Team India’s dream of winning the World Cup got shattered on Wednesday (July 10) after a heartbreaking 18-run defeat at the hands of New Zealand in the first semi-final at Old Trafford.
After India's ouster, many fans and critics questioned the team management's approach in crunch situations. India's coaching staff, led by Ravi Shastri, has been given a 45-day extension after their contract ended with the World Cup. However, the position of assistant coach Sanjay Bangar is under the scanner as certain sections within the BCCI believes that he should have done a better job.
The general belief is that the bowling unit under coach Bharat Arun did remarkably well in the past 18 months while the team's fielding under R Sridhar has also improved considerably. But the same can’t be said about the batting department as India failed to fix its middle order woes which eventually cost the semi-final.
In an exclusive interview with IANS, a senior BCCI official said that the constant chopping and changing in the middle-order was something that had hurt the Indian team not just in the World Cup, but over the last couple of seasons.
"It was a constant struggle. While we are all supportive of the players and they had a good tournament with the exception of this bad day in office (in the semi-final against New Zealand), the support staff's processes and decision-making will surely be scrutinised thoroughly prior to any decision being taken about their future,” the official said.
"Also, it was pretty ordinary stuff when you had Bangar stating to the Indian media contingent that every player was available for selection when Shankar was ruled out early next morning on account of an injury sustained earlier on tour. Things have been somewhat disorganised when it comes to the assessment of performances of the support staff being made by people who were keen on having select individuals continue in their positions.
"The present administration set up including the senior employees were all at sea with cricketing decisions and at the same time were ignoring the Cricket Advisory Committee (CAC) - comprising of Sachin Tendulkar, Sourav Ganguly and V.V.S. Laxman - completely and that's a shame," he further added.
In fact, sources in the know of developments also told IANS that some of the batsmen have had to seek advice from the former batting stars during the tough phase.
"Without taking names, it is well documented that a couple of current team members have spoken about how they approached some of the former India batsmen to help them erase flaws in their batting when they were having issues scoring runs," the source said.
Interestingly, team manager Sunil Subramaniam's conduct during the World Cup has also left some of the board officials shocked.
"Anyone who has interacted with the team manager has been left utterly disappointed with his conduct and approach. Obtaining tickets and passes for his friends seemed to be his primary concern and the positioning of his hat seemed to be the secondary one," the official said.
A source in the know of developments further added that the manager has had issues in the past as well and that his behaviour had put the board in trouble during the tour of Australia at the start of the season.
"During the Perth Test, there was an oral communication from the catering unit to Cricket Australia operations manager Adam Fraser about the manager making some staff uncomfortable with his behaviour. This isn't the end of the story. After the team's historic series win Down Under, there were certain orders made for celebration and the stuff that remained unused went with the manager for personal consumption," the source informed.
While the Supreme Court-appointed Committee of Administrators (CoA) running BCCI has handed the support staff 45 more days to coach the Indian cricketers, some of the members could be asked some serious questions when the next appointment is undertaken by the board.
(With IANS inputs)
