ulta pulta
Foreign affair
Jaspal Bhatti

A foreigner was passing by a cricket ground. On seeing him, one of the cricket players shouted, "Look! There is a coach going". Slowly with the kind of things happening during the last two to three years in the cricketing world, it has been firmly imprinted on our minds that if we have to have a cricket coach, he’s got to be a foreigner.

My son, Jasraj, was considered not a bad cricket player when he was studying at St. John’s High School, Chandigarh. His coach was quite upset when Jasraj suddenly declared that he wouldn’t pursue a career in the game. Nobody could find out the actual reason behind his overnight disinterest in the gentleman’s game.

But today I have come to realise that at that time he may have wished to have a foreign coach. His inner voice could be, "Papa, Papa, menu vi ik foreign coach le ke deo". The craze for a foreign coach is so great that BCCI cannot think of a desi coach at all. And if the circumstances compel them to go for a desi coach, their choice falls on someone who is beyond his shelf life. Selecting a coach seems to take more time than selecting players. So, I thought it would be the need of the hour to suggest to BCCI some new methods of selecting a coach.

• First we can select a coach by general referendum. Every Indian should have the right to vote for selecting a coach.

• Secondly, all ad agency honchos should put their heads together to decide on a coach. After all they are the persons who run the show.

• Thirdly, the coach should be invited from a country which has nothing to do with cricket. If we had coaches from Russia or Egypt, at least they wouldn’t interfere to further spoil the Indian performance.

• And finally the best thing would be if we did not have a coach at all. We would all be saved from the Graham Ford kind of situation where a coach refuses to train the men in blue.

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