Coach or Man Manager?

Last month and a half saw exit of as many as six coaches, all from test playing nations, for varying reasons. With the changing face of cricket, the role of coach has come into focus like never before.

The question is, should we have an omnipresent coach as in football, who runs the show almost by himself, allowing the players to concentrate on the field? Or a traditional cricketing coach to help the players correct their technical flaws? Or a good man manager to compliment a strong leader on the field?

Whatever the combination, it is amply clear by now that coaching requires special skill sets and past reputation as a player hardly matters. In fact, most of the "great players" have been proven failures in their coaching assignments. Bishen Singh Bedi, Javed Miandad, Kapil Dev, Viv Richards -all distinguished players - have tried their hand at coaching with little or no success. Of the lot, Greg Chappell, I thought was best equipped to succeed because of his innovative approach to coaching. Sadly, it wasn’t to be.

What about the "great skippers" - a rare breed in test cricket? Frank Worrell, Richie Benaud, Ian Chappell, Clive Lloyd, Imran Khan, Mike Brearley, Mark Taylor, Steve Waugh all have preferred to stay away from the rigors of coaching for varying reasons. We can only speculate, but going by their track record, each of these players would have made a good coach.

Finally, those cricketers - who were neither great players, nor great skippers - but have shown themselves as good managers. Most of current coaches fall under this category.

Today’s management gurus make a clear distinction between Managers and Leaders. A layman like me often wondered how these two could co exist exclusive of each other. But try to draw a cricketing analogy and the picture becomes clear.

Men like Imran Khan, Clive Lloyd and Ian Chappell were good leaders who rallied their teammates by their own performance and charisma on the filed. Tom Moody, Bob Woolmer, Mike Brearley were good managers who were able to turn players’ talent into performance. And blessed were Frank Worrell and Richie Benaud, good leaders as well as managers.

It is pertinent that today’s coach should be a good man manager. Better, if he has a "Degree in People" like Mike Brearley. Great, if he is also a good leader.

It is no coincidence that the best team for last decade and a half has had a potent combination of good leaders in Mark Taylor, Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting and good managers in Bobby Simpson, Geoff Marsh and John Buchanan.