Tuesday 5 June 2007

Coach Idol reaching its climax

The twists and turns in the hunt to recruit a coach for India continues. The contest is full of suspense and surprises, with the all powerful BCCI enjoying being on centre stage as the panel of judges who will finally decide. The contest is being prolonged further until June 9th now, as the previous so called front runner, Dav Whatmore, is out of the running all of a sudden. The new man in possession of that title is former South African coach, Graham Ford. He with another unknown are now contesting the final. One gets the feeling that the identity of this unknown is kept hidden to keep everyone interested.

The BBCI either have known all along who they would like and are just milking it for maximum publicity and drama or they really are clueless and are enjoying the process and going with the flow.

It seems that former and current players are the ones hunting for talent all round the world and nominating candidates that they would like and putting them in the frame. There is a lot of activity in the background with these 'judges' scouting for talent. If it is a two horse race, as we are currently led to believe, it will come down to the voting or political power within the selection committee. The most influential will no doubt get their way.

It is certainly keeping the viewers and media interested and gagging for the next installment as is the aim of all such reality talent contests which have become so popular. The BCCI have jumped on the bandwagon of a successful formula. It seems that the winner will be revealed to the masses just before the team leave for the tour to England. It is like a warm up show before the main event. I wonder how regularly they will decide to run these contests now. It could become an annual event at this rate. They may see sense, perhaps and put cricketing issues and reasoning ahead of talent circuses but if this generates more interest than performance on the pitch, well anything is possible.

Mocking aside, lets hope that however bizarre and seemingly lengthy the process, the winner of this contest is selected, by those powerful custodians of the game in India, on sound cricketing criteria.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Now they have called John Emburey, a struggling Middlesex coach. It should be Graham Ford.

Rashmika said...

I am suprised at John Emburey, reasonable county coach, but so far untested internationally.

Anonymous said...

Coming days untill d-day, we might see few more names cropping up. Anand vasu on cricinfo said the names of Gooch and Gatting were in contention too.

I doubt if BCCI would opt for an English coach, looking at its ongoing tussle with David Morgan.

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