With the Big Four of Indian cricket making known their preference for a foreign coach, as they have for the last seven years, it would appear as if Dav Whatmore is on course to succeed fellow-Australian Greg Chappell as India’s next cricket coach.
At a closed-door meeting in Chittagong last week with Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) president Sharad Pawar, four of India’s most celebrated players are said to have plumped for another foreign coach, largely because of the professionalism and innovativeness that characterised the John Wright and Chappell eras.
Skipper Rahul Dravid, his deputy Sachin Tendulkar, former captain Sourav Ganguly and ace leg-spinner Anil Kumble are further learnt to have told Pawar that they believed Tom Moody, who recently severed ties with Sri Lankan cricket, was ideally suited to taking Indian cricket forward, but with Moody having since decided to return home to Western Australia, the next best choice was Whatmore.
Whatmore himself has openly expressed his desire to assume charge of the Indian team. As a matter of fact, the former Australian batsman irked his current employers Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) by plumping for the Indian job even as Bangladesh were still involved in the World Cup in the Caribbean, and it came as no surprise that by mutual consent, his contract as coach of the Bangladesh team wasn’t extended once it expired at the end of last month.
The 51-year-old volunteered to stay on with Bangladesh during India’s on-going tour of that country, and he made the most of the opportunity that came his way when a BCCI team landed in Chittagong at the BCB’s invitation last week to meet with BCCI secretary Niranjan Shah and Chief Administative Officer Prof Ratnakar Shetty and formally express his desire to coach India.
India’s tryst with indigenous coaches — or ‘cricket managers,’ as they used to be called — encompassed experiments with the likes of Bishan Singh Bedi, Abbas Ali Baig, Ajit Wadekar, Aunshuman Gaekwad, Sandeep Patil, Madan Lal and Kapil Dev. Kapil was the last of the home-grown coaches, and while he carried the tag of one of international cricket’s leading all-rounders, he had precious little inputs to offer when it came to coaching.
It wasn’t until Wright was made the Indian coach in 2000 that a foreigner stormed what till then had been an Indian bastion. As India’s first overseas coach, the former New Zealand captain had opened the cricketers’ eyes to aspects relating to fitness and beyond. The emphasis was not merely on fluid motivational talk, but on more tangible factors that the players could relate to.
Dravid and Ganguly had been key players in Wright’s entry into Indian cricket when the seniors first aired their desire for a foreign coach. Likewise, Ganguly was a massive influence in Chappell’s appointment as Wright’s successor in May 2005. Dravid and Tendulkar were more inclined to have Moody on board, but Ganguly, who had had a stint with Chappell in Adelaide before India’s tour of Australia in 2003-04, plumped for Chappell, even if the two subsequently fell apart.
Both Wright and Chappell brought new ideas and concepts. Not all of them worked, but the freshness has obviously appealed to the senior pros enough for them to want the BCCI to continue with a non-Indian coach. The established players seem convinced that an Indian coach is not necessarily the best way forward for Indian cricket at this juncture.
The players might not exactly be in a position to dictate to the Board. Saying that, there are very few other options available, so the man who guided Sri Lanka to the 1996 World Cup and took Bangladesh past the first stage of the 2007 World Cup can’t be passed by all that easily.
 A seven-member panel, including former captains Sunil Gavaskar, Srinivas Venkataraghavan and Shastri who were also in the group that chose Chappell, will deliberate in Bangalore on June 4 as the hunt for the coach enters the homestretch. Gavaskar had, in 2005, wanted to rope in Mohinder Amarnath as the national coach. What stance he takes this time around will generate much interest, particularly with not many names doing the rounds and with the Board not having advertised for the post, unlike two years back.