How coaches must deal with the stars

DURING his stint as national coach in 1990-91, Bishan Singh Bedi, deciding that Anil Kumble’s legs were not “strong”, came up with a brilliant idea — the young bowler was asked to do sit-ups with fellow player Venkatapathi Raju perched on his shoulders. Kumble later wrote he could “hear my back go”.

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When Kumble was India’s coach, he acquired a reputation of a “headmaster”. His methods did not “go down well” with the players, who were “a bit intimidated” — they had been used to the style of Ravi Shastri: More hortatory, more approachable and friendly, less confrontational.

Coaching a team with grown-up men involves disciplining them, dealing with them from a position of authority. This can lead to tricky situations. Bedi’s coaching methods worked well in Punjab — he transformed the team and led it to the Ranji Trophy title in 1993 — and Jammu and Kashmir. But at the state level, he was working with players who were below the international class, and their egos were proportionally smaller. Bedi didn’t find much success with the national team and didn’t last long with it. Same with Kumble. The ‘headmaster’ approach doesn’t work in a national team, especially if it’s led by a man such as Virat Kohli, who is strong-minded and iron-willed — and very intelligent and outspoken.

Two power centres in a high-pressure national team environment are problematic: Kumble and Kohli didn’t hit it off, and Kumble had to go. That was 2017. A BCCI official then said: “The way the cricket set-up works in India is that the coach is not the king. So the coach has to understand that.”

It was felt that Kumble’s intense methods were causing injuries. “Kumble was pushing hard. The bulk of them (injuries) are non-cricketing injuries. One of the players was stressed out. So the team is not a happy lot,” the official said.

It must be noted that the most successful captains of India — Kohli, MS Dhoni and Sourav Ganguly — worked best with coaches who were less ‘intense’ but strong in planning and tactics: Shastri, Gary Kirsten and John Wright. They were good man-managers who exhorted the players and guided them without chafing their egos.

Langer case

Justin Langer became coach of the Australian team in 2018, soon after the ball-tampering controversy that led to the ouster of Darren Lehman and ban on captain Steve Smith and vice-captain David Warner. Trying to break from the ugly inheritance of cheating and a mentality of winning at “all costs”, he came up with catchphrases such as “elite honesty”. In reaction, former player Shane Warner commented: “That’s just rubbish, that sort of stuff. Seriously, it makes you want to vomit.”

Langer, it’s alleged, actually made some players of the current team vomit — using ‘intense’ methods after, it’s reported, he discovered he had been paid less than the players for a documentary for Amazon!

Australian media reported that the day Langer found out the players were getting $41,000 more than him to appear in the documentary, he “took half-a-dozen players and torched them with a gruelling fitness and fielding session in the heat”, and the players “suspect the unplanned session was payback”. At least two players vomited.

Pat Cummins, the captain, said the players wanted a calmer, more ‘collaborative’ approach than what Langer could provide. Cummins was criticised by former players, including some of Langer’s teammates from his playing days, such as Ricky Ponting and Adam Gilchrist. Cummins said: “To all past players, I want to say this — just as you have always stuck up for your mates, I’m sticking up for mine.” This episode has parallels to the Kohli-Kumble story. Or even the Ganguly-Greg Chappell tussle: A strong-minded Ganguly got a strong-minded Chappell as coach. No good came of it.

It could be argued that Australia don’t need a fiery coach: The players are fiery on their own, having come up through the most competitive, cut-throat — on-field — cricket system in the world.

It could also be argued that to win consistently, you need an aggressive captain, because most of the on-field decisions are made by the captain in real time; he must be backed by a sharp-minded coach, who must have great hortative abilities. With the Indian team likely to go through a difficult transition period in the near future, Rahul Dravid will have a tough time proving he’s that man.