Duncan Fletcher
Duncan Fletcher has been the talking point recently in Indian cricket even with the sizzling IPL currently on process. For the very first time the appointment of a cricket coach has raised people’s eyebrows and fire questions whether Duncan is the right choice and can he live up to the biggest job of his career?
The reason being simple that India are the world champions today and it’s equal share goes to the playmaker Gary Kirsten-the coach. So when such a person has raised hopes to a nation with a billion people, now they expect the same from his successor. Today’s newspapers stared with comments from the 1983 world cup winners Kapil Dev and Sunil Gavaskar. Both shared the same opinion. Mohinder Amarnath, another 1983 world cup winning player and a candidate for the job would have been the best option as the guys in the Indian dressing room form a majority of Hindi-speaking belt and so the communication penetrates deep in and chances are that the performance too can scale up. The speculations and rumors will keep coming for some time now but if Duncan is really determined that he can step up to the shoes of Gary Kirsten then he will have to give his statement to put an end to this for a new beginning.
But there lies the problem. Duncan is very vulnerable with the media. Both England former captains Nasser Hussain and Michael Vaughan believed the same. Duncan Fletcher can be easily exploited by the media and Vaughan added that he still would not have figured out a solution. But if Duncan has other ideas of producing the right results with the given team in hand then the rest will be a cakewalk. We will have to respect the decision taken by the board simply because the board has respected the talent of a master tactician. He was a revelation in Zimbabwe cricket as an all-rounder and people rated him along with greats like Ian Botham, Imran Khan, Kapil Dev. As a mentor he took the England team to great heights in a matter of 8 years. The 2005 Ashes win is the pinnacle of success in the history of English cricket. The overseas series win over Sri Lanka, West Indies is not a walkover as even the current Indian team will find it difficult to tackle spin webs in one island below us and a rapid pace track from another.
Duncan is lucky enough to get a world cup winning team under his belt but he would definitely want the team to feel the same after his tenure of 2 years. The need for the hour for Indian cricket has to be a genuine all-rounder who can bowl at mid 130’s and occasionally touch the 140 mark and score runs at a steady pace in all forms of the game. Freddie Flintoff is the greatest player grown under Duncan and now if he can produce someone whom we have not seen since Kapil Dev, the invincible tag could definitely chase us.
Tags: Coach, Cricket, Duncan Fletcher, Indian Cricket, Kapil Dev, Mohinder Amarnath, Sunil Gavaskar
