Ravi Shastri, Sandeep Patil or someone new: Who is best suited to be India’s next coach?

“An ideal coach is one who uses himself as a bridge over which his wards cross, then having facilitated the crossing, joyfully collapses,” wrote celebrated American author Leo Buscaglia, in his famous book Loving, Living & Learning.

Whether the Indian cricket team needs a “been-there-done-that” coach who would “joyfully collapse” upon the team reaching its destination is a matter for the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) to decide. But judging by the list of aspirants thus far — the last date for applications is Friday — it is obvious that past cricketers believe they have it in them to hand-hold the team during testing times.

Ravi Shastri, who was team director until recently, is the obvious front-runner for the post. But he has plenty of competition from former colleagues — Sandip Patil, Balwinder Singh Sandhu, Lalchand Rajput, Robin Singh, Vikram Rathour and his junior Venkatesh Prasad. Two former Australian cricketers, Stuart Law and Jasaon Gillespie, have also reportedly applied. It is possible that there may still be other contenders before closing time on Friday.

It is believed that the BCCI has been talking to a number of foreign coaches, including Daniel Vettori, Tom Moody, Ricky Ponting, Stephen Fleming, etc, but none of them was too keen, perhaps considering the Indian cricket team’s hectic schedule which calls for year-around travel.

One way to break the impasse would be to have different coaches for limited overs and Test cricket, but that is unlikely to happen, particularly as the role of a coach is rather limited in cricket.

In football or basketball, in comparison, the coach is all powerful and can bench any player, including the captain. But in cricket his role is severely restricted. It is the captain who takes the call on almost everything on the ground, and while a coach could see the big picture from the outside, his role is limited when the team actually takes the field.

Strategising, video analysis, real-time inputs and boosting the morale of players are all key aspects of a cricket coach’s job, and even in these, it is important for the captain and coach to be on the same page. The latter needs to do solid homework and then take the captain along or his role would be completely irrelevant and he could end up marginalised.

It is here that Shastri has a distinctive edge over the others. He understands the players’ psyche and the Indian pitches and conditions far better than any foreign coach and this would certainly come in handy considering that India are playing 13 Tests at home this season, against New Zealand, England and Australia and possibly more against Bangladesh as well.

Shastri has always been a good student of the game and the fact that with his limited playing skill he churned out excellent performances with both bat and ball reflects on the thinking and hard work he put into his cricket. The fact that he is one step ahead of the others is emphasised by his drawing up a wish-list of support staff, which incidentally includes all the key personnel he had worked with recently, Sanjay Bangar, B Arun, R Sridhar, etc. Other things being equal, Sahstri should be a shoo-in for the post.

The surprise contenders are Sandeep Patil, chairman of the selection committee, and Rathour, another selector. The latter is close to BCCI president Anurag Thakur, but that can’t be reason enough for him to get the job just yet.

Venkatesh Prasad and Sandhu have been a lot more realistic by stating that while they had applied for the head coach’s job, they’d be just as happy serving as bowling coach. Both have a lot of experience as bowling coach and it remains to be seen whether they could be fitted into that role, particularly as Shastri has openly stated that he’d prefer to retain Arun in that position.

Rajput has served Mumbai and India A teams well, but had to be dumped once the BCCI opted for Rahul Dravid as the U-19 and India ‘A’ coach. He probably has a lot more practical experience as coach than some of the others but it is unlikely that the BCCI would bank on him to take Indian cricket forward.

The best thing for any coach taking over at this point of time is that there are relatively fewer prima donnas than the team of say, 2006 or thereabouts. Virat Kohli, the biggest star, is focused and far ahead in terms of talent, determination and ambition. The coach needs to be savvy enough to get the others to rally around Kohli. Maybe Shastri really is the man to do that.