Finally, John Wright has come out and said what has long been said on his behalf: That the national coach needs a vote on selection matters, which only the five selectors currently have.In an interview to Wisden Asia magazine, Wright said he was pained that he did not have a voting right when he was the coach although he attended the selection committee meetings. Asked whether it bothered him, he replied: ‘‘At times, yes. If you attend the meeting and give your views, it does not make sense that you sign a piece of paper but don’t have a vote.‘‘Players think that you are at the meeting and you are part of those decisions. So if I don’t have a vote, may be I would rather not go to the meeting.’’Wright has been severely critical of the selection system, and has in the past advocated the need to make it professional and non-regional. He has often spoken in private of selectors’ incompetence, and of how one particular selector would always parrot what a senior selector would say.He repeats those views in this interview. ‘‘You can have the best coaching system and your best coaches, but if you don’t get your selections right you are making it very difficult for yourselves’’, he’s quoted as saying.The system of picking national selectors on a zonal basis may, he feels, have lived out its duration. ‘‘I feel the system of picking your national system panel may have done its course, and I would urge the BCCI to study the situation. I have a personal opinion that it should be a professional position, the way it is in a number of countries.’’He also stressed that a selector should have a tenure, quite like a coach, and should be removed if he failed in delivering the goods. ‘‘It’s a performance role. If people think you are doing a bad job as a coach, you will have the door shut on you. If you are picking bad teams, the same will happen.’’THE WRIGHT MANOn whether he thought it was right time for a change in captaincy, John Wright said: ‘‘To me it’s always been very simple. I come from a point a view that you pick your best team and then you pick the captain. Your captain has to fit into your best team, whatever that is.’’ Rahul Dravid, he said, was ready to captain the side. ‘‘Certainly Rahul is ready for that role. I hope he gets the opportunity, whenever it is, because he will be very good. Then he added: Sourav is the captain and I think he will carry on. You know he’s had a rough time lately, but at the end of the day, he’s delivered results.’’
