IPL and the imbalance of domestic vs foreign coaching & support staff

IPL 2022: The Chennai Super Kings are up against Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL's inaugural match.(Image: IPL)

The glass is still more empty than full as for domestic coaches in IPL

By Vimal Kumar

Even if the 15th edition of Indian Premier League has added two additional and new teams, yet on the coaching front the Indian representation is still heavily disproportionate. Only three out of ten head coaches are Indians which may be a shade better than earlier when there was hardly any Indian as head coach.

"I would like to see more Indian coaches in the IPL. It is not a true reflection of the Indian resources. I would want to see many Indians being part of the IPL as head coaches," Kings XI Punjab head coach Kumble had lamented in a media interaction during the 2020 IPL. The former India coach had hoped things would get better. "It is a bit of an irony – one Indian as head coach. I think at some point of time there will be a lot more Indian coaches,” said Kumble. Yet, not much has changed since then. Kumble was the only Indian coach when it was an eight-team affair and now with 10, there is an additional Indian coach. Ironically, in the inaugural Indian Premier League (IPL) season in 2008, there were three Indian head coaches in the mix as well!

Of course, there is another way of looking at the whole representation in the IPL as far as Indians are concerned. Former India pacer Zaheer Khan is the Director of Cricket for Mumbai Indians which effectively is no less a position than that of head coach Mahela Jayawardene, who is a former Sri Lanka captain. There is Zubin Bharucha who has been associated with the Rajasthan Royals for over a decade as Development and Derformance director and of course Gautam Gambhir as the ‘face of the coaching staff’ for Lucknow Super Giants as mentor since head coach Andy Flower is keeping a low-profile.

However, if one digs deeper the relatively poor number of Indian support staff in most of the teams is a bit surprising. Inarguably, India is the power house of cricket and dominant in every sphere of the game. The national team has by and large been among the top two teams across formats for nearly a decade, in spite of a global trophy. India has got the biggest pool in terms of coaching resources as there are 38 Ranji teams and yet very few are able to make it to the creme de la crème world of IPL coaching.  Even among the three Indian head coaches (Kumble, Ashish Nehra and Sanjay Bangar), only one has come through the ranks. Kumble and Nehra have had no formal coaching qualifications and neither of them were part of any first-class sides while Bangar started with the Railways in first class cricket and kept moving up the ladder from assistant batting coach of the Indian team to IPL coaching.

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Since its inception, there were always four overseas players in any playing XI. So much so that sometimes teams desperately wanted to play more than four foreigners but they couldn’t as the rule prohibited them. That rule was designed to protect the interests of domestic talent and nurture the local players. And it did serve well because in this edition now teams are just going with less than four overseas players in the players because of better options in home-grown talents at their disposal.  Strangely and sadly, the same logic or quota system was never applied, to protect or nurture the domestic coaches. One of the common arguments in favour of foreign coaches is that they are more exposed to dealing with the franchises and that’s a big tick in the box. And that is one of the reasons why domestic stalwarts like Chandrakant Pandit or K Sanath Kumar have few takers. Both of them have coached multiple state sides with distinction.

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Not only the position of the head coach, the domestic coaches also don’t get too many opportunities as support staff in the most lucrative league in the world. However, the ratio of representation is slightly better on this account vis-a-vis head coaches’ ratio. Traditionally, once the head coach was identified, inevitably 75 per cent support staff would be from overseas as it’s a by-product of that system. Surprisingly, that is not the case now when we have the likes of Kumble, Bangar and Nehra as head coach.  Besides Kumble as an Indian head coach, PBKS has got Julian Wood as Batting Consultant, Damien Wright as Bowling Coach, Jonty Rhodes, Assistant Coach and only Prabhakar Bairgond is an Indian among the support staffs as assistant Fielding Coach. Not only that Adrian Le Roux, Strength and Conditioning Coach and Andrew Leipus (Physio) are also overseas professionals.

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Similarly, Nehra’s Gujarat Titans also has a former England player Vikram Solanki as Director of cricket, Batting coach and mentor is Gary Kirsten and only Indian besides the head coach is Aashish Kapoor who is the Spin bowling coach and scout. Bangar’s team Royal Challengers Bangalore has got some balance with almost half Indians and half overseas in the whole business. Mike Hesson (former head coach of RCB) is Director of Cricket operations and Adam Griffith is the Bowling coach.  The inclusion of Sridharan Sriram (Batting and Spin Bowling Coach), Malolan Rangarajan (Head of scouting and fielding coach), and Basu Shanker, (Strength and conditioning coach) gives RCB a well-balanced look in terms of the mix of domestic and overseas professionals.

The fact that the domestic coaches have to compete with the formidable names who have been excellent performers in international cricket makes their entry to the big league a bit tougher.  However, all is not lost for the journeymen coaches or those who may have been low-profile as a player since their work can turn it in their favour. Someone like a Trevor Bayliss (former head coach of SRH and KKR) can be a role model to emulate for the domestic coaches.

What about the teams with overseas head coach?

Sunrisers Hyderabad has been one of the struggling teams for the last couple of seasons and they are heavily reliant on non-Indians in their coaching department. Former Australian all-rounder Tom Moody is the poster-boy of the franchise as designation keeps changing for the Aussie but his association doesn’t! Then there is another Australian as an Assistant Coach in Simon Katich. The Spin Bowling Coach of the team is Muttiah Muralitharan who has been with the team for nearly a decade now. However, two modern icons of the game Dale Steyn and Brian Lara are making their IPL debut as Pace Bowling and Batting Coach respectively.

Another team from southern part of the country, CSK too is dominated by the overseas professionals. Chennai Super Kings has Stephen Fleming, as Head coach since 2009 and former Australian batsman Michael Hussey is now Batting coach after his retirement. Former India bowling coach Eric Simons is the Bowling consultant while Lakshmipathy Balaji is the Bowling coach and Rajiv Kumar (an old friend of MS Dhoni) is the Fielding coach.

Like SRH and CSK, the Lucknow Super Giants too has trusted more overseas than Indians in their support staff.  Team’s Mentor Gambhir’s old-friend and his former KKR associate Vijay Dahiya is in the team as Assistant coach. Apart from that the Head coach (Andy Flower) has Andy Bichel as Bowling coach, Richard Halsall as Fielding coach and Warren Andrews as Strength and Conditioning Coach.

However, the most successful franchise in the history of the IPL which is Mumbai Indians has also got the balance almost right. If Sachin Tendulkar is with the set-up as an Icon, another former India player Robin Singh is the Batting Coach for more than a decade. Former New Zealand pacer Shane Bond is the Bowling Coach and James Pamment is their Fielding Coach and Paul Chapman, Strength & Conditioning Coach. However, they also have the likes of Kiran More and Parthiv Patel as talent scout. Almost mirroring the MI model of the coaching support staff, KKR too has got the balance almost right. Kolkata Knight Riders has former New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum as Head Coach and David Hussey as Mentor, James Foster as the Fielding Coach and Chris Donaldson as Strength & Conditioning Coach. There are three Indians among the support staff in Abhishek Nayar as Assistant Coach and Omkar Salvi as Assistant Bowling Coach and of course former Indian bowling coach Bharat Arun as the Bowling Coach.

With Ricky Ponting as Head Coach and Shane Watson, Assistant Coach, Delhi Capitals also has another Australian in James Hopes as the Fast-bowling coach. With former India all-rounder Ajit Agarkar’s inclusion as Assistant Coach and continued association with another Mumbaikar and former India player Pravin Amre as Assistant Coach, DC too looks well-balanced in terms of Indian support staff.  And, same can be said about Rajasthan Royals who are known to push for the young domestic players. Off the pitch, the team is being led by former Sri Lanka captain Kumar Sangakkara who is the Director of Cricket. While Trevor Penney is the Assistant coach, Paddy Upton (the former head coach of RR) has made a comeback as Team Catalyst! Former England pacer Steffan Jones is the High-performance fast-bowling coach while former Mumbai Indians bowling mentor Lasith Malinga is their Fast-bowling coach. However, since they also have Zubin Bharucha as Development and performance director for a very long time, it is not entirely surprising to see the Batting coach (Amol Mazumdar) Spin bowling coach (Sairaj Bahutule) and Fielding coach (Dishant Yagnik) being held by Indian coaches.

Overall, the glass is still more empty than full as far domestic coaches’ participation in the biggest T20 league of the world is concerned.