It started out as a murmur. Now it is gradually turning into a proven gospel. Australian cricket coaches just don?t cut the ice in India. While not all of them have scarred Indian cricket as Greg Chappell had, no one barring Darren Lehmann as coach of the Deccan Chargers has a record to be proud of. In Lehmann?s case too, a large part of the credit should be attributed to Adam Gilchrist, mentor more than captain of the side. While Chappell was an outright disaster as coach of the Indian national team, John Buchanan was a similar disaster at IPL level.
Others like Greg Shipperd as coach of the Delhi Daredevils, Tom Moody for Kings XI Punjab, Geoff Marsh for Pune, Geoff Lawson for Kochi and also Michael Bevan for Kings XI have hardly left a mark on cricket in this country.
In trying to analyse the reason, one is forced to look into the socio-cultural context in which cricket is played in Australia. A study of the Australian cricket context demonstrates that Down Under there is one singular top down cricket structure. To explain further: there is one coaching formula evolved at the top and the same method is followed by all coaches at the provincial and club level, barring some minor exceptions.
Accordingly, players coming up the ranks in Australia play the same kind of cricket?aggressive, intense and fiercely competitive. In their scheme this is the only way to play cricket and also perhaps the best way to do. Diversities and differences, at the core of Indian society, aren?t considerations important enough to be taken into account in the Australian cricket context or they just don?t exist. A simple example, all Australian cricketers speak the same language?English. In India, on the other hand, a sample survey with 50 cricketers will mean interacting with men speaking 15 or more languages and coming from diverse cultural backgrounds. Australian coaches, more often than not, have failed to take into account these cultural differences, which are so deeply embedded in Indian society. That the Australian approach to cricket might not work in India is something they find almost impossible to come to terms with. For them that?s the only approach that leads to success and anything else is either inferior or not important enough to be given due consideration.
Australian coaches, as a very successful coach said recently on condition of anonymity, are instructors more than man managers and the age of such instructors is gradually coming to an end. This is more so because not all of them have played T-20 cricket and even if they have it is a format that is still evolving and one which demands far more openness and flexibility than other formats.
South Africans, by contrast, given their chequered political history, are far more accustomed to dealing with diversity and difference. Apartheid, more than anything else, has taught them to be patient and be far more accommodating. This explains why Gary Kirsten adopted a see-first approach after coming to India. Kirsten tried to understand how the Indian cricket system operates before trying to thrust his own views on his wards. The patience that Kirsten had shown during the initial days of his tenure paid him rich dividends towards the end. Blessed with an astute cricket brain and good man-management skills, Kirsten blended well with the Indian way of functioning. That he wasn?t flamboyant was often mistaken as diffidence and falsely interpreted to suggest that Kirsten was a backroom man playing second fiddle to the captain. In reality it was his way of functioning, being inclusive and covertly passionate for his cause rather than being brash and aggressive as Chappell was. Kirsten, in sum, played the game the Indian way and had mastered the art of doing so.
Finally, it must be mentioned here that coaching an IPL team is perhaps a more difficult task than coaching a national team. Barring six to seven high class international players and three to four established Indian stars, there are 15-16 more Indians in each IPL team who aren?t accustomed to outside ways and means. Culturally, they are far more cloistered than we often imagine them to be. To be able to deal with these youngsters in an alien cultural context is an art that Australian coaches have failed to master thus far. Exceptions may well be round the corner, but till then the Kirsten legend will continue to grow.
The writer is a sports historian