Through all the usual signals about selection, captain and Tendulkar, Greg Chappell conveyed one message to Indian cricket today: He is prepared to take on the entire responsibility of coaching the team and administering its progress.At his first press conference in his first day at the job today, Chappell was asked whether he’d be recruiting staff — a batting or bowling coach. ‘‘Discussions are going on with the board’’, he replied. ‘‘If we need one, I’m happy to have a bowling coach, but it’s not a top priority at the moment. In different times and conditions, we might call upon experts to help us.’’That’s a marked change from the almost collegiate style of management under Chappell’s predecessor John Wright, who believed that a new voice in the dressing room always helped the team instead of the same person repeating the same thing a million times.So you had former Aussie coach Geoff Marsh, a BCCI consultant at that time, speaking to the players about mental toughness, Sandy Gordon gathering them into a huddle that changed their fortunes in the last World Cup and Bruce Reid playing mind games to get Zaheer Khan close to his peak.Indeed, Chappell himself was one of the voices deployed in the recent past. He taught the youngsters the importance of compartmentalising each delivery and backing one’s instincts, which have the power to take care of one’s talent.Now in the hot seat himself, Chappell is probably planning to take that one extra step and have more customised expert help at hand — yet ensuring all the while that there aren’t too many voices talking at the same time.So the great Indian spinners will be invited to advise the spinners for a big home series while a bowling coach will be used for an overseas challenge, as will the services of the batting greats of India. Fielding, an area where Indians still struggle, could also do with some expert help though this will probably come from abroad.This would keep the former greats pleased and, more importantly, silent as well as allow Chappell to get the team every expert input it requires to perform better.It would also do away with the assumption that all Indian cricketers need expert help. There are, for example, some players who might not need the services of a Sandy Gordon purely because they are hungry for the next level. One senior batsman once mentioned that he couldn’t sit down with Gordon again to discuss his cricket anymore because he felt it was too basic for him.Chappell has requested the services of Ian Frazer and Charles Krebs as part of his support staff. Frazer, a former Victoria player, is an expert in the biomechanics of bowling while Krebs is a specialist in kinesiology — the scientific study of man’s movement and the movements of equipment that he might use in exercise, sport or other forms of physical activity.Their presence in the dressing room could well work for the senior pros in the team who might have a new tool to discover the next level their game could achieve. CHAPPELL SPEAK
