Why India must look beyond Gary Kirsten ?

Gary Kirsten has been tremendous coach/ man manager for Indian team but time has India to look beyond him. There is always a temptation to retain a successful coach but by end of the World Cup next year, he would been in the saddle for 3 years which is pretty much the shelf life for any coach. Teams can get stale and deteriorate if same coach continues beyond 3-4 years. Cases in point - India after World Cup 2003 when John Wright had completed 3+ years // England under Duncan Fletcher after 2005 Ashes (again 3+ years).

So who are the likely candidates to replace Gary Kirsten ? While I am a desi at heart, I am all for a foreign coach to continue good work of Gary. I would look for someone as low profile as Wright or Kirsten, someone like like Andy Flower. And why not someone like Steve Waugh to guide the next gen of Indian cricket? After all its a Usd 1 mio job and it would attract fair amount coaching talent.

Interesting times indeed for Indian cricket as they struggle to replace Anil Kumble. It may be tad easier to replace likes of Dravid, Laxman, Sachin, Sourav but finding Kumble's replacement is going to remain biggest challenge

The replacements

Who will replace Sachin, Lax & Dravid on retirement ? The batting talent in country is quite good unlike the bowling stocks and the candidates to replace the trio would be:Yuvraj, Pujara, Badrinath, Abhinav Mukund, Murali Vijay and Ajinkya Rahane. Out of these Yuvraj averages 44 in First class cricket, Pujara 60, Mukund, 55, Badrinath 57, Rahane - 66. Histrorically top quality international cricketers (defined as cricketers with avg >50) average 55+, infact closer to 60 in first class cricket. For eg if you look at the big 4 of Indian cricket, Sachin avgerages 60, Dravid 56, Laxman 52 and now retired Ganguly averages 44 against test avg of 57, 52, 47, 42 respectively

The pretenders average as under:Ajinkya Rahane - 66S Badrinath - 58Yuvraj - 44Abhinav Mukund - 55Cheteshwar Pujara - 60. Clearly except Yuvraj others seem to be worthy candidates. Potentially Indian batting line up could look like Gambhir, Sehwag, Mukund, Badrinath, Pujara, Raina ! Tough times ahead of our team but think these guys have the quality to meet the challenge

The Pull Shot

Dravid, Sachin, Sehwag, Raina all fell to short deliveries exposing Indian frailities to the raising ball. VVS though at every opportunity pulled & cut with ferocity. He treated short balls like half trackers and pulled with elan. It is this inherent positive mindset to attack the short ball and the ability to pull out the hook/pull at will made VVS Laxman dominate the Aussies. In any pull shot, the key is to go back & across, stand tall and roll the wrists over to keep the ball down. VVS did that with aplomb.

Dravid used to play the pullshort well but seems to have lost it as he grew older. Sachin plays pull shorts only in ODIs. I fail to understand why batsmen of their ability fail to play this short with regularity.

Raina has clearly no ability with short ball and he will get exposed regularly and indeed in upcoming series in South Africa. Sehwag has his way of ducking and scoring and is too smart a cricketer and I am sure he will find a way. Gambhir is expecting a short ball each time he is facing, so much that he is on backfoot and keeps getting out LBW.

Time for VVS Masterclass tutions to rest of the team