THOUGH the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) committee to select the Head Coach of the national team had not made up its mind on the final name, many who understood how things moved up there were conscious that the members might opt for Ravi Shastri’s continuance as Head Coach as against Mike Hesson of New Zealand who, too, had applied for the job.
There were several factors that favoured Shastri, including the manner in which he guided the team in his earlier term in India and abroad. His performance on ‘away’ tours finally made the grade, which may count all the more in the coming days as India aims at the top slot in all formats of the game. Describing his own task ahead, Ravi Shastri felt sure that the national team under “brilliant leader” Virat Kohli was headed for greatness. This belief, perhaps, was the deciding factor in Shastri’s favour. There is little doubt that the current Indian team has many pre-requisites of greatness, including leadership -- individual and collective -- out in the middle, great bowling attack that can sweep any batting side off the ground, and a fairly good line-up of truly good batsmen. To add a special strength to the effort, of course, is the fielding capabilities of almost all players who stand in world line-up for ‘best’ tag
With a seasoned warrior like Ravi Shastri continuing to be in charge, the team is expected to march towards greatness, as the reappointed Head Coach described. However, no matter the gloss-over by anybody, the team’s performance at the recent World Cup did leave an unnecessary bad taste in the mouth. There was no doubt that team did a fine job until it lost in the semi-final to New Zealand. But it does not appear possible to digest the run-of-the-mill justification of the defeat by Ravi Shastri that it was one of those odd days when the team went down.
For, the team went down only because it could not stich one last act well to confirm its grip on the game, thanks to several factors that cannot be accepted as the events of one odd day. If Ravi Shastri now looks forward to “greatness” of the team in the coming days, he will have to work very hard and far more systematically than he ever did to erase that odd possibility of one odd day. Perhaps, to ensure that, the Head Coach may have to transform the current culture of unnecessary flamboyance in the team. And to say the least, it would not mean only a cosmetic change, but a change in the basic approach to building a win brick by brick, something that seems somewhat lacking in the current method and manner.
