I can't speak about India, but I would definitely agree with you in regards to Pakistan. I felt the biggest advantage Woolmer had (and in fact he also spoke off) is the fact that being a foreigner he didn't have the baggage a Pakistani coach would. No one could accuse him of favoring a certain region. He wasn't part of Pakistan cricket before so he had no allegiances and hence could not be lumped in with a clique. Simply put, a Pakistani coaching the National Team brings too much baggage with him.
Not that I am against a foreign coach, but why should the nationality of a coach matter ?
In an ideal world, it shouldn't. Practically, it does and for the same reasons Fusion mentioned above. If our coach was Indian, he would undoubtedly be accused of favoring a region (and it might even be true) or to gain favor with particular members of the board, etc.
Because in most places, it's easy to get caught-up either in regional-politiking or be accused of doing so. It's already happened with Moores and Prior, in his very first game - fortunately for Moores, to date Prior's performances have kept any accusations like that quiet. But can you imagine if he showed the faith in Prior that Duncan Fletcher did in Geraint Jones, with the player in question performing as poorly as Jones did? The accusations would be all over everywhere you look, even if they weren't true.
Were Javed Miandad or Intikhab Alam) accused of regionalism ? I am sorry but if our boards/current players are going to continue to make this kind of assumption then they should have a look within themselves before applying such a criteria for selection of coach. Alsi it tells a lot about the their character rather than the coach's qualification and I would be very skepticle about such a team's attitude and performance.
Well in that case we should get a foreigner as captain as well.
You contradict your own post..If it is best then how come Australia became the best team under Simpson/Marsh/Buchanan ? And wasn't Whatmore a SriLankan too ?
I am going to repeat myself here, but this is a bit of hypocritical from Indian board/players and to some extent from fans. Because the board appoints a selection panel with five (?) from 5(?) zones whose job is to get the players from their zones into the team. The captains normally parade for their players (e.g. Azhar did for Noel David, Kapil did for Chetan Sharma and countless others, Tendulkar did for Dighe, Kanitkar etc, Dravid for Kumble in WC). Fans from jharkhand want Dhoni, fans from Orissa want Mohanty, the other day I was speaking to my friend from Karnataka and all he wanted to talk about was how great Uthapa is....I can go on and on..
Being accused of regionalism is just one disadvantage. Miandad's history with the team made it impossible for him to be given a clean slate. There were always groups of players who supported him, and those that were vehemently against him. At one point or another, he had clashes with senior players like Wasim, Saeed Anwar, Waqar or chief selectors (Aamir Sohail). There is no point in analyzing whose fault it was. The fact is that a local coach would invariably have to deal with these aspects, whereas the foreign coach would not. I'm not saying this is right. You are absolutely correct that it says a lot about the characters of our cricketers and administrators that this happens regularly. But….it does. Hiring a (well qualified) foreign coach is a simple way to avoid this nonsense.
I dont think Hiring a foriegn coach can solve this problem. John Wright/Chappell had similar problems in India. As far as I know Woolmer had the same issues with players (Akhtar), Richard Pybus had same/similar issues with the board and certain players.
Very valid argument Richard......doubt if you can ever win this one though
If only....
Well, perhaps it is unfair, but coach and the captain are the two most important selections, and they do have to be as unbiased as possible (or at least give that impression). Captain has to be an Indian obviously, and if the coach is more qualified than the rest, than I have no problem hiring him. But if I had a choice of two equally qualified coaches, I would go with a foreigner, regardless of their reputation. Like I said, ideally, I shouldn't have to and its unfair that an Indian coach has to work harder to get the same job...but practically...I think it's necessary.
why? what good do you think that will do?
I'm pretty sure that Whatmore was born in Sri Lanka, but played all of his cricket in Australia. That's from memory - I could be totally wrong.Sanz said: