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Of Gavaskar, Buchanan and buy-one-get-five schemes

by Bored Member

Sunil Gavaskar has just stepped on another Australian toe and the hornets of the stirred nest are about to swarm him.

Apparently, he has a problem with Kolkata Knight Riders’ jumbo support staff, which threatens to outnumber the players. He said Shah Rukh Khan was being milked but the actor subsequently clarified he was no milch cow.

Gavaskar probably had an issue with the swarm of foreigners infesting the support staff bench across the IPL spectrum. The simple question is do the franchisees realize that they are actually being swindled by glib-talking foreigners?

Why is it so that when you rope in a foreigner as a coach, you need to find engagement for his pals as well? For a five-week romp, do you really need that many people around? And that too when you are dealing mostly with international stars and young aspirants for whom gym is the temple and fitness a way of living?

Buchanan had already added one of his five sons in the KKR camp and the remaining four need not lose hopes.

Make no mistake, coach's is the most exaggerated role in world cricket. In a lowly side, he probably does have a role to play. But as Shane Warne would tell you, the only coach a quality team needs is the one that takes the players from hotel to the ground and back.

7 comments:

straight point said...

but who said KKR is good team... ;-))

starting from the not-a-milch-cow to the i-am-einstein-of-cricket...to the icon player they have everything that can go wrong with them...it good that they have got rid of shoaib otherwise there would have been perfect 'char chaand' on KKR...

jokes apart...franchisee with little knowledge of cricket are prone to the rhetoric jargons of these 'intellectuals' and hence are ready to be milked cows...

ask mallya...he was made to believe that 'test' players can play at any level...but what separates mallaya from srk that he had guts to say i made mistake and acted accordingly...while srk has only arrogance to shield away from it...

Gaurav Sethi said...

to add to to the comedy of errors, jb n dada should do an item number together.

he's one greasy mgt guru this jb

Q said...

The apt song for the item number would be "Golmaal hai bhai golmaal hai"!

On a more serious note, so what is the KKR support staff anyway? How can anyone claim that SRK and Jai Mehta are being milked?

KKR's Support Staff:

1. John Buchanan - Director, Cricket Opetations.
2. Joy Bhattacharya - Team Director
3. Andrew Leipus - Physio
4. Adrian Le Roux - Team Trainer
5. Matthew Mott - Assistant Head Coach
6. Micheal Buchanan - Strength Trainer

And why suggest they are Buchanan's cronies? Any head of anything would want to work with trusted lieutenants.

If NC were to become CEO, its pretty damn obvious that he would hire SP, myself, Som, and other bored members. Its how all companies and teams function.

So who else of Buchanan's cronies are there?

And take a look at Shane Warne's support staff for the Rajasthan Royals:

1. Darren Berry - Director of Coaching
2. Jeremy Snape - Performance Coach
3. John Gloster - Physio
4. Ron Castorina - Team Manager
5. Sushil Tulaskar - Assistan Team Manager
6. Derek Sedgmen - Head of Massage (What the fuck!?)
7. Monty Desai - Coach, Development Squad
8. Satish Samant - Coach, Development Squad
9. Saurabh Walker - Performance Analyst
10. Reuben Niekerk - Manager, Security
11. Zaheer Ahmed - Manager, baggage
12. Pankaj Aditya - Assistant Masseur

Now if my maths is correct that is twice as many as KKR have.

This is the same Shane Warne who said "a coach is bullshit!".

Well he didn't say that but something like that.

So should we assume that Warne is milking Emerging Media and Shilpa Shetty?

Well I'm sure he'd love to milk Shetty but surely that is not going to happen. She's getting married to that Kundra dude!

So guys, Gavasker needs to chill the fuck out.

Som said...

Q, I have issues with support staff not just in KKR but the entire IPL spectrum, as I mentioned in the post. KKR happened to be the mere provocation. In Rajasthan Royals too, Warne played a hand in recruiting Snape and its a rash that is all over IPL.

Q said...

But Som, all international teams have support staff just as big. the IPL teams are no less than the international ones. Some maybe even better. So why attack only the IPL? Only Buchanan?

Why not talk about the meaningless of the support staff in cricket overall?

If u take a look at the Aussie state sides, they have the largest support staff. The fact that Australia has dominated for so long may have something to do with that.

Just cos they stay out of the media limelight does not mean they r not there.

Som said...

Q, my sole objection is to the jumbo staff attached with all IPL teams, including KKR. I made the point earlier also that maybe, maybe, you need more people to manage 40-odd players of a national pool who would be playing all three formats of the game throughout the year. But IPL being a six-week romp, I just fail to see any logic in it. KKR is the mere provocation I would say. And Australia has more or less the same support staff sans Buchanan but not the same standard which suggests their success had nothing to do with the support staff.

Q said...

I was talking about the Australian state sides Som - they've got huge staffs.

Coming to ur point regarding the IPL being a 6 week romp.

Thats true but each franchise has a pool of about 40-50 players.. even though the official number for the squad is 20 but each franchise has its pool of developing cricketers.. Kings XI did a round of practice games some time last year.. KKR and Rajasthan have development squads.. plus the teams in the IPL play 14 matches each, which is more than any team plays in any competition..

Plus the intensity levels are high.

Hence, I would feel they require more support staff to keep the players fit, energetic, mentally stable, strong, and all that than international teams do..

Just a matter of perception in my view.

I would assume that SRK, Priety, Mallya, Ambani, etc are in it for the long haul, hence they would want to groom cricketers for the future of their franchises.. these coaches are doing that too..

KKR has sent half its team to South africa for practice matches.. u need 4-5 people to take care of the cricketers fitness and so on, especially in a foreing land where many of them are touring for the first time.

Now grooming of the development squad cannot happen in SA cos only the full squad members are touring but had the IPL continued in India, like it did last year, these coaches would have had their work cut out!