Coach Factory

(Image courtesy: New Indian Express)

L Suresh visits the Coach factory and profiles eight of the best.

A few of them will walk into the sunset. A few will switch sides and continue to plan for the next milestone – World Cup 2011. The rest will down their drink and go out into the sun to look for another job. But that’s for later. Right now, here’s where the coaches of the top eight teams stand.

Mickey Arthur
#1 South Africa

Despite coaching the team with the hottest talent in the world cup arena, Arthur must be wondering what needs to be done to get South Africa to the podium. They lost to rain in ‘92, to a rampaging Lara in ‘96, to panic in ‘99 and to terrible performances in 2003.

If he had it his way, he would erase all the numbers on the players’ t-shirts and replace them with 438, the score that South Africa made to beat Australia's 434 – a record that produced another record by being one for a little over three hours.

An explosive top order with Smith and Gibbs, a solid middle order with Kallis and Prince, deep batting with Kemp, Boucher and Pollock at 6,7 and 8, one of the world's best pace attacks with Pollock, Ntini, Nel, Kallis and Langeveldt – Arthur knows that the only missing link in this dream team is the lack of a quality spinner. Besides, slow, low tracks have exposed the one dimensional nature of South Africa's pace attack, as the Champions Trophy showed.

And that's where Arthur has his work cut out. He has to keep his team aggressive and hungry - for he knows better than anyone else that if he doesn't keep them fired up with enthusiasm, he will be fired with enthusiasm.

John Buchanan
#2 Australia

As Fletcher was on his way up in life, another coach found himself plummeting back to earth after reaching dizzying heights. Two weeks ago, Buchanan was on his way to the best farewell a coach could ever have gotten. And with his team doing so well, he had all the time in the world to host management workshops and give traveling lectures on everything from team building to success.

And then the threads began to unwind. Leading names dropped out of sight. His star allrounder became an uncertainty. Suddenly, the sick bay seemed to be the most coveted place in the team as Brett Lee, Michael Clarke and Ricky Ponting followed Andrew Symonds - Buchanan’s team suddenly bore a mortal streak to it. To add to his misery, the effects of the magic potion have been wearing out on demolition man Gilchrist and Mike Mr. Cricket Hussey – Buchanan finally has a thing or two to be worried about.

And just as he is turning the last page of the coach’s manual, he finds himself having to make a beginning - it's time he learnt how to coach a team that has played five matches in two weeks - and won none.

Bob Woolmer
#3 Pakistan

Who would have thought that a soft-spoken, almost avuncular character like Woolmer would find his name drawn into the biggest controversies of world cricket - match fixing, ball tampering, match boycotts and failed drug tests – as he coached two of the most talented teams in world cricket!

Better known as the man who introduced technology to cricket coaching – and who introduced earphones on the field as he held on-the-field discussions with Hansie Cronje - Woolmer currently finds himself all at sea, seated in a boat with 15 expert oarsmen, each rowing away furiously in a different direction. Is Shoaib Akhtar match-fit, is Shabbir Ahmed chucking, is Mohammad Asif a nandrolone suspect, is Kamran Akmal wicket-keeping material at all, is Afridi playing his own Twenty20 within 50 over matches... Woolmer has a lot to answer for.

Oodles of talent and no direction, sparks of genius and no consistency, inspired performances and no teamwork - in his moments of utter desperation, Woolmer resembles an astronomer, telescope in hand, lying awake in the wee hours of the night and hoping to hell that he gets a glimpse of that famed constellation that he heard so much about before he took over the reigns of Pakistan. But that will happen only if the stars align and play together as a team.

John Bracewell
#4 New Zealand

If John Buchanan could give lectures on success, another John – Bracewell - can wax eloquent on the art of mastering frustration. Having incredible players like Shane Bond in his side, but not being able to pick them because of a torn hamstring or a knee surgery, waiting for a year for the likes of Oram to return to the side, but seeing him injure himself after just half a dozen matches, drafting in the Hamish Marshalls and the Jamie Hows and watch them go runless match after match... The story of Bracewell’s life is that his best players are always injured, his top order is rarely in form, and his bench strength has always been tested, but has rarely delivered.

To make things worse, the loss of players like Astle, Chris Harris and Chris Cairns will make the Kiwis feel utterly wingless. Post their recent losses in the Champions Trophy and in the Commonwealth Bank Series in Australia, New Zealand have done what it takes to gain in form and confidence - call their neighbours over and hand them a drubbing.

The little sparks of talent that made this possible will offer Bracewell hope that his team will make the cut. He has the services of one of the world’s best captains in world cricket today and the two will have to team up and find a way of fusing limited talent with unlimited energy to make the grounded Kiwi fly.

Greg Chappell
#5 India

Greg Chappell must now be in a better position to understand the plight of India’s biggest industries – cinema and cricket – that have for years, been ruled by star-power and have pandered to the demands of a star-struck multitude.

India continues to blaze away at home and blunder overseas and yet, the selectors and the Board have not managed to remedy the situation. In the process of trying to put together a unit of fighting, multi-skilled soldiers who could contribute to all 100 overs of the game, Chappell took on the high and mighty, stepped on toes, rubbed people the wrong way and in the end, was forced to do a roll-back of his ‘experimentation’ – the most hated word in Indian cricket today.

Questions are still asked about the selection of Sehwag and Pathan. Yuvraj and Munaf Patel are still struggling with their fitness. Dravid and Sachin are playing their own hit-and-miss game with form. And as a billion Indians wave goodbye, sign mile- long banners and spend precious money sms-ing good luck messages to their team that sets flight with out-of-form heroes, convalescing stars and aging veterans, Greg will be wondering if he needs to be wary of the Ides of March. Until now, he was damned because he did – and now, he knows that he will be damned if his team doesn’t.

Tom Moody
#6 Sri Lanka

While most teams treat India as a rehab center where they can drop in to get over their bad habits and get back into form, Sri Lanka must be posing a strange kind of problem to their coach, Tom Moody. He is yet to come to terms with the bizarre statistic: Matches played in India: 11. Matches won: 2.

Of course, while stats like these end up being just another addition to the world of useless trivia in cricket, it doesn’t really matter that Sri Lanka and India are in the same Group in the World Cup. There are the two whipping boys – Bermuda and Bangladesh - to make the quartet which means that both Sri Lanka and India can go into the final eight regardless of their performance against each other.

But the issues that Moody needs to focus on have surfaced. While the top four – Jayasuriya, Tharanga, Jayawardene and Sangakkara – look formidable, scratch the surface and the middle order is not the kind that would make a bowler sweat. And as for the bowling, the absence of Vaas and Murali leaves a second-string attack.

The magic word that Moody must be holding on to will be spin – let loose an army of spinners who will slow down the scoring on a slowing pitch and leave the wicket-taking to the big two. This strategy won them the 1996 World Cup. Moody will be hoping for an encore. That would make him the second Australian – after Geoff Marsh - to win the World Cup both as a player and a coach.

Duncan Fletcher
#7 England

Two weeks back, English fans didn’t just want a new coach, they wanted the current one to be burnt at the stakes - though his ashes would be no compensation for the ones they had just lost. And just as Fletcher began contemplating coaching stints in minnowland, destiny came calling - or rather colling - as Paul Collingwood pulled rabbits out of his hat, shoes and pockets and powered England to three victories on the trot against the mightiest team in the world.

Fletcher has finally succeeded in getting his boys to contest against players and not their reputations. Injuries and form don’t matter anymore. Nor do the big names that have only added to the confusion in recent times. Mal Loye and Ed Joyce will do. So will Sajid Mahmood, Monty Panesar and Plunkett.

Fletcher and his team have made a remarkable contribution to the 2007 World Cup – an element of uncertainty that ushers in a level playing field, in what could have otherwise been a one-sided contest. Thanks to him, England will fly cheerfully to the Caribbean, knowing fully well that they have neither the skill nor the experience to be a world beater. However, what they have is a sense of spirit, one that was gained after a bloody battle was painfully lost.

Bennett King
#8 West Indies

The 80s might just be a couple of decades back in time, but to Bennett King, they seem to be another era - when he could have sat back like Buchanan and watched openers Greenidge and Haynes strike a partnership, middle-order bats like Richards and Lloyd plunder runs, and then have the Caribbean quartet perform the grand finale - Holding, Marshall, Roberts and Garner pick wickets at will with the ball. But now, he has a team with the world's best batsman, the world's most explosive opener - and little else.

The Calypso cricketers did make a u-turn in one day cricket, courtesy India and have been showing glimpses of their form ever since, reaching the finals of the triangular in Malaysia and the Champions Trophy. But what will give them greater confidence is the fact that they have beaten Australia in both tournaments.

King's biggest advantage lies in the fact that the World Cup is held in his team's backyard, but therein lies the problem too. No host nation has ever won a World Cup. But if Gayle fires, the famed trio of Lara, Chanderpaul and Sarwan gets cracking and Bravo and Smith excel with their slower ones, there can be no guesses as to who will be crowned ‘Caribbean King’.

(Appeared in the New Indian Express Sunday Supplement on 25 February, 2007)