Even in defeat, salute coach John Wright

Today as we ponder over a home series loss to Pakistan, we should take a moment to thank the man who is shortly leaving us. In fact I feel p...

Today as we ponder over a home series loss to Pakistan, we should take a moment to thank the man who is shortly leaving us. In fact I feel proud today to say that John Wright and I have been India’s longest serving coaches and we chose our send-off date — though we both ended on a losing note.

But John has played a greater role in taking the Indian cricket team forward. In fact I would credit 90 per cent of the progress made by the squad to John Wright.

But I do have one issue with him: why couldn’t he wait till the end of the series to make an announcement on his future? I know what goes through your mind when you know before hand that you are leaving the job, having been in a similar position during the 1995-96 season (my last as cricket manager). It’s difficult to plan and think with a clear mind.

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You slowly lose interest and it also does confuse players. Also, unlike me, John did not have an understudy ready (I had Sandeep Patil), so it leaves the team confused.

As I mentioned, my last match also ended in defeat (the 1996 World Cup semi-final against Sri Lanka) — one as disappointing as today’s.

Unlike the Australians who do not focus on individuals but only on results, India will always have a problem. The players today are much more professional than when I was coach but they still run on emotions. ‘‘This man will not be around after this’’, that’s a thought that must have been running through the players’ minds today.

What is John’s legacy? He deserves all the credit for forming a combination by sticking to the seniors and bringing in youngsters. But his low-profile attitude also went against him, because with him on the verge of quitting he became even less visible as we could see from the Ahmedabad mess. Just why was there no message sent when the over-rate was poor is still a mystery.

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This though is the time to re-build, agreed we have lost, but we lost to a better team. A team with a performing captain in Inzy and a more confident outfit.

Today I know there will be calls for massive changes, but where are the replacements. If you find some, please let me know too.