The cricket board has taken an unusual step in appointing Anil Kumble as the head coach of Team India on an experimental one-year term. He did not meet many of the coaching qualification criteria advertised for the job, which means the selection committee and its chairman, Sourav Ganguly, have stuck their necks out in picking him over Ravi Shastri. As a dedicated cricketer with a strong work ethic and a record of integrity through the betting scandal unmatched by anyone else at that time, Kumble brings to the table several qualities that may help in guiding a very young Team India.
The new head coach has to address the task of building the team for bigger challenges because India will anyway start as favourites in all the 13 Tests they will be playing at home this season. Not even Kumble is expected to be above preparing designer pitches to suit India’s spin strengths. A more delicate task would be dealing with the declining record of the ageing skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni and his overs-specific team. Team India’s brief flirtation with the top Test ranking may have been born of a statistical quirk. There again, the challenge would lie in winning away tests with the dynamic Test captain Virat Kohli. Kumble’s greatest strength is his ability to communicate.
