AUSTRALIANS practice a peculiar kind of inverse snobbery. And this is more evident on the cricket field. When the West Indian fast bowlers had the Aussies with their tails between the their legs, this inverse snobbery was beamed up by Scottie to the planet Jupiter, but for the last decade and a half or so since they have ruled the cricket world, it is back and how. In 1981 at Melbourne, Karsan Ghavri bowled Aussie skipper Greg Chappell behind his legs to kick start a phenomenal victory march as Kapil Dev and Dilip Doshi bowled with pain killing injections. Australia bowled out for 83 in the fourth innings. Would you believe it? In 1969, Bill Lawry’s Aussies brushed aside India at home and went off to tour South Africa in what was billed as the series of the century. The Springboks, all powerful then smashed the Aussies who had billed themselves as the strongest team on the planet. The margin of victory 4-0. It was a devastating defeat; it brutalized the psyche of many Australians.
When Shane Warne attacked Murali and the Sri Lankans, saying they were cheats, Arjuna Ranatunga hit back very eloquently suggesting that the pot was calling the kettle black, after all ‘we know the antecedents of the Australians’, obviously making a reference to the fact that Australia was a penal colony. Yes, Aussies have produced many great cricketers, but have they necessarily been perfect ambassadors of the game. The answer is in the negative. Sledging and getting under the skin of the rival has been given a new meaning by Aussies. Now that they have come face to face with a brash Indian side which neither gives no quarter nor asks for one, there is some sort of an identity crisis. This manifests itself in episodes like Monkey gate. Bottom-line Aussies can’t deal with failure. It is an alien concept to them. Mark Taylor, Steve Waugh and Ricky Ponting have taken Aussie cricket to the zenith, but at the same time behaviour wise touched a nadir. Plumbing the depths.
Against this backdrop, the role of two Australian coaches whose dalliance with Indian cricket has left us poorer needs to be highlighted. Greg Chappell and now JB or John Buchanan. There is a cultural divide that needs to be bridged by a foreigner when he coaches in India. This is accentuated in an Aussie’s case, because of their snobbish approach. Former cricketer Ajay Jadeja has created a brand new maelstrom by saying that the Knight Riders support staff indulged in comments with racial overtones stoking fires in an already divided team. When I met and interviewed Buchanan (JB) in Goa during the auction, I didn’t realize that the Knight Riders coach was going to leave behind a soaking wet can of worms. I had a reasonably long chat with the man who inherited the coaching mantle from Geoff Marsh and Bobby Simpson. JB turned out to be the most successful Aussie coach scripting many wins including two World Cups. But there is always a man behind the mask. And the Knight Riders players are clearly seeing the other side of JB.
At Goa itself, one was shocked to see KR bid an astronomical $600,000 for Bangladesh fast bowler Mashrafe Mortaza. Incidentally, he is still to play a match in season 2. I remember asking JB about how Monkey gate was a defining moment and whether it had acted as a catalyst in the mental disintegration of Aussie cricketers. JB was not loathe to answering that. More importantly, I asked him about his plans for season 2. He said, “KKR is going to benefit from the learnings of season 1. Last year was a novelty, now it is continuity. One will look at players and teams; analyse, understand, plot, strategise and come up with the right answers. There is a lot of new coaching stuff that we are going to unveil; you will see many innovations from KKR. We will begin preparations with a week of trials, and then a couple of weeks of camp as the bulk of the new coaching staff will come on board. We will have a new physio, a new trainer, my son Michael will also assist and we will have a new fielding and batting coach as well. A lot of them are Aussies, but our objective over time is to build an Indian support staff. Like all teams, we too have soaked up some learning from Season 1 and realistically speaking we are aiming to be amongst the top four.” The key here is – my son Michael will also assist and the bulk of the new coaching staff will be Aussies. Culturally Aussies are different from India. Everyone knows that. But to foist an Aussie culture on Indians is another thing. Ironically, the two Aussie coaches who have proved to be a complete washout – Guru Greg and JB had to deal with the same man – Saurav Ganguly. Their problems began and ended with Dada. Now Dada has shown his mental resilience and doggedness. He is not one to accept dogmas and certainly not from an Australian.
There lies the rub. Aussies want to force their presence, not be part of a collaborative set up. Can’t imagine what must be going through the minds of young Indian players turning out for KR. Wriddaman Saha, Ashok Dinda, Yashpal Singh et al must be miserable. At last count the omnibus support staff was more or less the same size as the playing contingent. I even saw Andy Bichel floating around. So, is KR a VRS for Australians? With promoter Shahrukh Khan deciding to abstain, it must be a free for all. Can’t see Jai Mehta intervening on behalf of the players.
Anyway soon after this interview to me in Goa, a new controversy reared its head. Multiple captains. All rule books were consigned to the Ganga under the Howrah Bridge. Targeted in the crosshairs was Ganguly. SMG jumped into the fray roundly castigating JB and his antics. Sunny Gavaskar drew fire from a cocky SRK. Buy your own team, he said. In the carbonated soft drink commercial seedhi baat, no bakwas; the goateed man first shows the ‘darane’ wali team, an obvious reference to JB and his boys I presume and then SRK asks as to what role, pointing to the players, will have? This parody has played out near perfectly on the playing fields of South Africa. After the fires were doused in India, apologies tendered, SRK did a complete about turn and appointed Brendon McCullum as the captain as soon as he arrived in SA.
The last vestiges of self respect were torn off during the Super Over, when Yusuf Pathan destroyed Ajantha Mendis. Ganguly kicked the earth in disgust and that over will haunt Mendis and McCullum till the day they die. Since then it has been downhill slalom, no self belief, an alienated Ganguly, a disturbed pack of young Indians and a gloomy looking Ishant Sharma trying his best, but to no avail. Meanwhile JB and his boys have pocketed fat fees, McCullum can’t get bat to ball and now the last straw comments with racial overtones. A potent and incendiary mix. Cricket is the last thing on anyone’s mind in KR. Somewhere in between SRK true to his superstar status said that he won’t return to SA till his team’s starts winning. Well, he will have to wait till the next season. And if all this wasn’t enough, there was a ‘fake’ IPL blogger who ripped the innards out of the team meetings for public consumption, stories about an impending stake sale and an all encompassing, all pervasive ‘feel bad’ atmospherics.
I don’t agree Mr Khan. Oops, you have got it all wrong. Cricket is partly a commodity, but is still played on the field. You might have the marketing gyan, but ‘Khan Market’ is a long way off from the Bull Ring at the Wanderers in Johannesburg. JB had told me that SRK leaves cricket to the cricket people, I guess, he should have bothered to check what was going on in his team. Or better still stuck to working in My Name Is Khan.
