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Moody inches ahead on India coach list
AUSTRALIA'S TWO-TIME World Cup winner Tom Moody walks in as the hot favourite for the Indian cricket team's coaching post ahead of the two-day interview with a six-member committee of the BCCI beginning here tomorrow.
AUSTRALIA'S TWO-TIME World Cup winner Tom Moody walks in as the hot favourite for the Indian cricket team's coaching post ahead of the two-day interview with a six-member committee of the BCCI beginning here tomorrow.
Moody, part of the Australia squad that lifted the World Cup in 1987 and 1999, will bank on the Indian players' support to pip his compatriot and former Aussie captain Greg Chappell.
Chappell, one of the best batsmen of the 20th century and a master technician, has the backing of skipper Sourav Ganguly but has to contend with overwhelming support to Moody of other senior members of the Indian team.
Mohinder Amarnath, the lone Indian in the fray for the job left vacant by New Zealander John Wright's departure at the end of the season, and West Indian Desmond Haynes are the other contenders.
The candidates were expected to arrive tonight in the capital. It is nevertheless Moody, currently director of cricket at Worcestershire in England, who has reportedly been preferred by the Indian players.
The 39-year old will be very much remembered by current chairman of selectors Kiran More, whom he bowled in the last over of a pulsating World Cup match in 1992 in Australia.
It is that one-day cricket acumen the Indian seniors seem to be looking for. Moody does not have a glittering record to back him. He played in only eight Tests and aggregated 456 runs at 32.57, besides 76 ODIs in which he scored 1211 runs at 23.28 and took 52 wickets at 38.73.
But the 6 ft 6 inches tall Western Australian is respected for leading his state team to several trophies in domestic cricket.
Chappell as a coach is a born-again cricketer. An outstanding batsman of his times, the former Aussie captain was out of the limelight after retiring from international cricket in 1984 but came back in his new avatar to lead South Australia to back to back Shield victories in 1998 and '99. Chappell, who was consulted by Ganguly after the Indian captain experienced a batting slump a year ago, has often spoken about his wish to play a larger role instead of merely being a coach of a team.
He believes that modern coaching methods are wrong and stresses the need to create an environment for unstructured learning and bring in emotional factor to make players better performers on the field and off it as well.
Chappell, it may be remembered, lost out to Wright when India appointed its first foreign coach in 2000. If then it was reportedly due to his demand for a high salary, this time around it could be more due to cricketing reasons.
Amarnath, hero of 1983 World Cup final at Lord's, might have faded into the background as the odds are stacked in favour of a non-Indian coach once again.
But the eternal comeback man of Indian cricket should not be ruled out altogether. The six-member committee of the BCCI includes three former captains — Sunil Gavaskar, Ravi Shastri and S Venkatraghavan.
