5 Indian coaches and their most famous proteges

#2 John Wright and Virender Sehwag (2000-2005)

John Wright revived Indian cricket from the match-fixing ignominies of 2000

Former New Zealand captain, John Wright, became the first foreign coach of the Indian Cricket Team after the tenure of the previous coach, Kapil Dev, unceremoniously ended in the wake of the match-fixing allegations levelled by Dev’s one-time teammate and Indian fast bowler, Manoj Prabhakar. Later, after a legal tussle, these allegations were found to be false. One place where similar allegations were proven and testified was the spot-fixing saga of 2000 that saw ace Indian cricketers such as Mohammad Azharuddin and Ajay Jadeja getting banned from competitive cricket. The team’s and the nation’s morale was hurt and Indian cricket needed a saviour to bail them out of the dire straits.

It was then that two changes happened at the helm of the Indian cricketing fraternity. Sourav Ganguly was appointed as the captain of the team and John Wright was appointed as the coach. Thereafter, it took only a year for these changes to show their effects, when India defeated Australia 2-1 in three-match Test series in 2001, with one of those victories – at the Eden Gardens, Kolkata – coming after the team was asked to follow-on. Wright’s coaching career began with the cricketing career of one of India’s most famous, flamboyant, and in-your-face cricketers, Virender Sehwag. A century on Test debut against South Africa away from home against an attack comprising of Shaun Pollock and Makhaya Ntini had already exhibited his potency with the bat.

After having ordinary yet impressive first two years in Test cricket, Sehwag came to his own in 2003 and 2004, garnering 522 runs from 5 Tests and 1141 runs from 12 Tests respectively, including the famous 309 against Pakistan in Multan in 200,4 that laid the foundation for India's first ever Test series victory on Pakistani soil. However, Sehwag carved out a niche for himself – at least during his formative years – in the shorter format of the game, as in ODI cricket, the Delhi-born cricketer redefined the art of batsmanship by taking on the bowlers right from ball 1 and turned to reality the once unfathomable strike-rates of more than 100 runs per 100 balls on a consistent basis. In 2002, he scored 1130 runs from 30 ODIs at a strike-rate of 105.