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Originally Posted by paindu
Ian do you believe the role of coach is overestimated by cricket fans ? I mean how responsible can a coach be if a players gets carried by adrenaline and chucks his wicket away and refuses to learn from his mistakes. How much difference can a coach make other than strategy or some changes to technique ?
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Originally Posted by Ian Pont
Firstly, a GREAT coach can make a BIG difference. Kirsten did for India and Flower is doing it for England. Below national level, coaches become EVEN MORE important as they are charged with developing talent. So a coach's role is not overestimated in my view.
What fans do overestimate is how quickly that coach can make a difference. And as you mention there, if the players don't learn from mistakes then the coach cannot force them.
However, a coach at international level has to be able to get those points across. He also has to be an inspiration for the squad and be a hard-working coach who understands how to get the best from players around him and still keep the door open for others to have a chance.
Fans have unrealistic hopes and dreams compared to the reality, many times. This is why successive head coaches have to keep pointing out where the team is the rankings, as the rankings tell the reality. They only do this because the fans expect far more than can be delivered in the time frame or with the resources.
What a Head Coach CAN do immediately though is change the mindset of the players into a winning one. No more 'if we get 240 that's good enough' mentality. Time will tell if there are some good signs over the next 6 months.
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Yeah have to agree with you Ian. But do you think India would have achieved under Kirsten if the captain would have been say anyone other than Dhoni or if he did not have the embarassment of riches both in terms of quality and experience. There is no denying his quality just that I think the perfomers make the coach look good or bad which is rather unfair.
Consider this, you are framing the strategy for bowling to Sehwag. Now there is no roket science to it and you state the obvious to the bowlers of where to bowl. Now you are really relying on that individual's skill and temparament to execute the plans, right. Same for the batsman, you can hammer into them to build an innings, but it is the perfomer who has to sort himself out and coach can be a mere catalyst.
Let me present another analogy, if a teacher prepares a bunch of really ambitious and talented students for an examination and they do well, the credit goes to the teacher and if he is putting similar or greater effort for not so great students and they do not perform in exam, how much blame lies with the teacher and how much with student.
Your points are valid, just that I disagree with lot on the forum who go for coach's head for every failure. Imo, coach can be only facilitator, a consultant, a motivator. But it really is about that individual and how he fares in his battles.
On a side note, I think it is fantastic that we get your contribution on the forum. This in unprecedented anywhere else to my knowledge