Foreign Hand Phobia

Is this the year 2000? Hasn't Hansie Cronje's cheating heart just shocked the world? Hasn't Kapil Dev just wept on television? The calendar says it is 2005. But Indian cricket sounds like it is stuck in 2000-as the team looks for a coach, we ask whether those dodgy goras understand our culture.

Pardon the intemperance, but five years after India made substantial progress with an overseas coach, why are the same stupid questions being asked. Like, can a foreigner understand the Indian ethos? To those circulating the banality, a counter-question: what, pray, does a cricket coach's job involve? Antakshari in the dressing room? An antakshari of patriotic songs perhaps? Is that why Jimmy Amarnath, last seen hitting the high notes on DD's Fourth Umpire, is on the short list?

Before all kinds of antipodal interlopers landed, Indian cricket oozed with examples of bharatiya sanskriti. During team meetings under one homespun coach, the youngest members of the team took orders for snacks, rang room service and then handed the food around. Obviously, respect for elders was being taught. The instructions were simple-dil se khelo. None of this new-fangled nonsense they do now ... fielding charts, batting and bowling plans, team goals. Yes, Bishan Singh Bedi's emphasis on fitness was before its time and Madan Lal's straightforwardness and diligence were appreciated. From then to now the game and how it is coached has moved on. The debate in Indian cricket is stuck in 2000. The decision-making had better not.

As every ex-cricketer worth his bile weighs in, note the silence from the players, the only ones with first-hand experience of the array of coaches from Bedi to Ajit Wadekar to Kapil to John Wright. As juniors, a few have handed around the snacks and all have directly felt the benefits of having a professional in the dressing room. If that professional happens to be a foreigner, they figure, so be it. They seem to understand better than their betters that it is not a slur on the nation. Among the Indians, Sandip Patil has earned the right to be in the running because coaching is his job and he has done it consistently at many levels. Coaching is a skill that has to be learnt before it can be transmitted. It is not magic but it is not for everyone. Harry Potter couldn't coach without practice. At the moment India doesn't have enough qualified cricket coaches. Deal with it.

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