Wright or wrong it's another jhon

Another cricket mercenary has come, made up his profile and made his departure. Where was Mr. Tom Moody prior to his acceptance by the hierarchy of Sri Lanka cricket? He was doing a fair job with the English county Worcestershire and good enough to face an interview board in India as a candidate for the high profile as their national coach, but only to fail out against his former peer Greg Chappell, who made a hash of it. Wasn’t Moody good enough to handle that job – May be he would have been but, at that time he just lacked that personal profile to back his claim.

Then from Sri Lanka’s point of view – they too were searching in earnest for someone to replace former Australian opener John Dyson but finally had to wait for their pick of an Indian discard. But India’s selection faux pas was Sri Lanka’s gain, as for the next two years Moody survived style building up his profile while Chappell put Indian cricket into a huge divide and they are still trying their level best to bail themselves out of that pit.

The 9th edition of the Cricket World Cup was one episode where coaches came into play than any other tournament played before. Out of the ten coaches only three home grown are remaining to carry on the work that they have begun. They are – New Zealand coach John Bracewell, South African coach Mickey Arthur and Zimbabwean coach Kevin Curren.

It all began with the death of Pakistani coach Bob Woolmer which was followed by other failed guys in Bennet King (West Indies), Greg Chappell ( India), Duncan Fletcher (England) while versatile Australian coach who has taken their cricket to new heights – John Buchanan decided to call it a day long before the others even thought of somersaulting. Left in the fray with their titles intact were the Bangladesh coach Dav Whatmore and Sri Lankan coach Tom Moody. Whatmore knew this was his lifetime opportunity of making a mark, while Moody kept all his negotiations under his sleeve to get a better package from his ultimate employer – Western Australia.

There is another interesting aspect in this whole episode. Both Whatmore and Moody who were top point gainers are Australians and they either won the World Cup or came very close to it in their very first outing with a regular ODI nation, namely Sri Lanka. The next question that; pops into my mind is – did the inborn talent of the Sri Lankan cricketers add something to these two coaches’ natural ability or the two coaches harness the inborn talent of the Sri Lankan cricketers and brought out something special that some of the other nations never have been able to do. Who did whom a favour – you can be the judge.

Hypothetically say, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh did gain from the wisdom of both Moody and Whatmore, but just see the plight of the two nations. When both countries needed the continued support of their wisdom they dump them high and dry to go seeking for greener pastures. For instance it is reported that Moody who had signed an 180,000$ a year contact with Sri Lanka gave his word to Western Australia, but waited till he took the island nation to the final of the World Cup and demanded another 10% addition and finally settled for an annual fee of 350,000$. Then finally he comes back to Sri Lanka only to tell them about his final decision and adding insult to injury Western Australia announces about the Moody deal two hours before (local time) he met the Lankan authorities. The Indian sub-continent who were subjugated by the English for over three centuries still have some of that meek preserved in them when it comes to coaching where cricket is concerned. Even the cricketers find it easier to reciprocate to a white skinned coach rather than one of their own – may be a person who would have a better insight into the whole perspective. Once when The Sunday Times queried about this aspect of a local coach from chief selector Asantha de Mel he professed “That does not work in this part of the world”. As long as that meek is preserved in us those words of wisdom will be true.

From that point we can turn onto the plight of Sri Lanka cricket. For the past two years or more it was dressed up according to the whims and fancies of its incumbent national coach and when that happens during a period of time the whole structure also starts to reshape itself according to that style. Then suddenly the umbilical cord is severed and the system left alone to run wild. At present this is the plight of six out of the ten test playing nations in the world.

Here comes the silver-lining. It is also understood that the local administration is very seriously considering having a home grown coach to be as assistant coach to whoever takes over the reins. Names of the calibre of Aravinda de Silva, Rumesh Ratnayake and Roy Dias are already being talked about. This is a welcome move. With a local assistant what could happen is that whoever comes to coach the country on a short term basis can leave when he wants to, but the system that we have built can continue through the assistant coach. However whoever the local coach who gets the position should get it purely on merit and he should be left alone to perform his duties without any political interference whatsoever. But, Sri Lanka being the country we know so well, even a new-born baby cannot open his eyes without political interference. If that is going to occur in this instance, this whole exercise will also turn into a futile exercise.

Meanwhile the local hierarchy is busy compiling a list of names of could-be or would-be candidates from around the world. A little bird has chirped that a lot of names of white skins have been penned down with former Indian coach John Wright, former West Indian coach Bennett King and several others already thought about, but the preference of the Lankan cricketers is of another Australian taking over.