April 6th, 2007: Quiztion of the Day - 25
As the World Cup Super 8s teams take a two-day break for the Easter and so much attention and coverage is being given to the National Coaches during this Cricket World Cup, especially to the Coaches of those teams which have already exited from the World Cup I thought it would be a good idea to dedicate today’s QUIZTION OF THE DAY to all the coaches of teams that participated in this tournament.The Coaches usually come in to limelight as scapegoats when the teams they guide perform badly. This is particularly true in case of Coaches of Indian Cricket Team, whose fans have a penchant for hero worshipping. It’s not only true with Indian Cricket but also with Indian Cinema. Basically wherever there is a mass following and passions play a major part, the Kings will never be blamed but the Kingmakers’ heads will be chopped when something undesirable happens. Most of the blockbuster movies give credit to the heroes of those films whereas the debacles will be attributed to the director to the extent that the heroes say it was a bad move to act in a particular movie in spite of interfering in most of the film making process not letting the director do what he wants.
I can draw many parallels between Indian Cricket and Indian Cinema. The majority of the fan-base being the same in both the cases, they never want to find fault with their idols. Superstars of Cricket and Cinema usually interfere with the team building or film-making process to have their say and when the team or movie fails miserably like in the World Cup, they wouldn’t take the responsibility and resort to the mud slinging and trash throwing towards their Coach or in case of films towards the Director.
This is simply because we don’t want to blame the people whom we made heroes and tend to become defensive to plead not guilty thinking that we couldn’t possibly be wrong when we worshipped or adored them. In the process we keep forgetting that it is their game or action in the first place that was influential in us making them as demigods. Once they become superstars or heroes or demigods, we want them to be successful every time they go to wicket or act in a movie. When they fail we feel obviously it could not be their fault and there must be some invisible forces acting behind them which were acting against them and making them fail in the process.
So it didn’t surprise me when Greg Chappell chose not to extend his stay as Coach of Indian team. And it will not surprise me when the Indian cricket team goes for simple battles like tours to Bangladesh to restore their pride and bring credibility to the Kings. Very soon the crushing defeats in the World Cup Wars will be forgotten although I am not sure if the same team that showed the exit to India in the World Cup will surrender meekly when India visits them next month, but I am sure it will not be any of those Superstars who will be blamed for it if at all that happens and a poor soul who will be taking the role of an interim-Coach will be made a scapegoat.
Coaches are usually shuffled like as a pack of Cards in American Sports. The franchise teams of three major sports leagues NFL, NBA & MLB usually will be firing several high profile coaches before the end of their contract when they fail to take their teams to certain stages of the championships. But more often than not the Owners of these teams will be showing a lot of patience and do not interfere with the methods the coaches apply at least for a couple of years to give the Coaches enough time to exercise their power and build the team to establish the chemistry between the players to let them execute and perform to their level best at clutch moments till they finally emerge as champions.
Same thing can be said about Australian Coaches Bob Simpson, Geoff Marsh and John Buchanan. Australian Cricket Board stuck with them and did not indulge in finger pointing even during the times of disastrous series like 2005 Ashes defeat and this year’s CB Series finals (2-0) & Chappell-Hadlee (3-0) drubbings. The result: Three World Cups and most probably a fourth in this tournament which also makes it a hat-trick of World Cup Victories.
Today’s 'Quiztion of the Day' relates to the Coaches of the National Teams in World Cup Cricket History. Here it is:
In the history of World Cup, only one cricketer holds the distinction of playing a match after being a coach of a national cricket team. Name the Cricketer and provide details of this extraordinary occurrence.
Remember to email your answers for each quiz individually to vijay@dreamcricket.com with the subject line as 'Quiztion of the Day - X' (X being the question number) through out the tournament duration. Results will be first posted on http://www.dreamcricket.com/ website within a week of the World Cup Final.Cheers...
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