Saturday 21 / September / 2024
ONE of the interviewers holidaying in London chose to do his job via Skype and another interviewer got the venue of the final proceedings shifted to his hometown to suit his personal business. Under such circumstances when convenience of an apparently personal kind was the mood of the month, was it inappropriate on the part of the job-seeker if he chose Skype to hype his case?
The answer to this simple question is an honest, uncomplicated, matter-of-fact “no”, unless perhaps the interviewer in question was Saurav Ganguly and the jobseeker was Ravi Shastri. You could spot without a hitch more than a shade of ego and arrogance in play here, and a complete lack of grace in defeat, masked in seemingly rational comments and counters that followed the appointment of the new head of the Indian cricket team.
If we go by the account dished out by Ganguly with an honest I-say-this-with-anger punch so his hurt and disgust wouldn’t go unnoticed, Shastri, who was holidaying in Bangkok, should have folded his beach umbrella, rushed back to his hotel and packed his bag, booked a seat on the earliest available flight to Kolkota and lined up with other eager beavers at the Taj Bengal on June 21 to present his case in person rather than hooking up via Skype sitting in his hotel room in Bangkok.
The Ganguly message was meant to be straight and simple: you cannot take the opportunity to become the head coach of the Indian cricket team lightly. It’s no walk on the beach. On the same count, you cannot take the opportunity you got to sit on the Indian head coach selection panel for granted and pack the day when the process to finalise the top job was on with other, less important engagements, either.
A day before the interview, Sachin Tendulkar posed in front of a pop portrait of himself, posted the photo on Instagram and asked his followers if they could guess where he was. A day later, he posted the photo again, giving his fans a clue to identify the place. Obviously, he was having a good time at the Japanese restaurant Nobu’s London outlet.
An hour before the start of the interview, Ganguly was addressing a press conference to announce the book, A Century is Not Enough, he would co-author. The interview was shifted from Mumbai to Kolkata for the convenience of Ganguly so he could attend his personal business as well as his official business of a less important nature, that of presiding over the working committee meeting of the Cricket Association of Bengal.
Prominent Indian aspirants such as Lalchand Rajput, Pravin Amre and Anil Kumble attended the interview in person. Foreign candidates like Tom Moody, Stuart Law and Andy Moles made their presentations via Skype. Kumble’s interview lasted almost two hours, and Shastri was slotted in at 4.15pm. Was there a time limit set for each candidate to make his presentation? If there was, and supposing it was two hours, the interview would have gone into the wee hours of July 22. Was there a proper plan put in place?
The working committee meeting was scheduled 14 days in advance, whereas the interview for the Indian coach selection was fixed just two days in advance, but what was more important: a one hour or so meeting of a state cricket board or the selection of the Indian coach? What comes first in the order of importance is obvious, and considering the number of candidates shortlisted for the job, the interview should have started in the morning, not at 1.30pm. The afternoon schedule may have been fixed to suit the interviewers, considering the fact that Tendulkar was in London and Ganguly had the book engagement.
Before the start of the interview, Ganguly said he didn’t want to mess it up again but, unfortunately, that’s what the selection of the new head coach of Indian cricket is now: a holy mess that could have been avoided if Shastri and Ganguly dealt with the matter a little more wisely than they actually did, primarily on June 21 and, later on, in the days following the anointment of Kumble as coach.
The mess Ganguly was referring to dated back 11 years when he recommended Greg Chappell as coach of India. Let’s hope the mess Ganguly unwittingly or otherwise is responsible for now stinks not as revolting as it did in 2005.
Playing cricket is one thing and administration of the game is quite another. Retired players are welcome to run the show but, known to wear their heart and ego on their sleeve during their playing days, some of them may be misfits in their new roles. They seem to walk around the administration yard with old, unhealed wounds. It’s purely their business and prerogative if and how they should settle their scores, but they should do that with better discretion and without dragging the game into a mess.
The writer is a freelance contributor based in India. All the views and opinions expressed in the article are solely those of the author and do not reflect those of Times of Oman
