Sanjay Bangar: Indian team has coped up well with Anil Kumble's departure
Batting coach Sanjay Bangar has stated that the Indian team has done well to compartmentalise Anil Kumble's resignation from the game and have coped up well sans a head coach. Bangar also suggested that the senior players in the team have taken charge and their experience has helped the team.
It has been a week since India lost to arch-rivals Pakistan in the 2017 Champions Trophy final and the only discussion that remains is head coach Anil Kumble's departure from the Indian team. Kumble resigned from the post of the Indian coach stating his relationship with Indian skipper Virat Kohli as 'untenable' and denied accompanying the team on the West Indies tour who took on the home team in the first ODI of the five-match ODI series which was eventually washed out. However, questions regarding Anil Kumble's resignation kept haunting the Indian team and this time it was Sanjay Bangar who had to face the ghosts.
"We are professionals and such things are part and parcel of any organisation where changes happen. The support staff and the players have shown a lot of professionalism in compartmentalising the issues and so far we have coped up really well," said Bangar, who went on to add that the team has been focused on the task at hand," Bangar told the media in a press conference.
"Everyone's contributed towards it (ensuring the harmony of the team) and as I said earlier, when you part ways it's never easy. You need to accept that at times such things are going to happen, have happened in the past. But what is of paramount importance is that Indian cricket should keep moving forward and the performances of the team shouldn't really be affected in any manner," he added.
Under Kumble's leadership, India became the number one ranked team in the Tests and won the majority of their series against World Class opposition.
When Bangar was questioned regarding the essentials of a coach-captain relationship, he replied,"It's not only the coach and the captain, it's also the relationship and trust between the coach and all the players. Basically, it's a work in progress that requires a lot of time to earn the trust of the players. Once you do that, the job and the responsibilities of the coach become that much
Kumble took 956 wickets in his international cricketing career and also doubled up as a bowling coach for the Indian team at times far and few. Bangar had no qualms in admitting that his expert guidance is missing but insisted that the experienced players in the team have done well to mentor the team on different fronts.
"Yes, Anil was doubling up (as the bowling coach). There were a lot of positive results under him. We all know that the team enjoyed a lot of success. The void, there is definitely a bit a lacuna but the experience that this team possesses - when you have a Mahendra Singh Dhoni, a Yuvraj Singh and Virat Kohli, who've played close to 700 international games, they're doing a lot of work behind the scenes, they are guiding the players. It's not only the coaching staff, the mentoring that they (the senior players) do and the exchange of ideas among them, there is a wealth of knowledge which the players benefit from," he said.
Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni did not get enough chances to showcase their prowess in Champions Trophy and while Yuvraj played a couple of scintillating innings he was dismissed cheaply in the others. Recently, there have been calls from various former players of replacing the veteran duo with fresh talent. However, Bangar insisted that the two still possess what it takes to make it big in the game.
"It all boils down to the fitness part. If you're fit and capable of delivering. You saw in the match against Pakistan, how the experience came to the fore - In the last eight overs we scored 108 runs and that wouldn't have been possible without the contribution of Yuvraj Singh. Even when we were four down at Cuttack, it was the experience of Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni, who got two big hundreds and put us on a score of 360. They have done these things in the last four or five months and if they manage to keep themselves fit, motivated - and I can definitely vouch that they are very motivated to play - you can only stand to benefit from their continued presence in the team," Bangar summed up.
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