I am writing a cricket blog after a really long time. Truth be told, I had not really followed the game for a while now. There are several reasons, first being a busy PhD programme. Perhaps the more important reason was India had such an amazing home season and the games were so one-sided for the most part of the season that I did not have the patience to beat the time-difference and watch/follow the game. The Australia series was the only series where I kept track of the scores on Cricinfo. However, I am in France right now, doing a rather relaxed internship and I not just followed but watched the entire Champions Trophy. I had had my heart broken in the final and actually felt sad about it for almost two entire days. However, that is not what I am going to write about. I am going to write about the entire Kohli-Kumble episode that has unfolded in the past few weeks. Before I give my opinion on this, I must tell my readers that I am huge Virat Kohli fan and in his playing days I used to adore Anil Kumble. Thus, when he became the coach I thought it was a match made in heaven. For me to see this partnership fall apart has been a truly difficult experience.
It is extremely hard for us, sit outside and pass a judgement about who was right and who was wrong. Typically, we tend to bring our likes and dislikes about a certain people or a perception we have built about the players and then come to a conclusion which may be so far from reality. In the past few weeks, I have read so many anecdotal stories which try to corroborate the guilt of either the captain or the coach. Since we are so far away from the "action", we can only speculate.
This incident, in fact, asks a more important question. What is the role of a coach in a cricket team? And how are the responsibilities between the coach and the captain divided? I find it rather hard to answer this question. One of the things that one needs to recognise is that cricket is a very different game from most other sports. Here the captain is a far more important character in the team than in most sports. Most of the strategic decisions have to made by the captain. It is the captain with whom the buck finally stops. A captain with a strong personality might want to run the team both on and off the field. Thus I could imagine that a strong personality like Anil Kumble (who may not be comfortable taking a back seat) might have created two power centres. Consider the past coaching partnerships that worked and failed. Saurav Ganguly - John Wright was a great success. Ganguly - Chappel was a disaster. Dravid - Chappel was not bad. Dhoni - Kirsten was a success. And now Kohli - Kumble has been a failure. The pattern that I notice is that, whenever both the parties involved seem to be people who would not be ready to play a second-fiddle anywhere, the partnership just broke down. My sense is that, during the Chappel-era, Dravid did play a bit of second fiddle and it was Chappel who ran the team which is probably the reason why the partnership was not a failure. For this latest incident, I think it is entirely possible that neither Kohli nor Kumble are actually at fault. But the partnership was just not meant to work. I have no doubt in my mind, that if there is coach-captain conflict in cricket, the coach has to go. This is just due to the nature of the sport where the captain is a far more important cog in the wheel compared to the coach. It is very essential for the smooth running of the team that the team gets a coach with whom the captain is comfortable working. Although I am extremely disappointed that this match did not work, I think the right thing has happened. Now that Kohli has got his way, it is up to him to perform. Things will not be easy for him with a barrage of away tours coming his way. I'd be curiously watching how he fares.
