Russell Domingo, Mike Hesson and sub-continent cricket boards' changing priorities
Ravi Shastri was re-appointed as the India coach as he pipped Mike Hesson to the post after the Cricket Advisory Committee decided to hand the Mumbaikar another roundabout. Just a day later, Russell Domingo found himself in a better position after being handed the Bangladesh head-coach role.
In the due course of time, Sri Lanka and Pakistan will announce their coach as well, probably in the first occurence of all sub-continent teams banking on one another’s rejected candidates to give them a job, almost at the same time. It also gives a sneak-peak to how a World Cup can make or break fortunes, let alone the expectations on Asian teams are always at a fever pitch during the mega event. However, the biggest takeaway from the entire movie that is unfolding is the first instinct of the Asian boards moving away from the assertive conservatism towards everything in some way related to cricket.
From the Jagamohan Dalmiya-Inderjit Singh Bindra-planned commercialization of the sport to the duo’s gift to the Indian economy with the subsequent multi-billion dollar TV rights for India’s home matches, not a single path-breaking move had seen the light of day without balancing out profits and stopping the chariot when it finds itself in troubled waters. Let’s get the fact straight - the Asian Bloc - as they came to recognize themselves now after PILCOM became the major buzzword until Bangladesh achieved Test status - has always targeted huge revenue from the gate and with the box-office cricketers making it happen with the snap of the finger, no one really wanted to move away from the cocoon, nor did they want to try anything fancy just for the sake of it. That reflected in the selection of the coaches as well.
Sample India. Starting from Ajit Wadekar to Kapil Dev, from Greg Chappell to Gary Kirsten and eventually Duncan Fletcher, all of them came with a distinct reputation as a cricket player to be the coach of the Indian team. Ravi Shastri, for all his reputation as a mighty commentator and an expert analyst, had an impressive resume as a cricketer, with 80 Tests and 150 ODIs to his name already. And it was never a surprise why Anil Kumble was preferred over everyone else in 2016. However, the way things are happening now, with Hesson and Domingo leading the pack for the unheralded cricketers, it hints to the changing priorities of the Asian boards.
Of course, Hesson comes up with an impressive CV as New Zealand coach where he entirely changed the team's ethos, leading them to the World Cup final in 2015, while Domingo was at the helm of affairs when South Africa made strides and broke new grounds with AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla making the team a limited-overs beast. All this considered, it was still a complete new cauldron for the men and women responsible to pick the coach of India and Bangladesh, understanding the points of what those people bring to the table is a welcome narrative.
As Ravi Shastri’s appointment and previous Anil Kumble-Virat Kohli fiasco suggested, cricket needs good managers in the team and instead of having former legendary cricketers at the helm, one team will be better served with a man who can even out the egos and create a good atmosphere. Even though there is a complete cultural difference, Kevin Pietersen’s case can help understand the importance of the topic much better.
After differences with his own teammates, captain, director and of course, coach Andy "contagiously sour, infectiously dour" Flower and Peter Moores, whom he referred to as "human triple espresso - so intense", KP’s career ended and soon descended English cricket into chaos. Looking back, it took a complete cultural shake-up to comeback from the past and start building a new team ethic, with Trevor Bayliss and Paul Fabrace being the torch-bearers inside the dressing room. In the conservative Asian cricket boards, it would be a dream to think anything beyond normal hierarchy, but in a rather welcoming co-incidence, the boards have started embracing it.
While Hesson and Domingo are good tacticians of the game, it is highly unlikely that coaches like them will boss around the dressing room, but would rather try to work on the small chinks in the stars' armour. In India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, authority is too often invested in people away from the action, and the way Kohli-Kumble issue was handled, it revealed the general lack of understanding of how sportsmen work. People like Domingo, Hesson, apart from being very good at the theories, understand how modern sportsmen work and have proven in the past that they can handle it by themselves.
Ross Taylor-Mike Hesson controversy was one of the worst coach-captain relationships in the last few decades but looking back, Taylor would also admit, he was benefited by Hesson’s philosophy in a big way and his career touched new highs after he relinquished captaincy in favour of Brendon McCullum. Domingo had his role to play in Amla being the captain and the way he managed the egos in the dressing room played a key role in some of the happy time in South African cricket team, as AB de Villiers subtly admitted.
It is an encouraging sign - one that has been never seen in Asian cricket before, and it only means one thing - that the boards are finally adopting to a thought-process. The result is unknown yet but the beauty lies in the experimentation.
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