Who will win the race to be India's coach?

The stage is now set for the appointment of a foreign coach. The countdown began quite a while ago after several candidates entered the fray. Amongst them, Geoff Marsh pulled out of the race citing personal reasons. However it is quite likely that the BCCI gave him a cold shoulder when he quoted his price. Andy Roberts and Dean Jones were never quite in the race and the stage was set for John Wright, the former New Zealand captain and opener, to assume the mantle. And then entered Gregory Stephen Chappell.

With the great Australian batsman throwing his hat in the ring, it became a two-horse race. If Wright has his coaching stint at Kent to back him, then Chappell has been coaching South Australia for the last two seasons now. In such a situation, it helps to have a comparison of the two, as players and as coaches.

As a player, Chappell is miles ahead of Wright. Few batsmen in cricket history have a career average of 50+ after 80 Tests. No batsman, like Chappell, has made a century in his first and last test innings. Add to it 24 Test hundreds and there is a clear indicator of an all-time great batsman. Chappell qualifies as one of the most elegant batsmen the world has ever seen in the post-War era. His driving on both sides of the wicket was legendary and when a batsman plays an on-drive, it is immediately compared to Chappell's.

After his retirement, Chappell involved himself with Australian cricket as a selector. He has also been a much-wanted television commentator. In the 1998/99 Australian domestic season, Chappell took over as coach of South Australia. In the previous two seasons, South Australia had finished bottom of the heap in the Sheffield Shield, Australia's premier domestic first-class competition. They fared only slightly better in the Mercantile Mutual Cup, the country's domestic one-day competition. They finished 6th in 1996/97 and 4th in 1997/98. Morale among the team was at a low.

It was left to Chappell to mould a bunch of young, talented players into some sort of a winning unit. The results would obviously not come overnight. However in the last two seasons, South Australia has improved by leaps and bounds with a 4th place standing in the Sheffield Shield/Pura Milk Cup and a berth in the MMC semi-final lineup twice in a row. In last season's Pura Milk Cup, South Australia were not really out of reckoning for a place in the final until the last couple of games. Chappell had thus managed to turn around a team which had lost its moorings, into a competitive force in Australian cricket.

One of the main aspects of a coach's job is to motivate his players into giving their best day in and day out, helping the players sort out problems and ensuring that instead of brooding over a loss, they focus on the next game. A lot of these are essentially the requirements of a captain too. Chappell's captaincy of Australia saw his team win 21 out of the 48 Tests he was skipper. The only blot on his captaincy remains his instruction to his brother Trevor Chappell to bowl underarm to New Zealand tailender Brian McKechnie in order to prevent New Zealand from scoring a six of the last ball and win the game. This was during a World Series Cup final game in 1980/81.

Wright, the other contender in the fray, was one of New Zealand's most dependable batsmen in the 80s and the early 90s. As an opener in a weak New Zealand batting lineup, which besides Martin Crowe did not contain a world class batsman, Wright had a very important task to do. This he did with great effect giving him over 5000 Test runs at a respectable average of 37.8. Wright also had 12 Test centuries to his credit. He was the ever dependable opening batsman, scoring his runs for a weak batting side against the strong bowling attacks of the period. If anything, his batting became better with age when he averaged above 50 in the last 2-3 years of his playing career. He also had a long playing stint in the English county scene with Derbyshire.

After his retirement, Wright went on to coach Kent. He has been at Kent for the last four seasons. In 1997, Kent finished 2nd in the County Championship and the Benson & Hedges Cup. In 1998, Kent made it to the quarter-finals of the Benson & Hedges Cup. In 1999, Kent finished 3rd in the 1st Division of the National Cricket League and 5th in the County Championship. In the recently concluded season, Kent placed 5th in the first division of the County Championship and the National League 1st division. Injuries to key players caused this poor showing and Kent's final placing could be attributed perhaps to the spirit Wright instilled in the team and the contribution of their overseas professional Rahul Dravid.

In the 14 Tests that Wright was the captain, New Zealand won 3 and lost 3 games. Perhaps we could attribute it to New Zealand not really being a force in international cricket then.

The Indian skipper Sourav Ganguly and his deputy Dravid have apparently been in favour of Wright being appointed as the coach. However Chappell's credentials, as a player, coach and an all-time great are too strong to leave out. Of late Indian cricket has been heavily influenced by developments in Australia, among them being the setting up of the National Cricket Academy, Bobby Simpson's brief tenure as consultant and increased focus on physical fitness. Which of them gets the nod is anyone's guess. Coaching the Indian team has always been a tough job. The list of Indian coaches in the last 4-5 years comprises of many eminent names like Ajit Wadekar, Sandeep Patil, Madan Lal, Anshuman Gaekwad and Kapil Dev. With India's good showing in the ICC KnockOut, there is definitely a resurgence in the public's belief in Indian cricket. Will the new foreign coach take Indian cricket forward in these times of hope?