(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)What does Greg Chappell do when regular training methods aren’t good enough for Team India? L Suresh finds out...
It all began with Coach Greg using his lateral thinking techniques and deciding to put the team through a wringer of a programme that would get the best out of them. The reason? While the Australian team was conditioning itself for the Ashes, the Indian team was unconditionally surrendering itself to its opponents, whoever they may be.
But Greg couldn’t put his millionaire boys through boot camp. If the likes of Anil Ambani, Kumaramangalam Birla or Rajiv Bajaj don’t crawl through trenches, push cars uphill or haul gallons of water in dry heat, why would Sachin, Rahul or Viru do it? So Guru Greg, after much thought, took out his six thinking hats and flipped them around until he got a brainwave. How would you condition a team that was playing like school boys? With a ‘Back to school’ camp, of course!
So the team was divided into four houses – Blue, Green, Red and Yellow. The players from Team India who were feeling the blues were drafted into Blue House. Those who were performing well, but were being kept out of the Indian team and were hence seeing red were part of Red House. The team that was going green with envy on seeing the men in blue rake in the big bucks and bigger endorsements despite some serious non-performances, was in Green House. And since Greg Chappell, John Gloster and Ian Frazer were all from Australia and since Australia always played in yellow, they took the all-important Yellow House.
Obviously, children being children, no one was happy with their allotted colours or houses. To start with, everyone wanted to belong to Blue House. A few aging non-performers wanted to shift to Yellow House and enjoy the perks of retirement. And looking at the way Team India was playing, some of the members from Yellow House wanted to get into Blue House and play for Team India. Meanwhile, the selectors- after getting to know that the BCCI is targeting a billion dollars this year – began gunning for the Green House, especially after someone told them that back in the US, dollars are referred to as greenbacks.
Soon, it degenerated into a serious case of indiscipline where everyone was questioning their current colours and challenging each other for the all-important Team India slots. So Greg decided to turn yet another negative into a positive – and that was how the Challenger Series was born.
And as the series progressed, Greg figured that the ‘Back to School’ camp would have include English classes as well, for two reasons – one, so that the players could understand that when running between the wickets, yes does not mean no and vice-versa. And two, those trying to get in to the team had to quickly understand that ‘making a comeback’ was not about coming back quickly to the dressing room, but had more to do with getting back into the habit of scoring runs, taking wickets and all those things that were expected of a cricketer.
In the end, Greg was in a quandary as to how he was going to find a place in the team for the fringe players who were performing. To add to the confusion, there were two ‘add to favourites’ lists that were floating around – one belonging to the previous panel of selectors and the other, to the new entrants. So who would get capped for the World Cup? Greg came up with yet another ingenious solution.
In his own words, “Those who are already part of Team India can retain their caps. And those who couldn’t make it can have my six thinking caps. Obviously, I won’t need them when I coach the Australian team after the World Cup!”
It all began with Coach Greg using his lateral thinking techniques and deciding to put the team through a wringer of a programme that would get the best out of them. The reason? While the Australian team was conditioning itself for the Ashes, the Indian team was unconditionally surrendering itself to its opponents, whoever they may be.
But Greg couldn’t put his millionaire boys through boot camp. If the likes of Anil Ambani, Kumaramangalam Birla or Rajiv Bajaj don’t crawl through trenches, push cars uphill or haul gallons of water in dry heat, why would Sachin, Rahul or Viru do it? So Guru Greg, after much thought, took out his six thinking hats and flipped them around until he got a brainwave. How would you condition a team that was playing like school boys? With a ‘Back to school’ camp, of course!
So the team was divided into four houses – Blue, Green, Red and Yellow. The players from Team India who were feeling the blues were drafted into Blue House. Those who were performing well, but were being kept out of the Indian team and were hence seeing red were part of Red House. The team that was going green with envy on seeing the men in blue rake in the big bucks and bigger endorsements despite some serious non-performances, was in Green House. And since Greg Chappell, John Gloster and Ian Frazer were all from Australia and since Australia always played in yellow, they took the all-important Yellow House.
Obviously, children being children, no one was happy with their allotted colours or houses. To start with, everyone wanted to belong to Blue House. A few aging non-performers wanted to shift to Yellow House and enjoy the perks of retirement. And looking at the way Team India was playing, some of the members from Yellow House wanted to get into Blue House and play for Team India. Meanwhile, the selectors- after getting to know that the BCCI is targeting a billion dollars this year – began gunning for the Green House, especially after someone told them that back in the US, dollars are referred to as greenbacks.
Soon, it degenerated into a serious case of indiscipline where everyone was questioning their current colours and challenging each other for the all-important Team India slots. So Greg decided to turn yet another negative into a positive – and that was how the Challenger Series was born.
And as the series progressed, Greg figured that the ‘Back to School’ camp would have include English classes as well, for two reasons – one, so that the players could understand that when running between the wickets, yes does not mean no and vice-versa. And two, those trying to get in to the team had to quickly understand that ‘making a comeback’ was not about coming back quickly to the dressing room, but had more to do with getting back into the habit of scoring runs, taking wickets and all those things that were expected of a cricketer.
In the end, Greg was in a quandary as to how he was going to find a place in the team for the fringe players who were performing. To add to the confusion, there were two ‘add to favourites’ lists that were floating around – one belonging to the previous panel of selectors and the other, to the new entrants. So who would get capped for the World Cup? Greg came up with yet another ingenious solution.
In his own words, “Those who are already part of Team India can retain their caps. And those who couldn’t make it can have my six thinking caps. Obviously, I won’t need them when I coach the Australian team after the World Cup!”
(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 08 October, 2006)
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