Thursday, March 6, 2008

Do we really need Kirsten?

Can anyone imagine a team beating world champions without having a coach? "No, not at all" will be the answer from the every corner of Cricket world. But this impossible incident took place in Australia when Indian team beat the World champions in CB series and proved itself not even a good team but threatened other teams too by its performance.
What is new in this team? This is the biggest question bugging the minds of almost all the cricket analysts and critics. What is new — Ishant Sharma, Praveen Kumar, Rohit Sharma, Sachin's form, Bhajji's agrresion or the team effort which was increased to hight of the Mount Everest ?
Its not the first time when Indian team boarded the plane for any tour with 'Yuva mantra', in fact the term was used in World Cup-2007 also but the team failed miserably. This mantra has been used so many times but CB series is the first result out of it.
In World Cup - 2007 the young brigade with MS Dhoni, Dinesh Karhik, Munaf Patel, Irfan Pathan, Sreesanth, Yuvraj Singh and Robin Uthappa, was barred to enter the second round by Sri Lanka and newly arising Asian team of Bangladesh. And the team coached by Greg Chappel with vision- 2007, shattered the vision in fragments.
But in CB series even world champions found there self short to reach Indian performance and moral, and the main Mantra behind this success was — cooperation and unity between team management and team, some dedicated coaches (Prasad, Singh and Rajput) who want to make heroes unlike the previous coach, single sided BCCI and its support for its players (especially in Bhajji ban case).
There are three more heroes in the recent team who dont come down to the field in matches but out of the field they play there crucial, dedicated and honest roles. Venkatesh Prasad did a tremendous job with fast bowlers and turned them in exceptional from usual, similarly Robin Singh worked hard and harder on the low level catches mostly in slip area, to generate chances to win the matches.
Promoted with the responsibility of assistant coach Lalchand Rajput played his role brilliantly in the most tough and controversial tour of Indian team.
If there are national heroes like these three who are experts in making heroes with keeping national and sports-spirit high, what is the need of bringing in the person who had an opinion — "To spread cricket to all corners of India, we played in what could politely be classed as one-horse towns, places with more cows on the street than cars. A sense of humour is a necessity on this tour,".. "62 days in a country where westernized living conditions are regarded a luxury, is no task for the faint-hearted" — after finishing the Titan cup in 1996. This statement is not form any other man but the new coach of Indian team Gary Kirstan. If the person doesn't have respect for any country, he/she can not work for that country with heart and soul.
What braught Kirsten back to India is the money of BCCI and the fame of cricket in India, not welfare of Indian team. Unlike Kirsten, the trio has the respect and feeling for nation and national team which were the key contributor in the historic win over Ausies.
When everything is going fine and not even fine but great at that time what is the need of change, because changes are always done to bring out improvement. And this time what the team needs is the support of this trinity, not change.