When anything changes we look forward with suspicion and anticipation to see the outcome. The same feeling lingered in the minds of every cricket lover in India as Greg Chappell got into the robes of the Indian cricket team coach.
Was the Indian cricket team inadequately coached before? No, never. However, we think that a new coach can do some wonders in the international cricket arena. How true it will be? Although a great coach can teach, guide, and make a hopeless and desperate team prudent, usually he fails if the team members do not cooperate. As what is said about the horse is true with the cricketer too. You can lead a horse to its drink but you can’t make it drink.
After winning the world championship in ‘83, we have seen many surprises in Indian cricket. Remarkable wins and irresponsible loses. We hugged our players when they won the matches but besmeared them when they lost. We blamed the captains and changed them very often thinking that a new face may bring luck. Just look back and see how many good cricketers are shamefully driven back to sit in the pavilion as the selection committee took captaincy from them. Right from Kapil Dev to Saurav Ganguly. It seems that we have forgotten the basic fact (along with the great ones in the selection committee) that cricket is a team sport and is not a game like tennis that flourishes just on individual merits. And we changed the coaches. Keeping our fingers crossed on each occasion.
A team sport can win only when all the team members play well. And in cricket with much responsibility. I think of all the games that we have invented, cricket is the only game that demands concentration on every moment. If the batsman is careless for a moment he will be out. If the bowler is careless for a moment he gives the batsman a chance to send the ball over the boundary lines. And if the fielder is careless for a moment he drops a simple catch. And when we watch the Indian cricket team playing we find many occasions of irresponsible omissions. And the team loses. The play ground is not the medieval battle field for the captain and the coach to intervene at every moment to make the player loaded with dedication and loyalty. Every player must take to his heart that he must do his best there. Unfortunately, after playing a couple of matches, Indian cricketers take the entire affair as a child’s play. After all, it’s a game and why should he fret too much over it? He loses concentration (because he doesn’t want to concentrate), he loses line and length (because he wants to finish his overs somehow), and he looks at the ball with bulging eyes after he has dropped it (as if the ball has done some trick to jump off his hands).
Why does this happen? The corruption that blemishes Indian politics and bureaucracy has spoiled the Indian cricketers as well. To clear of it they need counselling and rigorous rehabilitation. Then only we can see the glorious days of Indian cricket again.