Coach’s Role

Inconsequential of any walk of life there has to be someone behind to direct traffic, be it in the normal 9 to 5 job or school or sports. Umm Sports and my god are we entering in to an ocean.

Let’s just dwell on cricket for a while because that is where the epicenter for the disaster lies. Ever since we were shown the door from the world cup Gre(at)g Chappell has been shown the chappal, not the one to believe in the myths but this particular one about “Great cricketers Don’t make a great coach” does make you want to believe, if we go by the history Kapil Dev, Javed Miandad, Don Bradman, Gordon Greenidge ,Vivian Richards and so on so forth. But what really is a coach’s role in this whole drama?

They are meant to be sort of one who will nod along for the good decisions or are they the kingmaker? It is not as if the ordinary cricketers who have turned coaches have had it as Peaches and cream, they have had their fair share of their brickbats as well.
A coach can utmost corrects the bad technique of a player; he just can’t go out and correct himself.
The Greatest storyteller in Cricket Ian Chappell incidentally happens to be the much-maligned Greg’s elder brother is not a great advocate for coaches in any sport. He’s right to a certain extent. Just to highlight his point the greatest cricketer to walk this planet Sir Garfield Sobers never had a coach accompanying him or his team but he still managed to score close to 9000 test runs and 234 wickets and around 100 catches. This is unparalleled in Cricket. Our very own Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar never had coaches till about their sunset of their careers still they performed the way they did.
I am not saying coaches should not exist at all but my point is it will fetch you the profits that you expect in an individual sport rather than a team sport.

The Supposedly very great coach of all time Late Bob Woolmer made a name for himself when he was associated with the South African team and absolutely wretched time when he was wit the Pakistan Team till his death recently. Does that mean that Bob Woolmer had forgotten his coaching skills no it is plain and simple, in a team sport an individual is as good as his team, Classic cases being Brian Lara and Sachin Tendulkar performing in a losing course umpteen times.
So I guess coaches are like teachers where in they have to intervene and correct the bugs that creep in to an individual’s game. John Buchanan was not a great cricketer himself but still he made a name for himself since he was with the Ruthless and Invincible Aussies.The Aussies adapt a completely different policy as far as their sports are concerned, for instance they brought in an American Pitcher to help their Cricketers in throwing the ball from the deep flat and at lightning pace. You know that’s innovation we can also try something like this in the off-season, we can hire a football Goal keeper to enhance our Diving skills, things like these will be of great help rather than to have an Ex Sports person wearing the team’s jersey and just play with laptop just to prove to the world that the coach is Techno Savvy as well.

There has to be a way out.