IS DUNCAN DONE AND DUSTED?

IS DUNCAN DONE AND DUSTED?

Coach Under Scanner, But His Role Is Limited Within The Team

Mumbai: Had Team India’s steep and shocking downfall been in football and not cricket, coach Duncan Fletcher would have already been sacked.
    In football, the coach (or the manager) is always at the forefront, strategizing, forming the line of play. In cricket, it is the captain who is in charge on the pitch. That is perhaps the reason the guillotine hangs over captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, and not so much over Fletcher, who has been mostly in the background ever since he took charge of the team post the 2011 World Cup.
    There is hardly any doubt about the power Dhoni wields in Indian cricket today. He is the one who gets to sit with the selectors and pick a team of his choice, has almost absolute authority in choosing the eleven, is famously known to trust his own instincts over anybody else’s and reports to the high command (read: BCCI president) but nobody else, not even Fletcher.
    The latter is merely the strategist required at the drawing board, looking into the finer nuances of some of India’s biggest cricket stars. Fletcher’s daily workload involves a lot of one-on-one discussions with players, be it the 39-yearold Sachin Tendulkar or the 24-year-old Virat Kohli, helping them develop a deeper understanding of their own game.
    As Kohli had told TOI recently, “Duncan has great knowledge and he can talk about the game at a totally different level. Some of the things he told me have helped a lot and I’d say, the improvement has shown.” However, questions will be asked of a man certainly not part of Team India’s 2015 World Cup agenda, who was hired for a whopping annual pay-packet of $250,000 last year with a carte blanche to hire any support staff of his preference and remain unanswerable to India’s appetite-whetting sports media.
    That’s quite a deal for a coach who’ll probably be best remembered as the one during whose time, India came crashing from the World No. 1 ranking in Test cricket to fifth, with the road ahead only looking gloomier.
    It is also ironical that England, who was responsible for building Fletcher’s reputation as a coach, is now busy undoing it. It was never going to be easy for a 64-year-old to come to the subcontinent and adjust to India’s ways.
    His predecessor Gary Kirsten, on whose express recommendations Fletcher landed the job, had just about turned 40 when he took over as India coach. As a Test cricketer, Kirsten had toured India twice and played against Tendulkar, Dravid & Co. at home and away over a decade. He remained as good as a teammate for the senior Indian players and would be seen bowling in the nets for hours together. A connect was only natural.
    Fletcher, on the other hand, has a giant of a reputation for being cricket’s Mr Brains, which doesn’t make it very easy for a youngster to just walk up to him and strike a conversation. Fletcher’s an elder too, who unlike Kirsten, is often seen leaning against a rest watching his players go about their daily routine.
    “He doesn’t go to the player if he spots something wrong. He waits for the player to come to him,” says a domestic cricketer on the fringes of the national team, who has had his sessions with the man. “Not everybody has felt comfortable with him around,” he adds. Insinuations are fast surfacing that Fletcher isn’t such a hands-on coach after all, which may be a result of the growing frustration because of India’s string of losses. Or maybe, he is simply not doing enough.
    To be fair to Fletcher, even before he could settle down in India, several losses on and off the field – matches and retirement of Dravid and Laxman – came as big jolts. For the man, who had been assigned the task of overseeing Indian cricket’s transition from one generation to another, much happened before he could take charge of responsibilities he’d signed up for.
    Further, if a team constituting seven to eight top batsmen, some of them the world’s best, going into a Test match consistently fail to put at least 300 runs on board, clearly the coach alone cannot be blamed. The BCCI has to clearly underline Fletcher’s role here.
    If the role assigned to him simply involves working in the background, then Fletcher has no business occupying the chief coach’s role inside the Indian dressing room. And if it is the latter, it’s time he’s asked to leave.
DUNCAN FLETCHER Age: 64 I Played cricket for: Zimbabwe Best known cricketing moment: Helping Zimbabwe shock Australia in 1983 World Cup Early coaching career: Western Province (SA) and Glamorgan (England) 1st national team as coach: England — 1999 to 2007
High point: England’s first series win in the West Indies in 36 years, series win in South Africa, but most importantly helping England win the 2005 Ashes Other credits: Awarded an OBE in the New Year’s honours list Best known for (off the field): At 45, his main claim to fame was having devised Zimbabwe’s car registration system Lowest point: Watching India suffer back to back whitewashes in England and Australia and then debacles against England at home India contract: Replaced Gary Kirsten as coach of the Indian team on a twoyear contract, negotiable again in 2013. Salary: Estimated to be $250,000 pa. Job profile: Control over coaching affairs and power to choose support staff; also responsible for overseeing the transition of Indian cricket from the seniors to the juniors. Media role: Enjoys the privilege of not being answerable to the media unless the BCCI requests, has always been a media-basher Recommended by: Gary Kirsten INDIA UNDER FLETCHER Tests: Played 19 Won 6 Lost 10 Drawn 3 ODIs: Played 36 Won 21 Lost 12 NR 1 Tied 2

DO WE KNOW THE WAY FORWARD?
Duncan Fletcher (centre) should share part of the blame for India’s horror run in Test cricket since he took over