Everyone's favorite topic is about the Indian senior trio - VVS Laxman, Rahul Dravid and Sachin Tendulkar. The next favorite topic is MS Dhoni's captaincy, followed by Sehwag, Gambhir and the bowlers. But no one seems to be pointing a finger at the coaching staff behind the team, namely Duncan Fletcher and Eric Simmons. I have been repeatedly trying to talk about it, but seems like no one else wants to pull up Fletcher and blame him. A coach can have a major influence on the environment within the team, and a coach can certainly influence the way the team plays.
Fletcher's last tour as coach to Australia before this horror series (that concluded recently) was with England for the Ashes in 2006-07. And he came back whitewashed. He then has been whitewashed two more times after that, with India whitewashed by England and by Australia now. In between under his coaching, India have failed to win comprehensively against a weak West Indies team both in West Indies and at home. Sample this against India's previous coach Kirsten, under whom recently India fought back hard and drew a series in South Africa. Fletcher enters the Indian setup, and everything goes rapidly downhill to the point where we are lost for answers and the problems keep compounding.
Regarding Eric Simmons, under him Indian bowling has not shown any signs of improvement. We continue to stray in line and length, we either bowl too short or too full, etc. For long, bowling has been India's perennial problem (the batting has surged forward in problems recently) but I have a feeling that Eric Simmons is a waste of time having as a bowling coach. We need a more assertive bowling coach who can impose himself onto the bowlers better and extract better work out of them.
In my opinion, both Fletcher and Simmons should go as a result of these two disastrous whitewashes and India must find a reliable coach and bowling coach immediately. Some suggestions would be having Shaun Pollock as the bowling coach, and Tom Moody (or) Stephen Fleming as the head coach.
