5 reasons why Anil Kumble must be retained as India coach

Anil Kumble has been immensely successful as the coach of the Indian team

In a move that invites both commendation and speculation, the BCCI has invited fresh applications for the post of the head coach of India’s senior men’s cricket team.

Commendation for the fact that the board has decided to conduct fresh elections and give naysayers a reason to stay shut, even if is the incumbent Anil Kumble who is re-elected.

Speculation because the deadline for application submission is merely a week from now – May 31, 2017 – whereas the last time when such a process of ‘fair and square’ elections was initiated, the board had released the notification to that effect on May 22, 2016, and the deadline for submissions was June 10 – a full fortnight plus five more days.

However, whether the performances of the Indian team since Kumble took over warrant a re-election or not, and whether the 150% pay hike suggested by the country’s highest wicket-taker across Tests and ODIs had anything to do with this development is a question to be asked.

Keeping all such theories aside and focussing purely on performances of the team and the coach, here are five reasons why Kumble must go on as the India coach, at least until the 2019 World Cup.


#5 Good run on the road

India have lost only one of the 13 Tests that they have played under Kumble

Since Kumble’s ascendance to the post, India have only lost 1 Test out of the 17 that they have played. That 13 of these were played at home cannot be used against the coach’s credentials for the manner in which India competed and recovered from precarious situations in Tests against England and Australia.

India have regained the World No. 1 ranking in Tests – in October 2016 – and have held on to it for more than six months. Their captain, Virat Kohli, and one of the lynchpins of their batting lineup, Cheteshwar Pujara have racked up runs in hoards.

Pujara, in particular, scored 1605 runs in the 2016-17 first-class season, the most by any Indian ever in a season, at an astounding average of 89.16 with 6 centuries. His captain now has the joint second most number of hundreds by and India Test captain (9) – ties with Mohammad Azharuddin – only behind Sunil Gavaskar’s 11 tons.

Ravichandran Ashwin picked up 82 wickets this season at 25.28 from 13 Test matches and became the fastest man to reach 250 Test wickets. While all of these are individual performances, the common rope binding all of these is Kumble’s tutelage.

India have done as well as they ever have in any season since Kumble took over, and tinkering with a settled team could be disruptive, as far as the team’s success rate is concerned.

#4 Breaking the continuity

India have been the number one-ranked Test side since October 2016

That a team has stayed World No. 1 in Tests for more than six months speaks in abundance about the way its players have gotten into a rhythm and have stood united even in the face of adversities.

While there haven’t been an adversity of the scale that their Australian counterparts are facing these days, to perform and beat two of the best Test sides in world cricket and dominate three others has been an achievement not just for the players but also of the team as a whole.

The 15-man squad for most of the 13 Tests played this season has remained the same, and in case of an injury to any of the players, the replacements required from outside the closed knit of have been few.

Removing Kumble and getting someone new for the role may not only break the continuity that has been associated with the team but would also break the flow with which the team has been playing games and gelling well with one another.

Fiddling with a winning combination isn’t the greatest of ideas, and given the way the team has been winning, both at home and away, Kumble must easily be re-elected.

#3 Emergence of key players

Jayant Yadav scored his maiden Test hundred this season

While debuts are common to every coach’s tenure, the ability to help a player – whether a rookie or a veteran – realize his full potential is the characteristic of a good mentor. Wasim Akram, rather famously, had described Umesh Yadav’s bowling during the limited-overs series in Australia in January 2016 as ‘unbelievable.’

He might want to use the same adjective again for the now 29-year-old, although in a different capacity. 30 wickets this season, over the space of 13 Test matches might not be a fascinating number, but if you take that from a bowler who could offer nothing else but the pace in his formative years (2011-2015), you’d realize that Yadav has come a long way.

What Ravindra Jadeja did with the ball since his comeback during the 2015 Tests against South Africa is well known to everybody. What he did with the bat this season – six scores of fifty or above, three of them being unbeaten innings including his highest Test score of 90 – was definitely worth noticing.

Ashwin’s astronomic rise as an all-rounder has been much appreciated, but Jadeja’s development as a useful lower-order batsman has been one of the highlights of Kumble’s tenure. Arguably the best spin-bowling pair in world cricket now has credentials with the bat as well.

Moreover, the emergence of spinners like Jayant Yadav – who also has a Test century to his name – and Kuldeep Yadav have proven that the graduation from the junior level has been phenomenal and that the efforts of Kumble’s former India teammate, Rahul Dravid, must be appreciated.

#2 Is it the right time?

The Champions Trophy should be used to gauge the strength of the team and prepare for the 2019 WC

If the aforementioned reasons are negated and one looks only from the team's perspective, the timing might not be right for a new coach to be named. The reason is that the Champions Trophy should ideally work as the tournament to build a team for the 2019 World Cup.

The tournament would not only test a player’s big-match credentials but would also bring to the fore the ability to handle the pressure of an ICC tournament. The results emanating out of the tournament would give a fair indication as to who India’s bets are.

Hence, a change at the helm now would not only hamper the player-coach relationship that might have been established but would also disturb the strategies that might have been put in place to set targets for the next two years.

All in all, a new head coach may dilute the consistent efforts being put in by the team and Kumble over the past 10 months or so, through which they have been reaping rewards.

#1 In line with Virat Kohli’s aggressive mindset

The Kohli-Kumble partnership has done wonders for India

Kumble was hailed as a bowler who kept coming at the batsman over and over again by Matthew Hayden. The same can be said of Virat Kohli when it comes to captaincy, the first glimpse of which was seen during the Delhi Test against South Africa wherein despite a staunch resistance from three of South Africa’s best batsmen, Kohli kept attacking them with Ashwin and Jadeja.

The patience paid off and one wicket opened the floodgates for the Proteas. That has rubbed off on his teammates and with the arrival of Kumble, the Kohli-Kumble partnership has become ‘the right thing’ for the team.

The five batsmen theory ushered in by the captain has been supported by the coach and India have benefitted from it not just in terms of having the extra bowler in the side but also because two of five bowlers – Jadeja and Ashwin – have developed themselves into proper Test-match all-rounders.

The pressure of additional responsibility on the top five has also been shared well, as the success rates of Pujara and Kohli indicate. KL Rahul has been a revelation for the team in all three formats over the past 12 months or so.

Evidently, the captain-coach combo, quintessential for any team’s success in any form of international cricket has been successful for India and hence Kumble must be allowed to work his magic alongside Kohli.

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Edited by Staff Editor