Tale of Three Veterans!!!
By Srikrishna Chintalapati
Some and 20 and something months ago, three veterans of the game, determinedly, ambitiously fought ‘tooth-to-nail’ to get selected for a profession that is - most respected, most challenging, most celebrated and highly lucrative, called “Coaching the Team India” (along with couple of other insignificant competitors), namely- ‘Dave Watmore’, ‘Tom Moody’ and ‘Guru' 'Greg Chappell’. We had a Whiz-kid council to evaluate them, which consists of handful of ‘Indian cricket well-wishers’ who often makes appearances in major commercial sports channels and throws out irrational cerebrations. The council seemingly had a tough job of outweighing one contestant with the other and zeroing on one, who in turn, expected to strategize and drive the Team India to unreasonable heights, for time being, WORLD CUP-2007 .
Firstly, the wise men assembled in a luxurious and expensive Five Star Suit. Systemized a hypothesis and formalized a process of evaluating the contestants, then, called the contestants for an initial ‘face-to-face’ session, followed by a presentation to explain their vision and strategy for ‘Development of Team India’. Media, as always- collected, collated and communicated each moment of this exercise and kept everyone updated from time-to-time.
A set of cricket enthusiasts, Journos, and analysts, opened their laptops and calculators and all major cricket statistics websites. Meticulous forecasting reports and SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis reports, followed by synthesizing & analyzing the pros & cons, assumptions & presumptions, rants & raves, hues & hooplas had come out with simply too many speculations challenging the basic conventions of permutations and combinations, which I was taught earlier in school.
Most of them failed but couple of them clicked. The council of whiz-kids had selected Greg Chappell as a new coach to Team India. And here comes the reasons -- Moody lacks PASSION, Watmore lacks PASSION and for Chappell, coaching weighs somewhere above the profession- ‘it is his PASSION’.
Well, as usual, cribbing kicks off- few said Chappell is expensive and speaks only money, few said- Sourav had his mark again, and rest murmured he is arrogant and manipulative. However, the Whiz-kid council and BCCI were in no mood to take a step back as they were sure that they made this choice IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE GAME. Adding to that, they were enamored by some assuasive, technical and angelical terminology such as 'EXPERIMENTATION, SCHEME OF THINGS, GROOMING YOUNGSTERS, FITNESS REGIME, SOLDIER CAMPS, YOGA, MEDITATION, COMMITTMENT TO EXCELLENCE etc ...
As the new coach takes over and so many nasty episodes follow and Sourav ecstasies into darkness for whatsoever inexplicable reasons. And Indian cricket started seeing flowage of lots and lots of PROMISING TALENTED YOUNGSTERS such as Venugopala Rao, JP Yadav, Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, RP Singh, VRV Singh, Dinesh Mongia, Wasim Zaffer, Hemang Badani, Jogindar Sharma, Peeyush Chawla(none of them made to the World Cup) ... At this juncture, rather amidst this turnaround, Team India had seen some dramatic changes, as IRFAN turned All-Rounder, Dhoni and Yuvi turned game finishers, Ravi Shastry turned as a third party endorsement in every day media, Sunny Gavaskar turns Strategic Advisor, and RAHUL emerged as a proud owner and savior of this treasure, A CAPTAIN, A LEADER, A GENIUS.
And, above all... The entire CRICKET WORLD in INDIA then started revolving around "THE WORLD CUP".
On Friday, 23rd March, 2007- A sunny, warm evening in Caribbean Islands, all these strategies, vision, planning and propaganda headed to a heavy-hearted abeyance as TEAM INDIA now comprehensively defeated by two unrestrained, energetic teams trained by "Dave Watmore" and "Tom Moody"- our old friends, the same disdained contestants we underweighted against Guru GREG.Firstly, the wise men assembled in a luxurious and expensive Five Star Suit. Systemized a hypothesis and formalized a process of evaluating the contestants, then, called the contestants for an initial ‘face-to-face’ session, followed by a presentation to explain their vision and strategy for ‘Development of Team India’. Media, as always- collected, collated and communicated each moment of this exercise and kept everyone updated from time-to-time.
A set of cricket enthusiasts, Journos, and analysts, opened their laptops and calculators and all major cricket statistics websites. Meticulous forecasting reports and SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis reports, followed by synthesizing & analyzing the pros & cons, assumptions & presumptions, rants & raves, hues & hooplas had come out with simply too many speculations challenging the basic conventions of permutations and combinations, which I was taught earlier in school.
Most of them failed but couple of them clicked. The council of whiz-kids had selected Greg Chappell as a new coach to Team India. And here comes the reasons -- Moody lacks PASSION, Watmore lacks PASSION and for Chappell, coaching weighs somewhere above the profession- ‘it is his PASSION’.
Well, as usual, cribbing kicks off- few said Chappell is expensive and speaks only money, few said- Sourav had his mark again, and rest murmured he is arrogant and manipulative. However, the Whiz-kid council and BCCI were in no mood to take a step back as they were sure that they made this choice IN THE BEST INTEREST OF THE GAME. Adding to that, they were enamored by some assuasive, technical and angelical terminology such as 'EXPERIMENTATION, SCHEME OF THINGS, GROOMING YOUNGSTERS, FITNESS REGIME, SOLDIER CAMPS, YOGA, MEDITATION, COMMITTMENT TO EXCELLENCE etc ...
As the new coach takes over and so many nasty episodes follow and Sourav ecstasies into darkness for whatsoever inexplicable reasons. And Indian cricket started seeing flowage of lots and lots of PROMISING TALENTED YOUNGSTERS such as Venugopala Rao, JP Yadav, Gautam Gambhir, Suresh Raina, RP Singh, VRV Singh, Dinesh Mongia, Wasim Zaffer, Hemang Badani, Jogindar Sharma, Peeyush Chawla(none of them made to the World Cup) ... At this juncture, rather amidst this turnaround, Team India had seen some dramatic changes, as IRFAN turned All-Rounder, Dhoni and Yuvi turned game finishers, Ravi Shastry turned as a third party endorsement in every day media, Sunny Gavaskar turns Strategic Advisor, and RAHUL emerged as a proud owner and savior of this treasure, A CAPTAIN, A LEADER, A GENIUS.
And, above all... The entire CRICKET WORLD in INDIA then started revolving around "THE WORLD CUP".
Now, let’s take a holistic view- whom should we blame? The whiz-kids who selected him? The crowd that cheered him? The players & officials who supported him? The captain, who worshipped him? The board, that trusted him? The media, which heralded him? The Journalists, who endorsed him? The country, that paid him? The bureaucrats who would help him to renew the contract again??? ………………. Think …Think ……and Think again ….
I leave this question to you!!!
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Srikrishna Chintalapati
Saturday, March 24, 2007
|
Labels:
Cricket Reviews
|
