Who needs a coach anyways?

So finally Team India has found a coach. Or did the coach finally find Team India? Difficult to tell one from the other, after the fiasco over the what's-his-name African thumbing his nose at the BCCI after it had given the green signal. Whatever, the point is, will the new coach bring good tidings or will he be a bitter pill to swallow? Remember, post-Greg Chappell, we have done well by ourselves. The boys have been better off without a full time coach breathing down their necks, if you exclude the bowling coach and the fielding coach, Venkatesh Prasad and Robin Singh. Winning without a coach! It jells perfectly with what Shane Warne said about coaches. That a coach is one the team travels in! Nice spin from the spin wizard. From India's point of view, it's a straight one, and not a googly. The statistics don't lie. Without a coach, the Men in Blue have won overseas, and at home. In between, they have lost only to the world's best team. They have won, under a raw hand, and a seasoned veteran, as captain. They have won without the Big 3 being in the best of form. Under Dhoni, or Kumble, winning is getting to be a habit. Which begs the question: Who needs a coach anyways? What's the value addition he can give to a winning team? (Ans: He might keep it from losing?).

The question begs an answer. Will Australia under Ricky Ponting fare any worse without a coach? You wouldn't bet on it. Unless, the Aussies are smitten by the betting bug!

It's nice to read the trouble that the BCCI is taking to select a coach. All those interview profiles and stuff. The bottomline is: Do all the big boys like Sachin, Dravid, Ganguly, Kumble, etc need ANY coaching? Frankly, all they need is someone to pass the salt, do the routine stuff, and keep them on their toes.

Strategy? Planning? Balls. Just rewind to the Greg Chappell era and what do you see? There was a truckload of strategy and planning then. Sachin played up and down the order, Dravid was kicked up, then down, and in the middle, Ganguly was left holding the can, Pathan got a crack at opening the batting, Sehwag threatened to disrupt the middle order too, and lot more things happened in the dressing room, outside it, on the ground, off it, etc etc. At the end of his lack luster tenure, Chappell blacklisted more or less half the blokes who are now performing at their peak! Chappell's Raj can be easily summarized as below: Saurav Ganguly - liability to the team, plays politics, is a bad influence; Sachin Tendulkar - questionable commitment to the team cause. Zaheer Khan - attitudinal problems. Harbhajan Singh - ditto. Yuvraj Singh - Has to show more proof of his commitment.

This was then. Now, all the accused have overnight turned a new leaf, without Chappell behind their back. Each of them has played a crucial role in Team India's new resurgence. Worse, Chappell's blue-eyed boys, like Suresh Raina and Mohammad Kaif to name just a few, are not even a part of the national fifteen. How wrong can a coach get? Greg Chappell, for all his shrewd strategies, a thinking brain and vast experience, is the benchmark, as far as India is concerned, for how much a coach can get his sums wrong.

The new coach, Gary Kirsten, better keep this in mind, before taking guard. That as an Indian coach, you shouldn't get ahead of yourself. You should take the team along with you, and not play games within games, even with the best of intentions (?). The bottomline is how India performs. And not how the coach "performs".