Five points will decide India coach

What Ford, Emburey will face: 3 former captains, 5 key selection criteria

Tomorrow morning, South African Graham Ford and Englishman John Emburey will touch down in Chennai for what could be one of the most important interviews of their career — for the job of Team India coach.

And when they finally walk in for the face-off around 8.30 pm at the Taj Coromandel hotel here, they will come across seven members of the BCCI’s selection panel, including three former India captains, and five key assessment criteria.

The players’ choice is current Kent cricket director Ford; Sunil Gavaskar, a powerful voice in the panel, is pushing for Middlesex’s Emburey; but, according to BCCI sources, it’s those five benchmarks that will finally clinch the issue.

• Success rate as coach

• Feedback from past and current employers

• Reference from players coached by the two

• Team India’s preference

• Presentation and discussions

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With feedback and references not really a problem for the two, the selection may finally boil down to past records, and the crucial backing of Team India. And here’s where Ford, with barely a day to go, seems to have a clear edge.

Certainly so, if their coaching credentials are considered.

Ford has been remarkably successful as South Africa’s coach from 1999 to 2001, winning nine Test series out of 11, though the two his team lost were against Australia – India will be Down Under in December.

The 46-year-old has also been successfully associated with South Africa’s domestic side Natal and their university team before moving to English county, Kent. He is now cricket director in Kent, the county that has fielded Indian skipper Rahul Dravid twice.

However, there are a few dark spots in Ford’s CV— there were allegations of racial abuse, which were never confirmed, and of course, he was Bob Woolmer’s deputy around the time the match-fixing menace had begun to grip the team.

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Emburey, meanwhile, has a very ordinary record as coach — he has never coached an international side full-time, he was removed from Northants and then gently pushed up from coach to cricket director at Middlesex.

But then, the Englishman is a 64-Test veteran, while Ford has played around seven first-class matches. Besides, Emburey is expected to cash in on the goodwill he enjoys among former cricketers who have played with him — Middlesex have called him a team man who understands and helps cricketers.

Anyway, BCCI is keen to clinch the issue tomorrow itself—they are already late, the team leaves for Ireland in a couple of weeks.

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