India look to appoint first-ever fan coach

While the appointment of Duncan Fletcher as the Indian team coach has been getting all the attention, the BCCI has also been looking to fill a rather unusual coaching position - that of a fan coach. According to president Shashank Manohar, the board is feeling the need to get a full-time coach to improve the quality of Indian cricket fans.

Speaking to the press, Manohar said "We're the No.1 Test side, we're ODI world champions, we have the world's leading Twenty20 league - so we're actually doing fairly well on the pitch. The one area where we thought India really needs to take major strides is in having awesome, high-calibre fans - hence the move to get a full time coach to make it happen."

"As a nation, we really haven't shown much improvement as fans over the past 30 years. We still go into stone-throwing, property-destroying rage sprees when the team loses. We still haven't come up with a more interesting fan yell than the usual "Indyaaaaaaa-Indya-clapclapclap" or "Sachiiiiiiiiiin-Sachin-clapclapclap". We still write cheesy banners where we expand the names of our favourite cricketers, using generic superlatives and at least one random contrivance - such as expanding Laxman to Legendary Amazing Xylophone Marvellous Astounding Notary, or Ganguly to Great Awesome Notable Gutsy Ukulele Yukulele. Things really need to get better."

Manohar dwelt specifically on improving the banner-writing skills of Indian fans, emphasising it as a key area the new fan coach will work on.

"We also want fans to come up with creative banners praising our administrators and BCCI officials. Why should only players benefit? For instance, N Srinivasan can be expanded as 'N Srinivasan really is not indeed very amiable, so avoid needling' and Lalit Modi can be expanded as 'Lalit advocates less irritating test matches, one day internationals'.

"Not only do such banners motivate and encourage BCCI officials present at the ground, they also have the added advantage of being mildly recursive," said the board president.

Initial shortlisted candidates for the fan coach position include Sri Lanka's Percy Abeyasekara, Pakistan's Chacha Cricket, and someone from the Barmy Army; but this has apparently annoyed Sunil Gavaskar, who is favouring the Nicolas Cage of cricket coaches, Mohinder Amarnath.

Meanwhile, the IPL is considering a rule change to ensure a better completion rate of rain-affected games. Under the current rules, a full game can be had if there is time to complete five overs on either side. With the changes, it will be enough if the rain slows down just enough to allow at least one strategy break to be taken by each team.

IPL head Chirayu Amin explained the rule, saying, "Once the rain stops, the fielding side will rush out on to the field and take the strategy break. They will then return to the dugout and the batting side will follow suit. After that, if the rain does not permit any further play, the side who took the better strategy break wins. Neato!"

Mr Amin also added: "This makes the IPL the first tournament to have completed games, even without a single ball being bowled. See? We told you that the strategy breaks had a reason to exist." However, he refused to confirm or deny rumours of a new rain-proof TSB format, where teams will compete purely on strategy breaks, without any actual cricket being played.