Is Gary Kirsten The World’s Best Coach?
The world’s top teams always plan ahead of their schedule and that is exactly what the South African team is doing, they are not just planning for the upcoming Cricket World Cup, but are also looking beyond the World Tournament.
Since the current South African coach Corrie van Zyl has already announced that he will be stepping down as coach after the 2011 Cricket World Cup, the Proteas are looking for their former comrade Gary Kirsten to coach the national
squad. Nevertheless, South Africa have almost always had the best guy coaching their side.
It was none other than the late Bob Woolmer, who introduced the concept of hi-tech coaching in cricket. He was also regarded as the best coach in the world by many. In 1994 he was assigned coaching of the South African cricket
team, ironically it was under his mentorship that http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757 won most of their Test matches and One-Day Internationals in the world. During Bob Woolmer’s era, South Africa dominated the world of cricket; however, they failed to clinch the World Cup twice,
even though they reached the quarterfinals in 1996 and semi-finals in 1999.
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Gary-Kirsten-c58527 rose to prominence under the supervision of Bob Woolmer, and the Proteas are certain that Gary will achieve what Bob could not. It needs to be remembered that Gary Kirsten was a phenomenal left-handed opening batsman,
who played for South Arica from 1993 till 2004, working with as well as under the best cricketing minds around.
After Gary retired from International Cricket as a player, India was the first country to acquire his services as Coach of their national team. Initially Kirsten was hesitant as he was not sure if he would have the support of senior
players in the Indian side, but later on he accepted the offer in 2008 on a two year contract offered by the Board of Control for Cricket in India.
Coincidentally, the very first team that he had to coach against was none other than his home side, where India managed to draw the series one each. Within two years of his stint, Kirsten has managed to revamp the Indian side taking
them to the top of the rankings. His prime achievements include beating http://www.senore.com/Cricket/New-Zealand-c754 after almost forty years.
There is no doubt that Kirsten has brought considerable improvement in the batting and fielding of the Indian side. The Indians were always good at batting, but Gary has made them better. Similarly, just like http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755, the Indians
were sluggish fielders but that is history now owing to the efforts put in by Kirsten, who has convinced the players to dive and grab the ball. To say the least, fielding standards of the Indian side have risen higher than the BCCI had expected.
Gary Kirsten has been particularly keen in letting young guys make their place in the team and it is said about him that he always encourages the new faces that have just made it to the national squad.
The possibility of Proteas having Kirsten as their coach depends entirely on the BCCI. For that to happen, the BCCI will have to terminate Gary’s contract after the 2011 Cricket World Cup. However, it has been reported that most
of the Indian players want Kirsten to remain coach even after the World Cup. It is even being speculated that the Indian Skipper http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Mahendra-Singh-Dhoni-c73820 is so heavily influenced by Kirsten’s style of coaching that he is staunchly supporting the renewal of Kirsten’s
contract and might even pressurize the BCCI to do so.
No matter what happens after the 2011 Cricket World Cup, one thing is for sure: Gary Kirsten has taken the Indian team to a level higher than anyone had expected, and if things go according to Kirsten’s plan, India just might lift
their second ever World Cup next Year.
Tags: