Wednesday, April 11, 2007

The Guru came...earned...showed and went


The guru came.....!

The end of 22 months of promise or to say ordeal/turmoil has come to an end…If I remember rightly there was a lot of hope and anticipation when Guru Greg joined the Indian Cricket team as its second overseas coach. Guru Greg was able to impress the coach-selection committee (comprising of Sunny Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri and few other morons) by his vision and a few power point presentations. As per Ravi Shastri, his presentation was simply outstanding. The other options available for India were Tom Moody- the lanky Aussie all-rounder, Sandip Patil and Mohinder Amarnath

He was given a ceremonious welcome into the country and the team and I still remember him greeting the entire country with folded hands (The Namaskar as we call it), with the Tri-Color hung onto his shoulders. What I personally feel is that he realized in beginning itself that he need to get rid of players who were aggressive and who would not bow down to any of his recommendations must have realized that “Ek Mayan Mein Do Talwar Nahin Reh Saakten…!”

As a Cricketer he was one of the best One-Down Bat in the Seventies. He was an aggressive batsman and was never afraid of playing shots. He is one of the cricketers who scored centuries in his First Test Match and his last test appearance (after announcing his retirement from the game). But I also heard of this fact that he asked his younger brother Trevor Chappell to bowl underarms in one of the match in the early 80’s against the Kiwi’s to win a match. I really do not know what this suggest, does it mean that he wants to win at all cost or does it mean that he is a bad loser.

The first task he undertook was to get rid of the man, who I believe made Team India. The only thing I got to hear from all corners was that they were building a young team for the 2007 ICC World Cup and that the Ex-Captain was mentally and physically not up to the mark to lead the Team, which he had so successfully led until 2005 (post match fixing era).He made the current captain as the best choice which I still don’t believe. He is neither aggressive nor imaginative. Though he has good command over his language, but I am sorry to say he is not a good communicator on the field. Coming back to Guru Greg, he promised a lot during his initial days of training, but I guess no one would have believed that he was an Australian representative, who had come on a mission…mission to dismantle Team India.

His conduct became worse when his folded hands changed to a saluting the Indian Public with his raised Middle Finger gesture.

He Showed.....!

To sum it up, I have to say the Board took a wrong step by appointing this great player as our coach but his coaching skills were not at all beneficial to the Team India as his records says it all…When Chappell took over as coach India was ranked 2nd in ICC rankings. Currently India has dropped to the 6th position in ICC rankings.

Bye Bye folks....

Talks are in the media that we are going to have Robin Singh as our fielding coach (will educate how to have a stance where your head is pointing towards the point region and you can site a cricket ball and not have any head/neck injuries…meanwhile a month ago we heard he was involved in some match-fixing issues…related to Marlon Samuels…where did all those allegations vanish), Venkatesh Prasad as our Bowling coach(to train our bowlers to bowl slow….slower….slowest….) and Ravi Shastri as the Manager/Coach for the series of Bangladesh(will teach how to bat at a strike rate of 40 odd runs/100 balls...and keep looking at the Man of The Series Trophy…and train so-called ageing players how to have an alternate career). I have also heard that we are going to appoint a bowling coach for the spinners. If this is the scenario, then I guess we will have coaches for batsman for playing on the off-Side, one for playing on the leg side (front of the wicket) and two more for playing strokes behind the wicket. Are these solutions explainable?

Does this team of new coaches have it in them to produce the results against the mighty Bangladeshi’s….Its only time that would provide us with the answers….

-GAG