The silent Ford takes charge

Ford will leave for England on Sunday and is expected to fly back again next week when the team gets busy in Bangalore preparing for the tour of Ireland and England.

It is only ironical that Ford’s second-ever national assignment happens to be India and his first tour will be against a team that he’s first coached, from 1999 to 2001.

An official said that the board president Sharad Pawar himself has given the go-ahead to appoint the 46-year-old Ford and the working committee will just make a formal announcement later in New Delhi.

When treasurer N Srinivasan announced Ford’s name to the media, he was accompanied by Sunil Gavaskar, S Venkatraghavan and Ravi Shastri. The trio however refused to comment.

Ford, sources said, will be asked to try and spend some time with the team members if possible in the coming week so that they get to know each other before the touring begins.

Ford’s presentation lasted 40 minutes, after Emburey had put forward his case for 25 minutes. The BCCI members found Ford’s presentation “more authentic and to the point”.

When Emburey was asked today morning what were his chances of becoming the next Indian cricket coach, his reply was an emphatic ‘50-50’. “‘There’s Graham Ford too, so that suggests we both have an equal chance,” Emburey had said.

Graham Ford, on his part, had refused to speak. True to what is being perceived in India about this man, he remained silent throughout as the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s official vehicle drove the two men from the Chennai airport to the hotel.

Ford and Emburey flew straight from London to Chennai together and were booked in the same hotel—Taj Conemara—for the day. Both aspirants arrived at the Park Sheraton Hotel in the evening at 7.45 p.m.—the venue for the all-important meeting—dressed in their respective County jackets, along with their laptops, and were shown their way past a horde of mediapersons and photographers.

The BCCI’s seven-member committee that included president Sharad Pawar, treasurer N Srinivasan and former cricketers Ravi Shastri and Srinivas Venkatraghavan had taken their seats inside the meeting room precisely by 8 p.m.

However, the meeting couldn’t get underway until 8.30 p.m as chairman of BCCI’s technical committee and former batsman Sunil Gavaskar arrived half an hour late after his flight from Goa got delayed.

After arriving in India, Ford had requested the BCCI officials that he be allowed to switch off his mobile phone in order to stay away from the prying eyes of the media. Meanwhile, Emburey – it was learnt later—kept complaining to the board officials about how his phone had kept ringing throughout the day.

The two visitors remained under continuous intense media scrutiny throughout the day, but refused to say anything. At best, when pursued, Ford maintained: “Let me first finish what I’ve come here for.”

When the meeting finally began, it was Emburey who went in first to meet the committee members and submit his presentation, that went on for close to an hour. After the former England off-spinner finished his part, Ford was called in for a similar routine after a 15-minute break.

The meeting, it is now learnt, was scheduled for late in the evening because of Pawar’s hectic schedule and Gavaskar’s evening flight to the city.

The man, the coach

• Appointed as Proteas coach in 1999 — ahead of other “bigger” names — Ford soon silenced his critics, leading the side to 62 % wins in one day games and improving their Test ranking.

• With 52 wins from 83 matches, Ford’s record — in ODIs since the 1999 World Cup — is second only to former Australian coach, John Buchanan.

• A former provincial tennis champion, he also donned provincial colours in football and is a qualified rugby union referee to go with his cricketing credentials. His record as a player — an eight-year first-class career in the Natal B team during the 1980s — might be less impressive, but as a coach he moved steadily through the ranks, from the University of Natal team, through the Natal Colts side to become senior Natal coach in 1992.

• Working with the likes of Shaun Pollock, Lance Klusener, Jonty Rhodes and Dale Benkenstein, Ford led this side to numerous triumphs and eventually got the nod as national coach, shortly after South Africa’s heart breaking exit from that World Cup in England.

• Despite his record Ford became the victim of internal politics and the Hansie Cronje scandal and got the axe in 2001. According to Ford, who has been director of cricket at Kent since 2004, he has been “overwhelmed” by all the attention from the sub-continent.