What is Buchanan's Contribution?

My yesterdays blog mentioned that an edge of the seat match has not yet been played in IPL2. It seems like the cricket god has heard my prayers and we had an humdinger of a match. And what a match!!!! I must say again. For the first time in the cricket history we had a match which was decided by a Super Over. It is more like a penalty shootout in Soccer, where we have seen in many cases that a team which has been on the mat for the 90 minutes win the match in penalty shootout. We have also seen coaches of weaker teams introduce strategy to defend for the entire duration of the match so that they can drag it to the penalty shootout where it is the battle of nerves. It is true you cannot do that in Cricket. But you never know, so many comparison has been drawn with soccer by coaches who want more visibility and control, a high profile coach who thinks he is the Alex Ferguson of KKR may someday claim he had that strategy in his notebook somewhere.

KKR lost a very close match today and you cannot blame anyone for that. They might feel that they handed the match back to Rajasthan Royals after nearly shutting them out of the match. If you cannot score 7 runs from the last over of a 17 year old boy who never played any first class match then you do not deserve to win. But thes ethings happen and they have to put it behind them and look for the positives from this match. The return to form of Ganguly is definitely one of them, though he will probably be blamed for not finishing off the match. In hindsight you would think there was not reason for going for hard hits every ball. Agarkar is no mug with the bat, and they should have appproached it in a more traditional fashion. 7 runs in 6 balls is like a traget in (Traditional!!!!) One day cricket and probably should have been approached that way.

John Buchanan is the coach who tried to explain that 20/20 is a vastly different form of cricket and needs to approached in a differnt fashion. Only he of all people have found that 4 Captains /Multiple Advisers is the way to go. So lets do an interim assessment to see what the Director of Coaches has contributed.
1. 4 captain theory - Has been shelved and Brendon McCullum is the sole captain of the team.
2. Need a young captain who can be ahead of the game - Doesnot seem to be working. Brendon probably is so busy trying to stay ahead of the game, that he has lost his train of thoughts about his batting.
3. Flexibility ((beyond imagination ??) is the Key - We have heard this in 50 over game too. But flexibility for the sake of flexibility, gambling for the sake of experimentation doesn't work. Today Laxmi Ratan Sukla was sent in No. 3 and he didn't know whether his role was to stay or to hit out. In previous matches Akash Chopra was sent in at No.5 where the preassure is high, the number of balls left is limited and you need natural storke makers. Today Sanjay Bangar was sent in at No.6. You find anyone in India who will say Akash and Sanjay are stroke players and I will show you that pigs can fly. Who is deciding the batting order you want to ask. does Mccullum has any control over it, is he happy, does he know the capability of the lesser known players? I read somewhere Buchanan saying that Brad Hodge is the best 20/20 batsman he has ever seen. I want to ask, Mr Buchana do you ever travel out of Australia to watch 20/20 or do you think that the world ends at Australia?

KKR has an army of experts to assist their Director of Coaches Mr. John Buchanan. It seems that their advices are not working atleast till date. Please let us know:
1. Who decided in the previous matches that Henrique Mojes is a better player than Mushrafe Morthaza?
2. Today Ajantha Mendis was given a spot, but who decided that he should bowl at the super over. Any one who watches cricket will say that it is easier to hit spinner out of the ground than it is to a pacer. I agree Ishant is not the best 20/20 bowler, but still he should have been given to bowl and asked to go for the black hole. Yousuf Pathan made a mincemeat of Ajantha and won the match for Rajasthan easily.


Mr. Buchanan you probably need to bring up some fresh theories, and sell them to Shahrukh and probably should start planning for your employment for 2010. As far as 2009 goes, you and your teams future doesn't seem to be too rosy.