Can you remember the bloke you hated most at school? The most reprehensible? The emperor of Pittsville? Surely you couldn’t have forgotten him! The class sneak! The guy who ratted on your most innocent [!] capers and turned them into federal offences. The guy who got you into trouble and who often ensured that you stayed late or wrote impositions. I always used to wonder what the motivation for those creeps used to be. Now I know. It is the royalty on the sale of books! Duncan Fletcher the former coach of England has turned out to be only slightly less diabolical than Robert Mugabe, the dictator of the country that he belongs to by ratting on England’s premier all rounder Andrew Flintoff in his forthcoming book, making him out to be a compulsive drinker who amongst other things came drunk for practice.
Duncan’s claim to fame
Duncan Fletcher was the English coach when England won back the ashes after 17 long years in the summer of 2005. He was rated by some Englishmen at least (not by Geoffrey Boycott definitely) as the greatest thing that happened to English cricket. He cocked a snook at the rattled Ricky Ponting by frequently having substitute fieldsmen for his tired stars and one of the substitutes actually had the gall to run out Ricky Ponting with, horror of horrors, a direct shy at the stumps. Yet my submission is that England won because they played out of their skins and Australia played a little below their best. England had an outstanding pace bowling quartet in Harmison (yes Harmison), Hoggard, Simon Jones and most significantly Andrew Flintoff. Australia dropped chances, had the worst of the umpiring and the rest was history. It is also probably worthwhile to recall the contribution of Troy Cooley the Australian born bowling coach who revived the oriental magic of reverse swing. Well all that changed in 2007 as England lost narrowly (0-5) in Australia. This was followed by an equally disastrous world cup campaign where England played marginally better than a hapless India. Duncan Fletcher who is alleged to be the highest paid English coach lost his job and some might say deservedly so.
An assessment of the coach
Enough has been written about the value or otherwise of the coach to a cricket team. It has been argued that the Australians could win even if Ricky Ponting’s mom coached them! Mind you no one said Shane Warne’s mom! But lets look at more mortal teams like England. The new regime of Fletcher and Vaughan which won back the Ashes certainly infused a lot of aggression in the English cricket team whether it was hitting Justin Langer on the head with a bouncer or striking Ricky Ponting on the cheek with a snorter or throwing the ball furiously at Mathew Hayden and hit him when he was within the crease. Aggression in batting and bowling is the way to beat Australia, not sledging and England got under the collective Aussie skin in 2005. How much of that is attributable to the coach is a matter of conjecture though Duncan Fletcher would like use to believe that he was the architect of this transformation. But what is not up for conjecture is that England definitely lost the Ashes in 2007 by such a wide margin because of Duncan Fletcher’s preference for Ashley Giles who kept Monty Panesar out of the team till the Ashes were almost lost. The reason? Giles batted better and fielded better! Fletcher was a defensive coach who did not have faith in his front line batsman. Hence his preference for Geraint Jones as well, who must be the worst international wicket keeper I have seen. The same flawed thinking is apparent in some of the twenty-twenty specialists like Darren Maddy who are so desperately out of their depth in international cricket and yet are lions in the domestic competition. Duncan Fletcher did not really care for the one day form of the game and it showed in the attitude of the entire English team who came to India to play the Champions trophy simply because they had been sent to play it. They played distractedly with their eyes on the Ashes which they sadly lost 5-0. Nothing can take away Duncan Fletcher’s achievements in being the coach for the Ashes winning English team. But it is only fair to talk of the poor one day record when he was coach, the world cup fiasco and the ashes disaster.
Is it the money?
I am certainly not going to read Duncan Fletcher’s new book because I think it is just not the done thing to bring the former English captain who has given his everything for English cricket, injuries et al and who probably had more to do with winning the Ashes than Duncan Fletcher ever had as an irresponsible drunk. I dare say we live in challenging times and everyone has choices which are often difficult to make. Yet some basic principles cannot be compromised whatever the likely gains. Clearly Duncan Fletcher would not be able to meet his school going grand child (if he has one) in the eye. Imagine having a granddad who is a sneak!
(Ramanujam Sridhar is CEO, brand-comm, and the author of One Land, One Billion Minds).
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