Coach season

This month has seen a spate of new coaches being appointed to cricket teams - Mickey Arthur for South Africa, Greg Chappell for India and most likelt Tom Moody for Sri Lanka.

A moot point is does an Indian coach have to be Indian? Mohinder Amarnath and a few others thought so... but after the success of John Wright there were many more who thought that the nationality of the coach is of no consequence. I agree. Cricket has become so competitive and professional that the goal is excellence - irrespective of where you are getting the help from.

But I believe we must move away from having national teams to just teams. The coach, in my opinion, is a very important cog in the cricket team. John Wright proved how the fortunes of the team can change when coached right. (John Bracewell is showing how bad a team can perform if it does not have the right coach) So is an Indian teach coached by a non-Indian a truly Indian team? No.. certainly not. Add to it, a South African trainer and an Australian psychologist!!!!

Cricket, I think, has started to transcend national borders in search of excellence and we must bow to it and accept teams without a nationalist connotation where players can easily move about between teams. Brett Lee, for one, would sure welcome that.