Saturday, May 3, 2008

Shane Warne Proving His Point

When Shane Warne was offered the captaincy of the Jaipur franchise of the Indian Premier League, he accepted on the condition that he was given complete control of the team. He wanted to be the lone man in charge with no coach around and that resulted in Warne being appointed the captain and coach of the Rajhastan Royals.

Warne's exact words were: "I don't need a computer".

This was probably a dig at John Buchanan who was Australia's coach for the better part of their years of dominance. During the time Warne left it no secret that he did not agree with a lot of Buchanan's ways. Warne publicly questioned the value of Buchanan and also that of a coach for a cricket team.

It is no surprise then that Warne did not want a coach for the Rajhastan Royals.

So has it worked?

After 5 games, Warne's Royals are standing pretty at the number 2 spot in the points table. After losing their first game, they have won their next 4 on the back of inspiring performances by the skipper and a number of their players who are less known than those playing for other teams in the IPL.

Apart from Graeme Smith and Sohail Tanvir, the Royals don't have any players who actively play international cricket currently. Moreover, they don't have any Indian internationals either - in Kaif they have a discarded one and the others are all domestic or U19 players.

Warne has led his charges considerably well and has inspired all of them to play with passion and bring out their best performances.

Warne has maintained that his team has had plans for all the matches they've played and that its been good to see that those plans have worked.

Warne has also said that everyone in the team knows their own role and they're all responding well to what is being asked of them.

The other IPL teams have high profile coaches such as John Buchanan, Greg Shipperd, Tom Moody, Venkatesh Prasad, Kepler Wessels, Lalchand Rajput, and others working behind the scenes. On top, they've got assistant coaches and trainers as well.
Whereas Warne's Royals have Warne and only Warne. He is the captain, the coach, the mentor, the leader, the motivator, the trainer, the advisor all rolled into one.
This begs the question then - how important is a coach for a cricket team? Or are coaches only irrelevant when a team has men like Shane Warne or Imran Khan at the helm?

Make your pitch on this post...



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15 Pitched:

  1. Viswanathan said...
     

    Warne wants to prove a point. As of now he is doing a great job.However, it is still debatable whether the euphoria will last.( He could muck it all up by text messaging to a cheerleader.)

    BTW, Rajput a high profile coach?

  2. Trideep said...
     

    In cricket a coach has few roles. To motivate the team. To make a team out of separate individuals. To strategise. These are the ones which I can remember. If someone like Warne can do all these things alongwith the captaincy, then I dont see a need for a coach. Take a look at KKR's. They probably have the best coach who has been there with the Australians for 3 world cup wins. But with KKR he is not able to win them a single match in IPL.

  3. Suresh said...
     

    Among film directors, Satyajit Ray was known for the number of things he did himself, including composing music for his own movies (other than the early ones). That doesn't mean every film director can or should do the same.

    Shane Warne is exceptional. If you are exceptional, then the normal rules don't apply. Shane Warne's ability to dispense with a coach for his team doesn't in any way prove or - for that matter - disprove the necessity of a coach. You need to look at other teams to make a conclusive argument about the necessity for a coach.

    My personal feeling is that unless you have someone like Shane Warne, most teams could do with a coach.

  4. Q said...
     

    Ott - Warne has probably already done that and more with cheerleader ;-) But something like that hasnt affected his on field performance before and I don't think it will now either.

    My bad about Rajput. But he is a high profile personality.

  5. Q said...
     

    Trideep, I agree. If uve got a man who can fulfill all roles then u dont need a coach. Much like Imran Khan who never wanted or needed one.

  6. Q said...
     

    Suresh, thats a good example about Satyajit Ray. I think Vishal Bharadwaj is also multi-talented, much like Ray.

    U make a good point about looking at other examples. A few are:

    Pakistan won the world cup in 092 without a coach. They had a manager, Intikhab Alam but no coach.

    India won the 20-20 world cup, test and ODI series against Pakistan, and the ODI series in Australia withoutn a coach. Again they had a manager but no coach.

  7. Anonymous said...
     

    i read on Dawn that warne's team hired a pakistani junior coach to do analysis on his players performance and those of the opposition. Just wanted you to know

  8. Anonymous said...
     

    They do have Snape as a team psychologist. But I agree, Warne has been exceptional.

  9. Q said...
     

    Read what Ian Chappell has to say about Warne and why he should have captained Australia in tests:

    http://content-gulf.cricinfo.com/magazine/content/current/story/349936.html

    AMK - I'll look into this..I'm not sure who this Pakistani guy is.

  10. Anonymous said...
     

    Though Warne is the coach cum captain, he has outsourced a lot of his coaching duties to his support staff.... His coach cum captain is rather a title that shows that he is the head rather than showing he runs all the affairs

    Support Staff:
    Darren Berry - Director of Coaching
    Jeremy Snape - Performance Coach
    Mohsin Sheikh - Performance Analyst
    Harish Joshi - Assistant Coach
    + Physio..

    I think Warne has one of the largest support staff w.r.t. coaching in the IPL.. He even said in one of the interviews other than talking to young lads, he has done any other coaching duties..

  11. Jrod said...
     

    How many Warne's amd Imran's have played the game?

    For every Warne there are a bunch of Adam Hollioakes, and for every Imran there is a bunch of Younis Khan's.

    And the real deal is this. Coach and assistant coach of Rajhastan are Victorians.

    Coach of sehwagology devils is the victorian coach.

    Best 2020 domestic team in the world, Victoria.

  12. Q said...
     

    Thanks for the info CSK fan. I wonder who this Mohsin Sheikh guy is - he's the same one u were talking about AMK.

  13. Q said...
     

    Uncle J, so in summary the Victorians are the best in 20-20 cricket. Shane Warne is Victorian. U r victorian. Nuff said :-)

    And ur right not many Imrans and Warnes have played.

    But what then exlains India's recent winning spree without a coach?

    Is Dhoni another Imran or Warne in the making?

  14. Jrod said...
     

    What winning spree?

  15. Q said...
     

    Hahaha.. never mind :-)

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