Get Rahul Dravid as the Team India coach, Sourav Ganguly as the Team Director

Duncan Fletcher’s time has Team India coach is over. There is talk of Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid emerging as frontrunners to occupy the post vacated by Fletcher.

Duncan Fletcher’s time as Team India coach is over. There is talk of Sourav Ganguly and Rahul Dravid emerging as frontrunners to occupy the post vacated by Fletcher.  Who of the two is best suited for the role?

It’s only a matter of time when Virat Kohli will lead India across formats. Kohli is aggressive by nature and is unapologetic about his approach. If one goes back in time, it was under Ganguly’s leadership that India emerged as an aggressive cricketing power on the field.  He inculcated in his team to be unafraid of giving it back to the opposition. In that sense, the amalgam of Kohli and Ganguly would be in sync in their attitude and approach to tackle the opposition.

Dravid, on the other hand, is the epitome of the gentleman’s game that the sport once was.  Dravid was aggressive in his intent without crossing the line to stray into the territory of the obnoxious.  He never got on the wrong side of the law for his behaviour — in words or action. And maybe he may just be the right person to act as a calming influence on the young, impetuous Kohli who has the knack off meeting trouble half way.

Kohli is a Ganguly admirer and has expressed his desire to win abroad like the former captain. But will two highly individualistic and abrasive personalities click as a team for long? Let us go back in time to the mid-2000s — a phase Indian cricket will not like to remember. Greg Chappell helped Ganguly with batting technique. Both become good friends and Ganguly helped the Australian get the job of Team India coach. But then things soured. There was clash of personalities. Ego wars tore the team apart. Indian cricket suffered. Ganguly’s relationship history hasn’t been the best with colleagues who look to hog the limelight. Even late in his career, he had issues with Kolkata Knight Riders’ coach John Buchanan and the side’s superstar co-owner Shah Rukh Khan.

Mahendra Singh Dhoni has been an oasis of calm. Not only Dhoni is one of the coolest men ever to grace the field of cricket, but coaches like Gary Kirsten and Fletcher remained in the background and gave total control to the captain. Kohli, for sure, will like to dictate terms. But with Ganguly as coach, that may not be possible. As long as both men agree on issues, there would be no problems. But should there be differences, as there will be over a period of time, the explosive personalities would like to stamp their respective authorities. In such a position, only one man can win. And that will be the start of a greater divide.

Indian Team’s director Ravi Shastri has had a positive impact on the side. The players, including Dhoni, have admitted that Shastri’s arrival has indeed helped the side mentally. Though Shastri comes across as N Srinivasan’s avid advocate, it’s a fact that the side has done well with him in charge. However, Shastri’s arrogance doesn’t find him much supporters outside the team. After the third Test in Melbourne last year, Shastri went on record saying that he didn’t care if the scoreline read 3-0 or 4-0 by the end of the Australia Test series as long the side showed the right intent. Well, he may have intended to say the right thing, but that didn’t sound well. With that approach, the tactical side takes a beating and we are talking of only courage. In a mission, what will you choose: James Bond or Chulbul Pandey? India didn’t manage to win a single game against Australia. India lost the Test series 0-2, lost one ODI, lost the World Cup warm-up match and later in the semi-final. Apart from the last day of Adelaide Test, most of them were one-sided affairs. So where was right intent?

Shastri also spoke about the tri-series that preceded the World Cup as a “sheer waste of time and energy”. Why? Didn’t that help India get used to the conditions? England and Australia, too had grueling schedules prior to the World Cup, but they didn’t choose to complain?

Shastri and Ganguly are both outspoken personalities, but not necessarily with a similar mindset. If Shastri stays as the Team Director, it’s unlikely that Ganguly would want to be in a position where he will have to operate under Shastri. With Dravid, there will be no such issues. Apart from Ganguly, Dravid’s is one sensible voice among chaos. He is a calming influence, on and off field, and has never let emotions dictate or get the better of him. He doesn’t have ego issues and is well respected, and has done wonders with the young Rajasthan Royals’ side in the Indian Premier League (IPL), both as a skipper as well as a mentor. He also knows a thing or two about winning abroad.

Ganguly-Dravid partnership

So what’s the way forward? Indian cricket was staring at the bottom of the barrel in 2000. The results had dried up and Sachin Tendulkar had quit from captaincy. Ganguly as captain and Dravid as his deputy took the side to greater heights in the years to come. India were not a side anymore who were just out to merely compete. The only side that seriously challenged the world’s best side Australia were India. And they often got the better of the opposition. Ganguly’s strategies, aggression and expressive leadership helped, while Dravid’s calm demeanour complemented that brilliantly. Not to forget the contribution of coach John Wright and other great players like Tendulkar, Anil Kumble, VVS Laxman and Javagal Srinath.

Last week, when Sunil Gavaskar was asked his choice of the future Indian coach, he was quoted on NDTV as saying, “That’s a tough one. Just like you have a captain and a vice-captain, maybe I will make one a coach and one a vice coach or assistant coach. I’ll get both of them, if both are available. Honestly, if both these guys are available then I certainly would never want to miss on that experience, that expertise that these two great servants of Indian cricket will bring to the Indian team.”

So why not hand it over to these two stalwarts? With Kohli as the captain in Tests, Dravid, who has worked with the side as a batting consultant in the England tour in 2014, fits the bill as the coach, overseeing the preparation and technical aspects of the game. Pravin Amre and Sanjay Bangar, who are certified coaches, can act as his perfect assistants. Let Ganguly, the leader take over the role of Team Director and oversee the overall operations and head the strategic part. His man management skills will come into use. Give him a role in selection and spotting talents too.

It would be awesome for Indian cricket to have Dravid and Ganguly powering Team Indian future. It boggles the mind to think what the two can achieve with their combined offerings of 28 years of international experience, spanning 933 appearances for India in which they scored close to 43,000 runs, hit 88 hundreds and took 577 catches.

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(Suvajit Mustafi consumes cricket for lunch, fiction for dinner and munches numerous other snacks throughout the day. Yes, a jack of several trades, all Suvajit dreamt of was being India’s World Cup winning skipper but ended up being a sports writer, author, screenwriter, director, copywriter, graphic designer, sports marketer, strategist, entrepreneur,  philosopher and traveller. Donning so many hats, it’s cricket which gives him the ultimate high and where he finds solace. He can be followed at @RibsGully and rivu7)