The U19 worldcup have almost come
to an end. India have marched their way to the final, dominating every single
opposition. Though the best competitors in the world i.e. Australia, skipped
the tournament for security reasons, both Westindies and India have played
really good cricket. If not they definitely wouldn't have reached the final.
Irrespective
of the result of the final, Rahul Dravid definitely will be proud of his boys. It’s
heartwarming to see him going to the dressing room of the associate teams and
instilling faith in them after they have been demolished on the cricket field.
It’s a nature that we don’t see very often. But with Rahul Dravid, it shouldn’t
surprise us.
The term of current Indian team
director ends with the T20 worldcup. Considering this in mind, there can’t be a
better situation to appoint Rahul as coach of the Indian team. With a long home
season of tests to come, there can’t be a better foil to the Indian test
captain Virat Kohli. If Rahul accepts the offer, then it would be the best
thing to happen for Indian cricket in the next decade. The calmness of Rahul will
definitely do a greater good to the aggressive, in your face- Virat!
If at all Rahul believes he is not
ready yet, then there is one other guy who can do similar good. Anil Kumble is
the man for the job. These two people go unnoticed on most occasions. But the
glorious moments of Indian cricket in the past decade belong to them. Anil
captained the Indian team for a brief period of time which was filled with
controversies, like the one in Sydney 2008. I can’t think of any other person
who could have handled those situations better. Much like the saying “Horses
for courses”, he was the perfect man for the situation. He doesn’t back off
from sledges. But his replies were never found offensive. His attitude on and
off the field is unmatchable.
India always had their bowlers
performing well overseas in patches. But they faded away even more quickly than
they arrived. The fact that Anil is the most successful Indian bowler over a
consistent period of time in overseas conditions will definitely help. As they
say, “a stronger bowling team always have a better chance of winning the test
match than a stronger batting team”, I strongly believe "The Engineer" has a
great deal up his sleeve to contribute to the team provided the offer was given
and he accepts it.
Ravi Shastri and his team of
support staff including Sanjay and Arun has done a great job so far. But I
believe some credit must be given to Duncan Fletcher. He is definitely not as
bad as the statistics show. At times you will have to look beyond the
statistics and understand the context of the situation. He took over as the
coach of the No. 1 team in the world. But it was a team that consisted of
legends who were at the fag end of their careers. They failed and the team lost
consistently overseas.
But it was during the same period
when the likes of Virat, Pujara, Rahane, Rohit came up to the stage. The rise
of Virat over the years is staggering. But I firmly believe there is a greater
contribution of Duncan in his rise. Even Virat has said that Duncan silently
observes and comes to you only if you had something to be corrected. During the New Zealand tour there is one such
thing that he told virat after his struggle in first innings and he said that
it immediately worked and he scored a century in the very next innings. There
must be more of such untold stories about him.
You can ask Kevin Pietersen who
turned to Duncan when he felt like things didn’t work. He was the one who coached England to victory
in arguably the greatest ashes test series of all time in 2005-06.
Both captaincy and coaching is much
like a relay race. If the baton is not passed perfectly, there will be initial
struggle for the next person running. But Indian cricket is extremely blessed
over the past fifteen years as the baton has been passed perfectly every single
time. Now the time has come for the baton to be passed for the coach. You can
ask about the captaincy baton which is yet to be passed in shorter formats. I
believe MS Dhoni will do that perfectly, like he had done in the longest format. So let’s leave that aside for now.
Once the world T20 gets over, I will be keenly looking forward towards the selection of coach. There can’t be two
better personalities for the job than Anil and Rahul. Hopefully if BCCI offers the job to
either one of them and they accept it, then there can’t be better thing to
happen for the Indian cricket team and its captain. Glory times are
definitely ahead.
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