By Sunil Sarpal

Coaching Team India is an onerous task for BCCI.  The tenure of Rahul Dravid, Team India Coach, is coming to an end.  BCCI is looking for his replacement.  In the past, some notable contributions as Team India Coach have come from Gary Kirsten, John Wright, and Ravi Shastri.  The most successful coaching stint was from Gary Kirsten.  But for his family commitments, he left Team India even though both BCCI and Indian side did not want to part company.  John Wright was also a success story so was Ravi Shastri.  The credentials of a coach should have man-management skills and recognizing zinks in players and finding solutions to it. 

At the moment, India has in its ranks the world class Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli.  Both of them are at the twilight of their illustrious careers.  Coaching such stalwarts is a difficult task for a coach. 

When Anil Kumble was entrusted with the task of coaching Team India, he had differences with Virat Kohli.  This resulted in Kumble’s withdrawal from the coaching job.  There came a phase in India Cricket when Greg Chappel was appointed as India Coach.  During his tenure, Team India’s performance nose-dived because he had differences with the then  India Captain Saurav Ganguly.  BCCI had to remove Greg Chappel to save the team  from the ignominy of  dismissal performance. 

BCCI therefore has to keep all pros and cons in mind for this appointment. 

The names that are  making round for this job are Tom Moody and VVS Laxman.  Tom Moody carries advantage over Laxman because of his previous coaching stint.   

First and foremost, BCCI has to ensure that Team India’s harmony and unity is not affected with the arrival of a new incumbent for this job.  Will the new incumbent prove to be a worthy successor of Rahul Dravid?   Because Team India is blended with both youth and experienced players.  Indian Team is rich with both pace and spin.  India has the batters who can shine in any situation and condition. 

BCCI has to ensure that the coach will take the team forward and not indulge in any ego-related problem.  The coach should be competent enough to understand the requirements of both experienced pro and new and budding cricketers. 

By Sunil Sarpal

After the ignominious exit from ICC T-20 tournament at the hands of England, Indian Cricket Team’s prestige was at stake. In order to save it’s face, BCCI had no other option but to sack the Selection Committee, led by Chetan Sharma. Even the BCCI President Saurav Ganguly was earlier shown the exit door.

The new BCCI President is Roger Binny, a former cricketer. And the process of forming the new Selection Committee has been under-way. It has become a norm in India that whenever Indian Team is defeated in a big tournament, changes and chopping of heads takes place.

The deadline to submit applications for the post of new selectors ends today, november 28th. According to InsideSports, BCCI is reported to have already received over 80 applications for vacancy of five selectors. The board will scrutinise the applications and will make announcement of the new selection committee in December 2022.

It is speculated that, some of the new faces such as, Shubham Gill, Prithvi Shah, Sanju Samson and Hooda may get the nod. In the bowling department too the return of Jasprit Bumrah will boost the already formidable bowling attack.

If we talk about going down the memory lane, when Ravi Shastri was removed from the position of a Director, Team India, after his 2- term tenure, the team was performing very well except for out of form Virat Kohli. Ravi possesses the right ingredients and knowledge, about how to deal with the boys, which is a rare quality to lift the spirit of the game. Therefore, there are voices demanding for his return as Director, Team India. Whereas, Rahul Dravid’s tenure as Coach has not brought the positive results because coaching Team India is a different ball game. Whereas, Ravi’s invaluable inputs to India captain, time to time intervention in matter of significance and foresight were some of the qualities rarely found in a person.

With the induction of Roger Binny as new BCCI President, it is reported that his first call was to include MS Dhoni as Head Coach or Director, Team India T20. MS Dhoni is immensely talented, cool as a cucumber and his skills for man-management are extra-ordinary. It is hoped that MS Dhoni, if appointed, as Director, in coordination with Rahul Dravid as coach will do the best for the team, which takes Team India forward.

Time is ripe to include new legs because the demand of the game is to be fast and ferocious. Surya Kumar Yadav has proved time and again that the shorter version of the game’s demand is 360 degree. It is therefore absolutely necessary on the part of New Selection Committee to re-build the side and to not go by past reputation of the players.