niranjan Shah, who prematurely went to the media saying that Ford was the new coach, even before confirming that he had accepted the offer). But no, there is no accountability.

When the selection committee says that there is no bench strength, it is not a reflection of  the lack of talent in the country, but a reflection of how BCCI has failed to tap into this pool of talent. So, who is to blame? No one – there is no accountability.

I could give several more examples on lack of accountability, but I think I’ve made my point.

Part of the reason, why there is no accountability is because Indian cricket is run by elected members and they run it like Indian politics. At least in politics, the public have a chance to voice their opinion and vote a government out. (Side note: Apparently, Lallu Prasad Yadav is likely to succeed Sharad Pawar. More fun and games!)

The only way to bring accountability into the mix is to run BCCI like a corporation. Appoint a CEO, and let him pick his support staff. Pay them handsomely and make them accountable. But sadly, late last year the working committee decided not to hire a CEO and to run the board through the elected body. I hope they reconsider this move and appoint a full time CEO who has the right professional qualifications and experience. And hopefully if they decide to hire one, the selection of the CEO is not done in the same farcical way as the selection of the coach.

(Makes me wonder, who runs the day to day activities of the board. Surely, the Agricultural minister has more pressing matters to attend to. So,  Niranjan Shah the secretary must be responsible for it. That sounds about right. Niranjan Shah – CEO of BCCI – although in this case it should stand for Chief Entertainment Officer – he really is a big joke!)

-Mahesh-

Coach Search to resume in a fortnight

Apparently the BCCI bigwigs are busy with ICC meetings. So, the search for India’s coach resumes in a fortnight. Niranjan Shah, the BCCI Secretary said, however, that they will not be advertising the position. Shah said, “No, we won’t. There’s no need to; we will do it in our own way.”

Yes, and we all know what happened the last time they tried it that way!

— Mohan

Borde has been watching TV

Apparently, as part of his preparation for the tour of England, Chandu Borde has been watching the England Vs West Indies Test matches on TV and making some notes.

Great. There is hope after all! 🙂

He has observed that the ball is “swinging quite a lot”. I think we will win with timely insights like this! He thinks Kevin Pietersen and Paul Collingwood are good. He has been “following them on TV for a long time”. He has even taken the trouble, amidst his busy schedule, of making “some notes on them”. And the best insight that he has obtained is that “Andrew Strauss is also not a bad batsmen, although he’s had a lean patch of late.” And, in his view, Michael Vaughan is “injury-prone and thus susceptible to scoring less.”

Forget doing well in England. With these superb pearls of wisdom, the series is already in the bag guys!

What Ford Gate controversy? Bring it on, I say 🙂

— Mohan

Indian Cricket loses (Ford) Focus – Who’s to blame?

Continuing with the flavor of the today and keeping Mohan’s systems approach in mind, it is worthwhile undertaking a causal analysis of a failure of this magnitude.

1. Failure of the Board – As has been consistently communicated on this site, the Board with a clear lack of vision and well defined objectives, clear description of organizational structure, roles, responsibilities and accountability framework is most certainly at the root of the problem. It is imperative that they get their act straight. This includes setting meaningful criteria (job descriptions) starting from the President. I do not believe Sharad Pawar has any role to play in the management of a sport.

2. Failure of the Selection Committee – To start with, this was not an appropriate selection committee in the first place — I am not so sure that someone like Sunil Gavaskar should even be on this committee. Secondly, assuming as Mohan says that there were no job ads created or placed, the selection committee should have refused to participate in the process in the first place. On what basis were they even evaluating the candidates? Why is the member of the selection committee even recommending a candidate? Isn’t that a conflict of interest? Again, Mohan has elaborated extensively on this issue. But it is infuriating to realize that for a such a highly paid and prestigious job, a total lack of process and formality was observed.

3. Failure of the Team Management – As Mohan has discussed in his blog, it is not rather unfortunate that there is such dependence on the captain and senior cricketers in the selection of the coach. Having said that and having experienced the previous two cases, the team management, in having pursued that approach, should take some responsibility for this failure. Where was their due diligence? Why, after having influenced the previous two selections, did they not place extra effort in managing those relationships? How credit worthy are their recommendations any more?

Are we observing symptoms of a catastrophic failure? The saving grace for Indian cricket, money, might just burn out — it is paper after all. Would someone soon realize that these are failures that should be addressed rather quickly?

It is easier to digest failures of cricketers, who at least try to give their best on the field (a majority of them at least), may win some and lose some. What we are witnessing is an absolutely disgraceful failure by a bunch of power-mongering, politically motivated, egotistic group of individuals who hold Indian cricket to ransom.

And that is totally unacceptable and intolerable.

– Srikanth

Ford Escape!

I totally agree with the original post on this topic by Srikanth as well as Sampath Kumar’s comment. Once again, I started writing this in the comments section and it got bigger than Ben Hur! So, I am posting here. Do read Srikanth’s post first.

Graham Ford rejected BCCI’s offer and opted to stay on at Kent, where he is Director of Cricket.

In the first comment to Srikanth’s original post, Sampath Kumar suggests that the main reason for the rejection was the short-term that was offered to Ford: 1-year term — extendable to 3 years.

That may be a reason. It could be a lot more than that. Who knows?

The entire selection process was ill-planned and badly executed. I have sat on many a selection committee in my life and I will sit on a few more, hopefully. This sordid tale gives me many a lesson on how not to conduct a search process.

No one knows

• What the ‘search criteria’ were — I am assuming that there was one!
• Why there wasn’t a job-advert formally put out. The BCCI must have thought that all they had to do was sack the previous coach and they’d immediately have a queue of a hundred salivating coach-wannabes. Wrong. The world doesn’t work that way! There is a ‘talent-war’ out there. The job has to be right for the right person to be secured.
• Whose responsibility it was to “head hunt” — it is a sad reflection of the process that players got involved in ‘nominating’ Ford!
• Whether there were clearly identified roles and responsibilities for each member on the search committee — if indeed one existed.
• Why Dav Whatmore was informed that he was “not needed” — I am assuming that he was informed! If he was appointable but not the first choice, why would we show him the door prematurely?

Unfortunately, it seems to me that the BCCI has sadly over-rated its own job-offer. Money doesn’t buy everything. It is about time the goons that run the show realised that a lot more matters in a top job than just the money.

• Visions and goals need to be set at the top. These do not permeate through the organisation if it is not set up there.
• The terms need to be right.
• The infrastructure needs to be right.
• The support system needs to be right.
• The attitude needs to be right.
• And perhaps most importantly, there can be only one hand on the wheel that drives the bus (the coaching bus in India has too many hands on the wheel and most of these hands are official or unofficial BCCI staff).
  And much more.

This was a kick-in-the-backside that the BCCI deserved and those that ran the committee should hang their collective heads in shame.

Dileep Premachandran, in a thorough analysis of this mess makes some interesting observations.

First, that Dravid and his teammates have reason to feel dejected, for it was them that suggested Ford’s name. I have no problems with the fact that Dravid suggested Ford. After all, Dravid has to get on with the coach 24/7. One would have thought that Dravid would have ascertained Ford’s availability and interest before suggesting his name. The fact that Ford rejected the offer indicate that it was either (a) the briefness of the tenure or (b) the rabble that he saw at the interview (many hands on the wheel), that scared him away. I am assuming that the ‘cash on offer’ wasn’t a problem.

Sure, he may have been frightened off by the heightened expectations that come with coaching Team India. Again, I am sure, he would have weighed this up before throwing his hat in the ring, especially after an invitation from Rahul Dravid! Sure there may be personal reasons. But surely, he had weighed those up before throwing his hat in the ring, especially after an invitation from Rahul Dravid!

The fact that players nominated/selected the previous two coaches says something in itself. It says to me that the people running cricket in India lack either the passion, the interest, gumption or the vision or the decision-making abilities. Dravid nominated John Wright and Ganguly nominated Greg Chappell.

In his article, Dileep Premachandran suggests that the fact that the last two coaches have been nominated/selected by players is not perhaps a healthy trend. He suggests that “tough love” may not be possible — the nominated coach would be reluctant to ‘cut off the hand that fed’ him.

Wrong. Although this is, no doubt, a cute theory, precedence is against this observation by Dileep. Greg Chappell was ‘nominated’ by Ganguly. Chappell was the one that initiated Ganguly’s ouster from the team.

The fact is that, through an alarming lack of vision, goal and process, the BCCI is back to square-A. It has also landed on its backside with an embarassing thud!

The squad for Ireland and England will be chosen today (12 June 2007) and the team leaves for Ireland a week from now.

So, this is nothing short of a kick in the groin to the BCCI and its continuing ineptitude. And it is about time.

So what are the options?

• Appoint someone like Sandeep Patil for the Ireland and England tours and carry out a proper search process (retain Robin Singh and Venkatesh Prasad).
• Appoint someone like Sandeep Patil for a whole year starting now (retain Robin Singh and Venkatesh Prasad).
• Appoint John Embury.
• Appoint Dav Whatmore.

What an utter and hopeless shambolic shemozzle…

— Mohan

The Mike Young article

In an article for CricInfo, Mike Young, a baseball coach who was hired as a fielding consultant by the Australian team writes –

I didn’t know much about cricket then, but I’ll tell you what: I was quite shocked at what I saw. No one had any idea about fielding balance. They were diving around with flawed techniques, and wasting energy that they should have been conserving.

In the same column he writes about Australia’s fielding techniques when he took over –

There was so much diving and sliding going on, with people saying, “It’s a great fielding side”, and so on, but I’m thinking, “If you have to dive so much, it either means you aren’t quick enough to reach the ball, or you’re standing in the wrong position.”

He also goes on to question why the fielders walk 10 steps forward as the bowler comes in to bowl, thus using up their energy. It is always interesting to see things from an outsider’s perspective – we often fail to see what may be quite obvious to an outsider….which goes back to what I suggested in an earlier column on why India needs a baseball fielding coach.

-Mahesh-

Graham Who? And who else?

The decision on the new Indian coach is due in the next couple of weeks. Most Indian cricket fans wouldn’t have heard the name of Graham Ford, who apparently is the front runner for the Indian coaching job. Other names have also been brandished along. CricInfo reports that  John Emburey is one of them. Apparently Duncan Fletcher is another. Graham Gooch and Mike Gatting make up the numbers.

Whatmore is now out of favour. There aren’t any Indian names that have sprung up recently, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if they did. Whether it is a Firangi or Desi coach, I reckon it is time to give Balbir Singh a call and make him Head coach 🙂

-Mahesh-