BCCI sits deciding India's future coach, Shastri appointed as interim

The evergreen debate of who will coach the Indian cricket team is hot again these days after the world cup debacle of team India. Should India have a foreign coach or an Indian to hold the reign is being deliberated upon.

First the loss in the World Cup then the controversy surrounding Indian coach Greg Chappell and his deputy Ian Fraser and then the comments from Sachin Tendulkar. In a fit of rage and the controversies surrounding him, Chappell resigned from his post.

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Now it is BCCI's task to decide on who should be the future coach of the side. The needle points heavily towards one of India's own former players. The fact that Chappell quit in a blaze of controversy has certainly dampened the enthusiasm of pro-foreign coach protagonists.

Chetan Sharma, former India player, goes for an Indian to be handled the reign,

I will prefer an Indian coach because we had already had two terms of foreign coaches. But now we should settle down on an Indian for two years and see the difference. The feedback on foreign coaches is that they do not understand Indian culture, our players' psychology and language

While others like Kiran More favor a foreign coach saying India should persist with a foreign coach to maintain continuity in the training process.

Atul Wassan and Madan Lal moot of not having any coach at all for the next six months.

Atul said,

We might actually perform better. Players like Tendulkar and Dravid know all the strategizing. Instead of having a symbolic coach, we can have specialized coaches for bowling, maybe, say Venkatesh Prasad. After all, when we won the 1983 World Cup and the 1985 World Series, we didn't have a coach.

No doubt the debate will go on and on. The Indian cricket Board has to first define the role of a coach, should he be teaching the basics of any particular activity in coaching methods. For example, what was Chappell experimenting with? He kept on shifting and chopping players from one slot to another, but when it came to the world cup, all his trials proved wrong. Before the world cup, Sachin Tendulkar was asked to open, but in the world cup, he was asked to bat at number four. What about Irfan Pathan, the player that was most experimented with, did not even find a place in the playing eleven. However, experiments do help at times, but in a limit. Whoever is the coach, he should be innovative, should gel well with the team.

Finally, the Board has mulled of having Ravi shastri as an interim coach till the Bangladesh tour. Decision on a permanent coach will, however, be made later on.

via: INDIATIMES