Dear Mr. Ravi Shastri,
,The last ball tie against the English lions in an epochal clash at Bengaluru's M.Chinnaswamy Stadium has once again highlighted the Indian teams perennial bowling and related problems and raised serious doubts in the minds of many fawning fan regarding their teams overwhelming favourites status and more importantly begun raising questions about the Indian bowlers ability to adequately defend three hundred plus scores on a regular basis.
As chairman/chief patron of the Bengaluru based National Cricket Academy, you must be well aware of this age old problem which began plaguing the Indian team ever since bowlers of the incomparable quality of Kapil Dev, Roger Binny, Manoj Prabhakar, Javagal Srinath and last but not the least Anil Kumble hung up their boots for good thereby creating a void that yet remains to be filled and one can only wonder why you and the powers that be in the Board of Cricket Control for India (BCCI) have not yet taken cognisance of this alarming issue and initiated the requisite remedial measures.
The average cricket fan and follower has still not been able to understand the rationale behind the rather abrupt decision to dispense with Messrs Venkatesh Prasad and Robin Singh as the Indian bowling and fielding coaches when they were doing a middling to good job in their respective roles. The decision to appoint South African Eric Simons as the Indian bowling coach out of the blue did certainly raise more than a few eyebrows and the sultan of pace and swing Wasim Akrams' reaction to Eric Simons appointment says it all, "Kaun Hai yeh banda Eric Simons, maine naa iske baare main suna hain aur naa isko South Africa ke liye khelta dekha hain."
Would both you and the powers that be within the BCCI echelons condescend to explain the thought/thinking that went into this decision of appointing an obscure and largely unknown South African as the Indian bowling coach, why were the claims or pedigree of two noteworthy Indian bowling coaches namely Paras Mhambrey and Subroto Banerjee conveniently overlooked. While paras Mhambrey is the only other Indian bowling coach apart from Venkatesh Prasad to have successfully completed level two of the three internationally recognised coaching levels, Subroto Banerjee has now been succesfully associated with the Australian pace bowling academy in Adelaide for the last decade or so.
The Indian pace and spin bowling cupboard indeed looks bare with Jaydev Unadkat, Umesh Yadav, Abhimanyu Mithun, Ravichandran Ashwin and Pragyan Ojha being the only notables on the horizon and this certainly does not augur well for future Indian teams as both Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra seem to be on their last legs or at the fag end of their international careers and one cannot see them continuing beyond the next two-three years. Anil Kumble's retirement did certainly come as a body blow to Indian cricket and forced the doughty sardar Harbhajan Singh to don the mantle of India's spin bowling spearhead, a role that he has been struggling to come to terms with and while Messrs Kumble and Harbhajan used to hunt their victims as a pair, Harbhajan has certainly suffered in the absence of a reliable spin twin as the present incumbents Pragyan Ojha and Amit Mishra have only shown sporadically and are yet to show any remarkable measure of consistency at the highest level.
Irfan Pathan and Rudra Pratap Singh did sparkle on the horizon for an all too brief period and seem to have fallen by the wayside as far as posing claims for selection to the national side go, Munaf Patel has always been plagued by injury and fitness related concerns and Shantakumaran Sreesanth has been a liitle too inconsistent,profligate and sporadic in his efforts towards reposing the required confidence in the minds of the national selectors and legions of cricket fans. One can only begin to wonder why the services of Messrs Maninder Singh, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan and Narendra Hirwani have not been engaged as spinning coaches and why the Board in it's infinite wisdom has failed to recognise the crying need for the establishment of a spin academy at Chennai's Chepauk stadium with Anil Kumble as it's chairperson and the above mentioned three gentlemen as it's full time coaches.
A fast bowlers/pace bowlers academy could be established at Mohali's Punjab Cricket Association Stadium with the irrepresible Jat Kapil Dev as it's chairperson and Messrs Venkatesh Prasad, Paras Mhambrey and Subroto Banerjee as full time coaches their efforts could be supplemented with the appointment of a full time fitness trainer, physiotherapist and last but not the least nutritionist/dietician. Fast bowlers of the pedigree of Glenn Mcgrath, Allan Donald, Curtley Ambrose, Courtney Walsh and Wasim Akram could be approached and sounded out regarding their availability and willingness to conduct pace bowling clinics at timely intervals.
Fielding related issues need to be addressed at the under 15 and under 19 levels and India's greatest fielders in recent history namely Messrs Robin and Yajurvindra Singh should be entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring their wards battle readiness to shine on the field at the highest level as and when they get their opportunity, the fifteen-twenty runs saved on the field make the difference between winning and losing more often than not in today's cricket and it is high time that the BCCI recognised this problem for what it was and initiated the required measures towards surmounting it. The proposed fielding academy could be set up as an arm of the National Cricket Academy.
Mr. Shastri kindly take cognisance of the humbly offered suggestions, pay heed to them, remodel and revitalise them as and how required but do act upon them as time is indeed running out for team India.
Sundeep Chopra.
,The last ball tie against the English lions in an epochal clash at Bengaluru's M.Chinnaswamy Stadium has once again highlighted the Indian teams perennial bowling and related problems and raised serious doubts in the minds of many fawning fan regarding their teams overwhelming favourites status and more importantly begun raising questions about the Indian bowlers ability to adequately defend three hundred plus scores on a regular basis.
As chairman/chief patron of the Bengaluru based National Cricket Academy, you must be well aware of this age old problem which began plaguing the Indian team ever since bowlers of the incomparable quality of Kapil Dev, Roger Binny, Manoj Prabhakar, Javagal Srinath and last but not the least Anil Kumble hung up their boots for good thereby creating a void that yet remains to be filled and one can only wonder why you and the powers that be in the Board of Cricket Control for India (BCCI) have not yet taken cognisance of this alarming issue and initiated the requisite remedial measures.
The average cricket fan and follower has still not been able to understand the rationale behind the rather abrupt decision to dispense with Messrs Venkatesh Prasad and Robin Singh as the Indian bowling and fielding coaches when they were doing a middling to good job in their respective roles. The decision to appoint South African Eric Simons as the Indian bowling coach out of the blue did certainly raise more than a few eyebrows and the sultan of pace and swing Wasim Akrams' reaction to Eric Simons appointment says it all, "Kaun Hai yeh banda Eric Simons, maine naa iske baare main suna hain aur naa isko South Africa ke liye khelta dekha hain."
Would both you and the powers that be within the BCCI echelons condescend to explain the thought/thinking that went into this decision of appointing an obscure and largely unknown South African as the Indian bowling coach, why were the claims or pedigree of two noteworthy Indian bowling coaches namely Paras Mhambrey and Subroto Banerjee conveniently overlooked. While paras Mhambrey is the only other Indian bowling coach apart from Venkatesh Prasad to have successfully completed level two of the three internationally recognised coaching levels, Subroto Banerjee has now been succesfully associated with the Australian pace bowling academy in Adelaide for the last decade or so.
The Indian pace and spin bowling cupboard indeed looks bare with Jaydev Unadkat, Umesh Yadav, Abhimanyu Mithun, Ravichandran Ashwin and Pragyan Ojha being the only notables on the horizon and this certainly does not augur well for future Indian teams as both Zaheer Khan and Ashish Nehra seem to be on their last legs or at the fag end of their international careers and one cannot see them continuing beyond the next two-three years. Anil Kumble's retirement did certainly come as a body blow to Indian cricket and forced the doughty sardar Harbhajan Singh to don the mantle of India's spin bowling spearhead, a role that he has been struggling to come to terms with and while Messrs Kumble and Harbhajan used to hunt their victims as a pair, Harbhajan has certainly suffered in the absence of a reliable spin twin as the present incumbents Pragyan Ojha and Amit Mishra have only shown sporadically and are yet to show any remarkable measure of consistency at the highest level.
Irfan Pathan and Rudra Pratap Singh did sparkle on the horizon for an all too brief period and seem to have fallen by the wayside as far as posing claims for selection to the national side go, Munaf Patel has always been plagued by injury and fitness related concerns and Shantakumaran Sreesanth has been a liitle too inconsistent,profligate and sporadic in his efforts towards reposing the required confidence in the minds of the national selectors and legions of cricket fans. One can only begin to wonder why the services of Messrs Maninder Singh, Laxman Sivaramakrishnan and Narendra Hirwani have not been engaged as spinning coaches and why the Board in it's infinite wisdom has failed to recognise the crying need for the establishment of a spin academy at Chennai's Chepauk stadium with Anil Kumble as it's chairperson and the above mentioned three gentlemen as it's full time coaches.
A fast bowlers/pace bowlers academy could be established at Mohali's Punjab Cricket Association Stadium with the irrepresible Jat Kapil Dev as it's chairperson and Messrs Venkatesh Prasad, Paras Mhambrey and Subroto Banerjee as full time coaches their efforts could be supplemented with the appointment of a full time fitness trainer, physiotherapist and last but not the least nutritionist/dietician. Fast bowlers of the pedigree of Glenn Mcgrath, Allan Donald, Curtley Ambrose, Courtney Walsh and Wasim Akram could be approached and sounded out regarding their availability and willingness to conduct pace bowling clinics at timely intervals.
Fielding related issues need to be addressed at the under 15 and under 19 levels and India's greatest fielders in recent history namely Messrs Robin and Yajurvindra Singh should be entrusted with the responsibility of ensuring their wards battle readiness to shine on the field at the highest level as and when they get their opportunity, the fifteen-twenty runs saved on the field make the difference between winning and losing more often than not in today's cricket and it is high time that the BCCI recognised this problem for what it was and initiated the required measures towards surmounting it. The proposed fielding academy could be set up as an arm of the National Cricket Academy.
Mr. Shastri kindly take cognisance of the humbly offered suggestions, pay heed to them, remodel and revitalise them as and how required but do act upon them as time is indeed running out for team India.
Sundeep Chopra.
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